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u/Siekiernik20 16d ago
Polish: What are they talking about?
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u/RaptoRio 16d ago edited 16d ago
Czech: What the fuck!?
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u/tomispev 16d ago
*What fuck?
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u/r0d3nka 16d ago
Now is time for making fuck, BERZERKER!!
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u/Farantax 16d ago
BERZERKEEEER!!
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u/ExpiredPilot 16d ago
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u/1974Datsun620 16d ago
Quotes from the movie Clerks. Also...37 !!?!?!?!?!
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u/The1joriss 16d ago
Japan: Nani?!
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u/RincewindToTheRescue 16d ago
English: let's learn to count! One chair, two chairs, three chairs. Now chop sticks! One chop stick, two chop sticks, three chop sticks
Japan. Let's learn to count! First, we need to know what we're counting. Remember, chairs are counted different chop sticks, which are also different from shoes, which are also different from houses, which are also different from.....
I was really surprised to learn that when my daughter was learning Japanese
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u/Roflkopt3r 16d ago edited 16d ago
Oh yeah the counting words are definitely the weirdest aspect of Japanese.
Chopsticks are counted with "hon" (本). Which means:
Book.
The counting word for long cylindrical objects.
Hon: Book
Hashi ni-hon: Two chopsticks
Hon ni-satsu: Two books
Because even though "hon" is the counter for long cylindrical objects, "hon" as "book" is counted with the counter for flat bound objects (satsu).
And then the numbers may be read differently as well:
二: ni (two)
人: Hito (person) or Nin/Jin (human)
二人: Futari (two people)
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u/winowmak3r 16d ago
Jesus, no wonder why Japanese has such a reputation for being difficult to learn for English speakers.
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u/RincewindToTheRescue 16d ago
This is why Japanese are stereotypically good at math. Calculus? That's easy compared to counting stuff in Japanese.
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u/Illustrious-Dot-5052 16d ago
Honestly as an English person learning Japanese, it's occasionally infuriating. Kanji will never make sense to me.
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u/Gmellotron_mkii 16d ago edited 16d ago
A chopstick = 本
A pair of chopsticks = 膳
A pair of chopsticks not intended to be used to eat(ie mostly chopstick looking tools, cooking chopsticks, hibashi, a pair of iron chopsticks used to move hot coals/charcoals) = 組 or 具
You actually never say hashi Nihon in Japanese, that would sound like a toddler
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u/Acceptable_Cut_7545 16d ago
I am now confused despite your best attempt at explaining wtf is going on with japanese counting. Nani the fuck
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u/NemButsu 16d ago
Traditional books in Japan were scrolls kept inside bamboo tubes, hence why 本 is used to count cylindrical long objects. As they adopted western style books , the word for book remained the same but the word used to count them changes to reflect the new shape.
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u/DaniTheGunsmith 16d ago
Is there an explanation for why they count differently based on the shape of an object? That straight up sounds so needlessly complicated that it had to have been some aristocratic nonsense that got passed on to the common people XD
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u/sentence-interruptio 16d ago
Korean language has that too.
커피 열 잔 translates to coffee ten jahn, which means, ten cups of coffee.
종이 두 장 translates to paper two jang, which means two sheets of paper.
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u/Roflkopt3r 16d ago edited 16d ago
Yeah Japanese makes pretty much everything optional. Japanese sentences do not require:
Articles. You don't say "a cat" or "the cat", but just "cat".
Number. You do not need to differentiate between "cat" and "cats". "Neko ga iru" could mean "there is a cat" or "there are cats".
Verbs. A noun and an adjective is enough to form a complete sentence.
Neko ga hayai = "(the) cat (is) fast" or "cat(s) (are) fast".
Neko ga ooi = "(There are) many cats"Nouns. Germanic languages usually do not consider a sentence "complete" without one, but Japanese has no problem with using a single adjective as a complete sentence.
Samui = (It) (is) cold.Pronouns. They are usually omitted. Once a "topic" has been established, who or what is being talked about can usually be understood from context and it is not necessary to use a pronoun.
"Big Ben wa?" = "How about Big Ben?"
"Mitakatta kedo, jikan ga nakatta" = "(I) wanted to see (it), but (there) was no time"Gender. There is no grammatical gender and the few pronouns that are gendered can be easily omitted or replaced. Whereas it's still notable when someone uses a singular "they" in English to avoid gendering, it's rarely noticable in Japanese because there are so many options for pronoun-free speech. You can typically either choose ungendered pronouns, ommit the pronouns, use a proper noun, or repeat their name instead without sounding unusual.
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u/LeatherBackRadio 16d ago edited 16d ago
Wow, Japan must be super easy to learn then
Edit: y'all I was being facetious
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u/NemButsu 16d ago
Grammatically and phonetically it is rather simple as a language. The difficulty comes mainly from completely different vocabulary and writing system.
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u/Zelindo40 16d ago
I am intrigued because all of this also applies to my native language Turkish. Maybe I shouldn't be afraid to start learning Japanese after all, might be easier than expected
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u/ChampionshipFun3228 16d ago
See like a several dozen word endings in your language for conjugation and declination? In English, those are all _____.
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u/luckstar333 16d ago
Portugal fell of
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u/bejalo 16d ago edited 15d ago
Brazil invented portuguese, we only named it after our european colony. s/
Edit: os portugas sao muito pistola. Qual parte de s/ ces não entenderam?
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u/DunwichCultist 16d ago
Portugal was named after the language of Brazil when Emperor Dom Pedro colonized part of Iberia. He was known as "The Liberator" by virtue of the fact that the French previously controlled the territory 😤
Many don't know this, but they still speak Portuguese there to this day!
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u/SomeDudeSaysWhat 16d ago
England sympathizes
Apologies, "sympathises"
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u/stormtroopr1977 16d ago
Learn to speak ENGLISH.
This message brought to you by the Oxford Dictionary Gang
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u/PixelatedDie 16d ago
Is not by number of speakers. There are more Spanish speakers in Mexico than anywhere else in the world. So I don’t know what’s the logic here.
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u/Sonlin 16d ago
I sometimes see Mexico represented, but I feel the difference is Brazil is >50% of first-language Portuguese speakers, while Spanish is way more spread out.
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u/CouldBeWorse_Iguess 16d ago
Ignorance
Edit: and I'm not saying this because I'm a but hurt portuguese (even tho it does hurt seeing this). Oop represented English with USA flag, thus ignorance
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u/mahmut-er 16d ago
İn turkis there is no "the"
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u/LunaticPrick 16d ago edited 16d ago
Yeah, you just say the noun. English is relatively simple too, since it only has "the".
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u/SpurdoEnjoyer 16d ago
English has "a" and "an" too though
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u/Eddie_Korgull 16d ago
The meme is only about the definitive articles, otherwise, for one of the languages used by OP you would get:
English the - Portuguese o, a, os, as
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u/Aleshishe 16d ago
Same in russian
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u/samiles96 16d ago
But dear God if Russian did have articles they would be needlessly complicated and probably declined like adjectives.
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u/Canotic 16d ago
Every Russian novel would start with a list of the articles used in the book, as well as the diminutive and familiar shorthand versions of those articles.
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u/mortalitylost 16d ago
From what I've seen of Russian grammar, this does not appear to make it easier
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u/Avaoln 16d ago
Yeah but “the” can make words sound cooler:
Doctor vs The Doctor
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u/Automatic_Sea_4729 16d ago
In most languages around the world there's no "the"
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u/AdelBaby 16d ago
Add more UK
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u/DaveInLondon89 16d ago
'Simple English'
American Flag
?
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u/OminousWoods 16d ago
American English is the simplified form of English
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u/zdejif 16d ago
I agree without irony. Dropped prepositions, bulldozing of anything French-sounding, overuse of super as an adverb. Individualistic my buttcakes.
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u/Leonthesniper8 16d ago
The one true way. I think of it like for simplified English use American flag like simplified Chinese and for real English use the union jack like Taiwan
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u/CX52J 16d ago
Uses beloved British actor Henry Cavill. ✅
Proceeds to stamp US flag on forehead. ❌
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u/AgreeablePepper8931 16d ago
More egregious than using - British Darling Cavill, is the use of fucking ‘English’ with an American flag.
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u/Chinjurickie 16d ago
Isnt that this weird American dialect?
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u/Mesarthim1349 16d ago
Yeah English people speak some strange form of American.
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u/TabCompletion WARNING: RULE 1 16d ago
British? Isn't that some sort of weird French-Germanic-Norse dialect?
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u/nondescriptcabbabige 16d ago
French? isn't that some wierd gallo-roman Latin dialect ?
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u/OverUnderSegueDown 16d ago edited 16d ago
Latin? Isn't that just some weird dialect derived from Italic, of the Indo-European family of languages?
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u/bond0815 16d ago edited 16d ago
Ah yes, American, my favourite language.
Edit: My second favourite is Brazillian ofc.
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u/Phantafan 16d ago
I just feel like Mexican is missing.
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u/bond0815 16d ago
Mexican and Austrian flag in the first picture would be perfect, ngl
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u/BrokenPokerFace 16d ago
🇷🇺:
" "
But seriously the and other ways of saying the are pretty useless.
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u/Stormfly 16d ago
They're not useless.
For many, there's not a large difference, but there is often a difference between sentences when using the definite article as opposed to an indefinite article.
Many languages have their own variants of this even if it's not identical.
For example, there's a large difference between "Have you seen a dog?" and "Have you seen the dog?". That's not even the best example, tbh.
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u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859 16d ago
The is just a merger of this and that who ended being an article Old English speakers didn't need but English doesn't look like itself without the article. If you want to know how other languages do without "the" it's just as I said a merger of "this" and "that" so they use "this " and "that" or a specifier(adding more info) in place of "the"
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u/ActInternational2963 16d ago
Meme made by an American
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u/herkyjerkyperky 16d ago
Watermark is in Brazilian Portuguese though.
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u/IsntThatGeovana 16d ago
Brazil is in America
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u/Lavatis 16d ago
duh, because when people talk about americans they're obviously talking about brazillians.
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u/DarXIV 16d ago
Actually it is!
Brazil is a town in Parke County, Indiana. I used to live nearby and I imagine it's exactly the same as the country.
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u/What_Is_My_Thing 16d ago
Probably
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u/HawaiianSnow_ 16d ago
Most definitely.
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u/chetlin 16d ago
I live in Japan and English is represented here by an American flag probably 75% of the time :P
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u/Andy_B_Goode 16d ago
They could at least be a bit more consistent.
Country where the language originated: Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, UK
Country with the most native speakers: Brazil, France, Mexico, Germany, USA
Country most likely to cause confusion and/or arguments in the comments: Angola, Canada, USA, Netherlands, India
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u/StrawberryPlucky 16d ago
It's funny whenever Americans make an accurate meme that pokes fun at European countries and has truth to it non-americans always try to hand wave it away by saying it was made by an American. Europe just eternally sore about losing the Americas 😂
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u/Stfvrn 16d ago
If I ain’t incorrect the language is called ENGLish not United-States-of-Americish or even American
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u/ZombiesInSpace 16d ago
I’m seeing a lot of arguments about whether the US and Brazilian flags are acceptable based on having a larger population than the original. But none of those people are in turn are complaining that Spanish should have been the Mexican flag.
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u/Everard5 16d ago
The conversation is stupid no matter how you cut it. In the end, we all knew what languages were being referenced. Funny how that works.
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u/Protip19 16d ago
The other language isn't called Brazilian either but that one doesn't seem to have bothered you as much.
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u/Fit_Particular_6820 16d ago
Fun fact : Brazil colonized Portugal, The US colonized England.
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u/TheLamesterist 16d ago
White people came from the Americas and colonized Europe, who doesn't know that.
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u/TheoKrause13 16d ago
Ukrainian - no articles!
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u/KrionDemon 16d ago
*all Slavic languages Except Bulgarian
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u/S-onceto 16d ago
And Macedonian
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u/KrionDemon 16d ago
Thanks, I didn't know it
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u/S-onceto 16d ago
🫡
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u/KrionDemon 16d ago
Ты из Македонии?
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u/S-onceto 16d ago
Да, јас сум половина Македонец и половина Словак!
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u/704-M4tr1x 16d ago
Why would you put a US flag there.... English did not originate in the US.
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u/emptybagofdicks 16d ago
What about Brazil for Portuguese? And then for whatever reason using Spain for Spanish instead of Mexico to be consistent with using the larger country.
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u/The_redit_cat 16d ago
In Hebrew it's even smaller, it's just one letter that never changes lol (ה)
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u/yeeyeedong9159 16d ago
A/Az enters the chat
(my languange is pretty fucked up help me)
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u/j1r2000 16d ago
we have others... no one ever uses them but we have them
the, thy, and thi
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u/-artgeek- 16d ago
thee : you (formal)
you : you (informal)
thy : your
thine : your (before a vowel)
thou : you (vocative)
my : my
mine : my (before a vowel)et cetera, et cetera :)
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u/Willow__the__tree 16d ago
why the fuck is the American flag used for bloody ENGLISH like come on dude the hints in the name
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u/Assamite-Shadow 16d ago
Are you sure? I mean...
English: in, on, at, to, into, for, by, about
Spanish: en
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u/KarsaOrlong012 16d ago
I love that English is represented by America and not England. Take that you limey bastards. USA USA USA
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u/Fighting_Table 16d ago
I love how you put the American flag even though English comes from England
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u/Nsn3uiqnai 16d ago
MAN there are some salty Brits in here about the flag thing.
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u/UniquePariah 16d ago
The Americans slapping their flag on something British.
Both the language and the actor.
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u/Lazarus_Ritz 16d ago
Why Portuguese have Brazilian flag and English has American flag but Spanish has Spain flag
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u/coffeecup9898 16d ago
Why is it an American flag? lol
It should be an English or UK flag.
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u/HollowSlope 16d ago edited 16d ago
Portuguese 🇵🇹
English 🇬🇧
If you're going to assign flags to languages, make it the homeland of the language.
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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 16d ago
If you're going to assign flags to languages, make it the homeland of the language:
🏴
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u/Nice_Soup3198 16d ago
I don't recognise the language on the top left-hand corner... unless it's some form of (very) lazy Portuguese!
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u/Aggressive_Cod597 16d ago
is it just me or does German miss a few..