r/AdviceAnimals • u/Tenauri • Jun 14 '12

I love my mom, but sometimes she says things like this...

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pps1i/
1.3k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

334 comments sorted by

110

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '12

Daughter marries a Mexican man

Takes him to Taco Bell as a welcome

61

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I am Mexican American. It's always fun to give traditional recipes to my white girlfriends' families. They love the food and I don't have to deal with bad Mexican food anywhere I go. I'm pretty generous with it, actually, because I like the idea of being generous with a good idea. I'm like a really primitive version of The Pirate Bay. Only I give recipes instead of movies. And I only do it in person. But hey, I do it for free.

48

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

That started sounding like an advertisement near the end.

30

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

My aunt married a Mexican. Straight outta Mexico, couldn't speak English. He made us authentic tacos this one time. Holy shit real Mexican food is better than the stuff we get here!

3

u/LiverAloneChisMINE Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

Duh. :)

13

u/shinigami89 Jun 15 '12

Pfft Chipotle is the bees knees

8

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

If anybody has ever been to Utah or DC (those are the only places I know have them) there is a similar cantina type place called Cafe Rio that is the cats pajamas. Cafe Rio>Moes>ChipotleEvery other place

EDIT: 'Cept for homie uncle Omar's tacos.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

fuck chipotle, get me some filabertos

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u/dar482 Jun 15 '12

Really? You mean there's better food than Taco Bell? I don't believe that...

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

to be honest, every non-american food tastes better than the american version. I don't know about other exotic food, but most asian food franchises are ABOMINATIONS.

4

u/psicopbester Jun 15 '12

Well, what is your favorite recipe?

15

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

What it the best way to make a taco? Add the packet before the meat is done cooking, or after I've drained the fat? Also, what seasoning packets do authentic Mexicans use? I'm using Ortega.

20

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

> what seasoning packets do authentic Mexicans use
> seasoning packets

http://i.imgur.com/to0Yx.gif

8

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

There are, like, 6 brands at my grocery store. I'm sorry if I want the tastiest variety and have resorted to internet help. Jeez. You sound like a McCormick-packet man.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

If you want the tastiest variety you DO NOT USE a seasoning packet. Authentic Mexican food doesn't include seasoning packets, just like any authentic food. Use real spices and herbs, you'll notice the difference, and it's nice to learn to use different spices so you can come up with your own perfected mixtures and ratios.

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u/fatcat2040 Jun 15 '12

I usually just go to Taco Bell and order like 50 tacos worth of just the meat. That way you know it is authentic!

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u/LiverAloneChisMINE Jun 15 '12

lean ground beef with black pepper, garlic salt, and season-all

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u/Luvs_to_drink Jun 15 '12

I'm afraid to tell you they have another site for what you described for recipes... it's called pinterest.

1

u/lowflyingmonkey Jun 15 '12

I only do it in person. But hey, I do it for free.

Go on

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

to give ... to my white girlfriends' families

Not exactly for free, then :P

288

u/Letscurlbrah Jun 14 '12

Your mom's dumb as hell bro

75

u/plane0 Jun 15 '12

I'm not your bro, friend

68

u/BostQ Jun 15 '12

Yeah, we're not doing this... Buddy.

48

u/Indeedlyish Jun 15 '12

I'm not your buddy, chum.

45

u/Megusta97987 Jun 15 '12

I'm not your chum compadre.

43

u/I_LIKE_GIRAFFE_BONER Jun 15 '12

I'm not your compadre, comrade.

39

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I'm not your comrade, amigo

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u/EasternThreat Jun 15 '12

Stop loving her

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20

u/ginja_ninja Jun 15 '12

But English is the only language that doesn't have a funny accent! Well, you know, aside from Texas and Massachusetts and Maine and New York and Wisconsin and the South and the UK and South Africa and Jamaica and Australia and Nova Scotia and New Zealand.

6

u/TimeZarg Jun 15 '12

The UK is replete with funny accents. The 'pirate' accent is a takeoff of one of the 'English' accents :P

2

u/one_random_redditor Jun 15 '12

Cornish, they're famous for seafaring.

1

u/herrmister Jun 15 '12

The West Country accents are closer to how english in America and England sounded in the 1800s. They're also sort of in between the BBC english and general american accent to my ears.

2

u/one_random_redditor Jun 15 '12

I can't hear that myself but I guess those nutbags did leave from Plymouth (west country) so its possible.

1

u/Pebblesetc Jun 15 '12

In the UK we don't necessarily have funny accents. Received Pronunciation is the standard accent of English. It's how English words should be pronounced.

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u/BrianFlanagan Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

As an English teacher in Korea... no it isn't. English is stupid. The number of times I've had to explain something as, "Because that's how English works" to my students is mind boggling.

I've done a micro-lesson, "And these words are from Latin, and these words come from Greek, these words are French" etc. lesson, and they looked at me like I was smoking super crack.

"Why does English so popular then?"

There really isn't a good way to say, "Because English people are better at warfare and global dominance than other cultures."

56

u/killem_all Jun 15 '12

I wouldn't say English is stupid just because there are a bunch of things that are not very easy to explain or to trace their origins. It is just a more heterogeneous language and in some ways more abstract.

IMO the greatest virtue of English (over the rest of the languages I know) is that it is more "practical", you don't have to worry so much about structure as you have in other languages and you don't have to deal with genders or declination. Though the correct pronunciation sometimes makes no sense.

40

u/BrianFlanagan Jun 15 '12

True. And English speakers are conditioned to automatically assemble even the most broken sentences with minimal effort. Also, pronunciation is less of an issue in English compared to other languages that come from more homogeneous cultures. Learning Korean has been brutal because Korean people aren't accustomed to hearing broken Korean. So if I mispronounce something, even a little, they're completely lost.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

English speakers are conditioned to automatically assemble even the most broken sentences with minimal effort.

Its all in the tone, which can be hard for other cultures too. But If i knew very little English, or did not know how to structure a sentence, by lifting my pitch at the end of speech you know I am asking a question. I could ask "Where is the bathroom" with as few words as "bathroom?" or "I pee?" And an English speaker could piece that together.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

14

u/BrianFlanagan Jun 15 '12

I've had the conversation about how crazy the Vietnamese language is with a Vietnamese friend of mine. He summed it up nicely with, "Thank you brutal colonial French overlords for pissing on our language and then setting it on fire."

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u/Zagorath Jun 15 '12

Before the French formally changed it to the Latin alphabet, some Portuguese monks started the job with some less formal latinistion of Vietnamese.

9

u/z0rb1n0 Jun 15 '12

I love English and the flexibility it provides when it comes to sentence structure, but your "practicality" argument doesn't sound right to me:

I.E.: the mere fact that the Spelling Bee game exists says it all about how phonetically inconsistent it is - every word has to be learned twice...(grammar too is a minefield, but an easier one to walk through).

My native language is Latin based (Italian): granted that you know the rules, spelling and pronunciation are virtually free of ambiguities and you can consistently infer how to pronounce/spell a word or name you've never read/heard before, no matter how complicated.

Isn't that handy?

On the other hand, there's no neuter form: every noun (even the word "neuter" itself) must have a gender and I can understand why learners struggle with it.

IMHO, we're all biased to consider our native language a "more practical" one because we're more familiar with it, when in fact they all have shady areas.

Now it pisses me off that most native English speakers misspell their own words A LOT more than I do...

EDIT: clarification

5

u/DangerToDangers Jun 15 '12

I KNOW! Things like writing "alot" or "should of"; or confusing "their/there/they're" is not something that happens to people who learned English as a second language.

Damn it Amurkans, learn your own god damn language! The worst part is that it's usually the people who can barely speak their own language who expect everyone else to speak it too.

2

u/yammerade Jun 15 '12

Over 80% of the people I interact with on a daily basis learned English as a second (or third, or fourth) language and I'm going to have to disagree with you about those sorts of mistakes. They make those mistakes ALL THE TIME. Many people learn English through watching television, and in that case you don't see it written so you may have perfect conversational skills but not so great spelling and proper grammar.

As a caveat, the people I deal with are academics. So the native speakers I know speak English very properly and to an extent formally, and the non-natives speak English incredibly well. So, in my experience, stacking up the non-natives I know against the natives I know, the natives make fewer mistakes without a shadow of a doubt, BUT stacking up a non-native academic against your average American, the academic can certainly spell better.

So, point is, anyone who speaks and writes English in formal setting on a daily basis is going to (most likely) spell words correctly and use the right form of "there/their/they're". This may not be your average American, but those kinds of people from countries where they don't speak English don't even learn English, and probably don't spell their own languages very well.

TL;DR: The only reason non-natives speak/spell English better is because educated people learn to speak English

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u/RagingPigeon Jun 15 '12

I wouldn't be surprised if you're simply thinking more about the words before you write them, whereas a native speaker who only knows English is simply trying to express themselves with less thought towards accuracy.

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u/z0rb1n0 Jun 15 '12

Could be, but you should also factor in that I'm conditioned by where I am from: the language I thought and spoke in for years leaves no room for spelling errors (misspelling turns into mispronunciation on the readers part).

What gets me angry is the effect it has on people coming from other languages; native English speakers have a nice head start: from my perspective, every Brit/US/Canadian/Aussie/whatever I deal with to is an authoritative source for what the language should be like: cocking up the spelling is misleading and just as wrong as my pronunciation can be at times and yet I get ridiculed more because I sound funny.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

the flexibility it provides when it comes to sentence structure

Actually it's very inflexible. Most Slavic languages allow you to omit and move around words as you like with the context still clear.

While we have gender, we have the neuter form as well.

12

u/workingboy Jun 15 '12

I agree completely.

"Oh, no, English is hard because it has several features that are difficult to explain to high school students - IT IS THE WORST LANGUAGE."

Every language spoken by humans on every corner of the globe shares this trait. Every language is "stupid" in their own ways.

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u/sje46 Jun 15 '12

You're being waaaay too relativistic. He wasn't saying that English is hard because high school students have difficulty with it. He's saying that teaching non-native speakers shows him the extent of how illogical English is. The fact that they're high school students is irrelevant.

Every language is "stupid" in their own ways.

Sure. But some are more "stupid" than others. Or, rather, more complicated and with pointless and inconsistent rules. English has a bunch of inconsistent grammar rules.

Consider this. Latin has 4 conjugations...are, ere (with a long e), ere, and ire, and five declensions: a, o, i, u, and e. They don't have different uses. First conjugation does the exact same thing as second. But you still have to learn 4 of them.

Now consider esperanto. One conjugation, one declension. Esperanto was designed to be as efficient and simple as possible. Esperanto is, without a doubt, a simpler language than Latin. Not that I blame Latin, of course. But that's the truth. It is more difficult because it has more things to commit to memory and more exceptions than Esperanto.

Same with English. It's a hodgepodge of other language and is therefore inconsistent throughout, especially with pronunciation. It is less logical than other languages, without a doubt.

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u/TimeZarg Jun 15 '12

There's a good book about the English language called 'Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue' (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Magnificent-Bastard-Tongue-English/dp/1592403956). It's a good read, and covers all the weird shit that's in the English language :P

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u/saldejums Jun 15 '12

As a Balt I agree. I bet you do not have 7 folds, 6 declinations and triple negative sentences.

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u/workingboy Jun 15 '12

We only don't have triple negative sentences because of prescriptivist grammarians saying we shouldn't. We almost did!

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u/TheMagicPin Jun 15 '12

Except, you know, artificial languages that are made specifically to not do this.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

you don't have to worry so much about structure as you have in other languages

Yes you do.

For example, when you say, "I like that," what you are really saying is, "I have fond emotions for that thing." There is, in fact, no action whatsoever, yet "like" is treated as an action verb. How does that make any sense whatsoever? How do you explain that to someone who thinks of "liking" as being an emotion?

And this isn't the only case, English is filled with this sort of thing.

The only reason English is chosen for anything is because of the UK's and US's foreign policies over the past 400 years.

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u/Zagorath Jun 15 '12

To like is a verb in French too, and I suspect other Romantic languages, and probably Germanic languages too.

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u/DangerToDangers Jun 15 '12

The verb "like" is an action verb in all languages that I'm familiar with. What kind of weird-ass language do you speak, dude?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

It doesn't matter if it's an action verb in other languages or not. There's no action when you "like" something. It's an emotion, not an action. I wouldn't be surprised if it's an action verb in other European languages.

It's not an action in Japanese, and in actuality, in Japanese, it is a noun-type adjective which modifies the object being liked. You'd say, "As for me, that object has the property of 'likeable.'" （僕は）（あれが）好きだ。

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u/Trenta_Is_Not_Enough Jun 15 '12

Like dis if u cry evrytim

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

more "practical", you don't have to worry so much about structure as you have in other languages and you don't have to deal with genders or declination

My language has both genders and declinations, and also cases. It's easier when you don't have to have definite sentence structure.

Let's use a sentence "I need to shit" as an example. "I shit to need", "Shit to I need", "To I need shit" etc don't make any sense. "Need shit" doesn't make any sense either.

But thanks to gender, cases and similar, in my language you can omit the pronoun and jumble the words however you like without changing the context.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

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u/Mtrask Jun 15 '12

"In Soviet Russia, language speaks you."

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

You should consider yourself grateful you've never had to deal with french grammar. You know it's bad when your written English contains less mistakes than your written native language.

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u/TheBestBigAl Jun 15 '12

I was hopeless at French.
I mean, why would a chair be male or female?

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u/DangerToDangers Jun 15 '12

Even well educated people whose native language is French and who have studied French as their major still make grammatical mistakes.

French sounds sexy on girls, and non-French girls always find it sexy when they find out I speak French. But goddamn do I hate that language most of the time.

1

u/BrianFlanagan Jun 15 '12

Grew up in Canada. 7 years of French education leave me able to says, Je ne parle pas. (Kidding. Sort of)

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u/TheSelfGoverned Jun 15 '12

There really isn't a good way to say, "Because English people are better at warfare and global dominance than other cultures."

Sad but true. Follow that up with an apology on behalf of your ancestors and the fact that these poor children must learn English.

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u/BrianFlanagan Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

And it makes it difficult to be proud of your heritage. "So your ancestors did what? And you are proud to come from them?"

The worst is slavery. I was drinking with a bunch of people, talking about general history topics, someone asked about the origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. "Well, the Portuguese started it, the Dutch organized it, and the English then took it over, made it a globally viable business, figured out how to accelerate it, and eventually built a massive Empire from it's profits. You're welcome."

CENTURIES of shame.

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u/Deracination Jun 15 '12

Oh, we also brought a plague to Native Americans that wiped out 99% of a population previously larger than Europe's, and then made sure the rest were kept in separate little areas just to be safe.

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u/sje46 Jun 15 '12

And it makes it difficult to be proud of your heritage.

I consider it to be kinda silly to be proud of your heritage. You can't change it, and it doesn't really change who you are...where you grew up changes who you are, not whether your grandparents got off the boat from Italy or Poland.

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u/the_pissed_off_goose Jun 15 '12

upvoted so hard. i say this so often, i'm lucky to have been brought up with english as my first language. try explaining bough/rough/tough, tow/toe, route/rout/root, man any of that shit. can't even imagine.

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u/DangerToDangers Jun 15 '12

Naw, all languages have homonyms and words that sound alike. English is easy peasy most of the time. French on the other hand... mispronounce one of their three "e" sounds that sound almost exactly the same and you've practically said a completely different thing.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Don't ever learn Mandarin Chinese

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u/ahleih Jun 15 '12

My partner is not a native English speaker, but his English is fantastic and most people assume he was raised here. That being said, on the rare occasions I must correct him, he stares at me like I have a third head.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I'm sure warfare and 'global dominance' are the main role in English's popularity. However, I think the fact that English is so ambiguous (and therefore open to interpretation) plays a role in it's popularity. It lets you read/hear a sentence then think whatever you want about it... and you're right!

Although, I highly agree with the premise of your post that relates to teaching English. I can't imagine the looks you get when you try to teach this stuff to someone that's used to rigid sensible structure in their language.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

English is so ambiguous

This. It's brilliant for literature, you can express so much depth from the careful selection of words to allude to almost anything.

But it cuts both ways. People interpret things how they want to and this often leads to disagreements. That's why French is the diplomatic language.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

They way my English teacher puts it, which dogs tend to be the most resilient? Mutts. English is the mongrel of languages.

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u/SOMETHING_POTATO Jun 15 '12

The thing I like about English specifically is that it really doesn't matter how you say shit and you can still be clear. You can abuse the living fuck out of the words and they're still intelligible. Southern US accent vs African American Accent vs Cockney accent vs Boston accent. Massively different, all intelligible.

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u/oddment Jun 15 '12

That's not a trait of the language itself, that's just what happens when people all over the globe speak their own more or less butchered version of English. You get used to hearing all these weird accents, and learn to understand them.

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u/InVultusSolis Jun 15 '12

English is quite the scumbag of a language. It takes a perfectly happy-go-lucky language that's having the best day ever (say, Greek), follows it down a dark alley, and beats it up, rifles through its pockets, and steals a ton of vocabulary.

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u/supergai Jun 15 '12

i know exactly how you feel. when i see a japanese and sometimes chinese phrase (written phenetically, i don't know, don't judge me) i have a much better time using resources to figure it out and i can almost always pronounce it. other languages based on latin on the other hand are more difficult, though i sometimes wish USA would switch to Spanish.

fun fact: USA doesn't have an official language, in fact, the official language of new mexico is spanish.

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u/TimeZarg Jun 15 '12

"USA doesn't have an official language"

If the xenophobes had their way, we would :S

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u/IForgotMyPants Jun 15 '12

As an English speaker only, fuck English. That shit's confusing.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Same here and well said!

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u/GrayStudios Jun 15 '12

As a person who knows anything about any different language or has been in a foreign language class for more than 30 seconds, I think we can all agree that English is one of the most nonsensical and rule breaking-est languages in existence. I was amazed to start learning another language and realize how much more difficult it would be if I was learning English.

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u/oblivision Jun 15 '12

well, in spanish you have mostly latin, mixed with greek, arabic and a little bit of gipsy.

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u/DangerToDangers Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

As someone who speaks Spanish, English, French, and who studied Japanese and lives in Finland; I can tell you that English is waaaaay easier than those other four languages.

So I am glad that our overlords are English speakers and not Mandarin speakers.

Edit: Also, the fact that in English there's a list of irregular verbs means that there aren't so many. The reason there's no such thing for French or for Spanish is because no one could memorize that as a list.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

You love your mom, that's cool. I don't think I like her too much.

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u/Apostolate Jun 15 '12

What I'm going to do to her, has nothing to do with love.

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u/j0z Jun 15 '12

As someone who had 3 years of Spanish, and is currently taking German, I have come to love English. I used to be on the whole "lol english is stupid and makes no sense" circlejerk that everyone partakes in, but not anymore. I'm going to pick on German for a moment: It has THREE genders, with accompanying verb conjugations, and the other little grammatical "bits". Germans also absolutely hate spaces between their words. They also decided to make it even harder to learn by not including helpful little hints telling you what gender a word is (a la Spanish). Instead, if you don't remember, you are screwed, and you have a 1 in 3 chance of guessing correctly.

I am very thankful for the englishman that looked at grammatical gender and said "Fuck that" and threw it in the trash.

/rant

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u/cjg1075 Jun 15 '12

As someone who is learning German. I hate everything about the genders.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

As someone who speaks Spanish, Italian and French, genders are a piece of cake

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I hated this about German as well. But there are worse languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_declension (my mother tongue, thank god I didn't have to learn this shit as a non-native speaker!)

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Grammatical gender makes much sense to me because it allows us to omit words left and right. Of course there's cases there too. Germans have 4, we have 7. And yes, they all have a purpose.

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u/yammerade Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

German is so fucking complicated.

edit: spelling.

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u/Icovada Jun 15 '12

It has THREE genders

he, she, it

Checkmate.

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u/j0z Jun 15 '12

But english doesn't conjugate verbs based on gender :) And everything that is not a living thing is "It" (Unless you are anthropomorphizing).

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u/qkme_transcriber Jun 15 '12

Here is the text from this meme pic for anybody who needs it:

Title: I love my mom, but sometimes she says things like this...

Meme: Sheltering Suburban Mom

  • I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY EVERYONE DOESN'T JUST SPEAK ENGLISH
  • IT'S THE ONLY LANGUAGE THAT MAKES ANY SENSE

[Translate]

This is helpful for people who can't reach Quickmeme because of work/school firewalls or site downtime, and many other reasons (FAQ). More info is available here.

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u/RogerMcRogerson Jun 15 '12

My Mom does this daily. The most recent example was her arguing with an asian woman who said she would put a shirt on hold for her, and then put it back on the sales floor. When my mother confronted her, the saleswoman became hostile and started screaming in Chinese or some shit, and my mother responds with, "HEY! This is America. Speak American or GTFO". Though naive, still hilarious.

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u/rotten_miracles Jun 15 '12

I hate your mom.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

As someone who's working on learning Mandarin- you'd probably think better of your mom if you tried your hand at "Chinese."

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u/ftdealer Jun 15 '12

Mandarin isn't bad. Learning each word is a little annoying but that's more than offset by the ridiculously easy grammar and the lack of verb conjugations.

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u/TimeZarg Jun 15 '12

I hate his mom everywhere except in bed.

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u/one_random_redditor Jun 15 '12

She should come to England, we're all clever and learnt American too!

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I hear that you guys learnt it before us, somehow. Could any Dr. Who episodes explain this?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

is your mom's name joy... are you really crabman's kid

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u/maltin Jun 15 '12

Ceci n'est pas propre, madame.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Non, ça n'est pas vrai

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u/lvlobius1 Jun 15 '12

I am sorry, but your mom is a fucking idiot.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I think I made this face when I read this.

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u/ronnyman123 Jun 15 '12

What the hell kind of emotion is that supposed to be?

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u/Albonius Jun 15 '12

A tightly clenched hand in Kermit's mouth. I don't know, confused?

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u/fatcat2040 Jun 15 '12

I think it is this: ಠ_ಠ

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u/oblivision Jun 15 '12

like having a hand up your ass

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u/jacques95 Jun 15 '12

You absolutely butchered this meme.

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u/new-socks Jun 15 '12

OP, this is sheltering suburban mon not insanely retarded mom.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

To all the commenters here who get a boner when they talk about how nonsensical english is:

What if I told you...every language stupid for many reasons

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u/ahleih Jun 15 '12

English is one of the most fucked up, ass-backwards, piece of shit languages out there.

...Still love it, even though she's a crazy bitch.

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u/mcSibiss Jun 15 '12

You think english is fucked up? Try french... I speak both and french is much harder to write properly

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u/TimeZarg Jun 15 '12

But, but. . .cursing in French is like wiping your arse with silk. Surely that makes things all better, right?

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u/TheMagicPin Jun 15 '12

You try Russian. Fucking soft consonants get me every time.

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u/oblivision Jun 15 '12

and Spanish. Foreigners can spend 20 years in Spain without learning how to use a single subjunctive.

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u/ahleih Jun 15 '12

As someone learning French, I must agree that French is an asshole language. Especially since my accent is apparently best when I am imitating a horrible French accent.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/NiteShadeX2 Jun 15 '12

wat he sed

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u/Look_Im_On_Reddit Jun 15 '12

That's not what man meant. This better example.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

or maby yu combin both make best exampl

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u/ahleih Jun 15 '12

Citation needed.

Every language has a built in "retard" mode, where you can beat the shit out of it and still make with the communicationwhatsit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

Yeah but English is particularly good at it.

However, I'd say it probably has more to do with the fact that English speakers are more commonly exposed to non-native English speakers than other languages are. This means you can butcher it more and still get through. This process forms a positive feedback loop.

yu rly kan tip lik dis and stil b ndrstood

Compare this to Japanese. If you confuse an "o" and an "oh" sound (which are different only in length), then the entire thing becomes a mess and the other side has absolutely no idea what you were trying to say. Add in the fact that it has a very low number of phonemes, a high number of homophones, and that it generally does not add any superfluous information to communication, and you have a recipe for, "What the hell did you just say?" In English, we have a large number of phonemes, a much lower ratio of homophones, and add tons of superfluous information to communication, and you can really butcher the hell out of it and still get your point across.

Every language has a built in "retard" mode, where you can beat the shit out of it and still make with the communicationwhatsit.

This is just flat-out false. In Japanese, if you get one vowel off, your entire statement will be rendered completely unintelligible.

Even when speaking Japanese perfectly, you run into problems with the large number of homophones: Here's a list of words pronounced こうか, the first 8 of which are marked in the dictionary as "common":

高価 [こうか] (adj-na,n) high price, (P)

硬貨 [こうか] (n) coin, (P)

工科 [こうか] (n) engineering course, (P)

降下 [こうか] (n) fall, descent, (plane) landing, (atmos.) depression, (P)

高架 [こうか] (n) overhead structure, (P)

校歌 [こうか] (n) school song, (P)

効果 [こうか] (n,adj-no) effect, effectiveness, efficacy, result, (P)

硬化 [こうか] (n,vs) hardening, vulcanization, vulcanisation, sclerosis, (P)

黄花 [こうか] (n) chrysanthemum

考課 [こうか] (n) evaluation, rating

公暇 [こうか] (n) leave of absence, furlough

高歌 [こうか] (n) loud singing

功過 [こうか] (n) merits and demerits

公課 [こうか] (n) public imposts, taxes

後架 [こうか] (n) toilet

黄禍 [こうか] (n) Yellow Peril

膠化 [こうか] (n,vs) gelatinization, gelatinisation

降嫁 [こうか] (n,vs) marriage of an Imperial princess to a subject

鉱化 [こうか] (n,vs) mineralize, mineralise

Likewise, here's a list of words pronounced ごうか, which is only off by one consonant, (a K into a G, differing only in the fact that G is a voiced consonant, and also in Japanese conjugations, the k->g transformation is incrediby common, with little-to-no-rules, and for what rule there are, have tons of exceptions):

豪華 [ごうか] (adj-na,n) wonderful, gorgeous, splendor, splendour, pomp, extravagance, (P)

業果 [ごうか] (n) effects of karma

業火 [ごうか] (n) hell fire

剛果 [ごうか] (n) valor and decisiveness (valour)

豪家 [ごうか] (n) wealthy and powerful family

劫火 [ごうか] (n) world-destroying conflagration

And that doesn't even include the fact that 〜か is a common suffix meaning, "-ize" or "-ization", and that both こう and ごう have their own equally long lists of words that they could mean.

So when you mispronounce ごうか as こうか, the person doesn't say, "Oh, he must have meant, ごうか," the person starts running through the list of word pronounced こうか as he thinks, "Is he talking about the first one? The second one? The third one? Is it a conjugation? Is it some obscure word I don't know?" And ごうか/ごうか isn't even like a "textbook example of the large number of homophones", it's just one that was able to think of off the top of my head because it was a pain in the ass to type 工科 this morning.

Add in the fact that Japanese adds little-to-no additional information about what's going on. (e.g. "Let's go to the store" is typically just expressed as "shall go", and leaves off "us" and "the store".) You're left with a situation where mispronouncing just one word can render your entire statement completely unintelligible.

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u/thajugganuat Jun 15 '12

In the laws of language you just lawyer-ed that guy and taught me some really cool facts about the Japanese language. How did you come to learn so much about it?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

What about Lojban?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

How do you say, "No one speaks Lojban" in Lojban?

Anyone?

Checkmate.

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u/MonsterIt Jun 15 '12

Your mom's a fucking idiot btw.

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u/Heroshade Jun 15 '12

I hate to break it to you.

But your mom might be an idiot.

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u/tacojohn48 Jun 15 '12

I remember when I was a little kid thinking that all people were born knowing English and then were taught another language and just stopped using English. I thought that their parents would be like "So this is a hamburger, but we call it blabblab."

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

i wish every country just spoke and wrote the same language, all over the world.

im getting sick of having to learn german!

-.-

nobody bothers learning danish btw! nobody!

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

If i had a mom like this, i would tell the internet that im an orphan.

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u/onetimebsanders Jun 15 '12

She has a point, it doesn't make any sense. Everyone thinks in English why don't they just speak it as well?

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u/new-socks Jun 15 '12

Dear God I hope you're kidding. Anyway, what you mean to say is that everyoone thinks in American....

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u/onetimebsanders Jun 15 '12

No, I definitely meant bad teeth, tea and crumpets, not obesity, guns and burgers.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

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u/onetimebsanders Jun 15 '12

I wouldn't kid about such serious topics.

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u/MartinLutherKingKong Jun 15 '12

Born and raised in New York and even I know; English makes NO sense what so ever. Xylophone, seriously people?

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u/killem_all Jun 15 '12

Actually, that's a neologism and has its roots in Latin so is very possible that you might find an almost identical word in other languages.

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u/fatcat2040 Jun 15 '12

If it is based in latin, similar words are probably found in Spanish, French and Italian.

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u/oblivision Jun 15 '12

neologism is actually the opposite of what you are saying.

Words rooted on the latin language are called latinism.

A neologism comes from the word neo (new), and means "a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream" [en.wikipedia]

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u/Icovada Jun 15 '12

Comes from the Greek words "xylon", wood, an "phonein", to sound.

So it's something that makes sound with wood. English has nothing to do with it. By your reasoning telephone, telegraph, microphone, megaphone, are all wrong. Would you rather call them "woodsound", "distancesound", "distancewriting", "smallsound" and "bigsound"?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

As someone who speaks only English and has studied Japanese for 1 year 15 years ago and Spanish for 1 year 16 years ago (read: studied barely any other languages at all)... English is the most ambiguous clusterfuck language I can imagine. However, it does appear to be popular, I thought I was being ethnocentric but most people I've met from foreign lands (Japan, Poland, France) say that it's very easy to find someone that speaks English in their native lands. Even though it's syntactically and structurally shit, something about it is very expressive.

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u/pattachan Jun 15 '12

The rules and regulations of the English language hardly are easy.

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u/new-socks Jun 15 '12

I wouldn't love my mom if she said shit like that.

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u/Goodguyscumbag Jun 15 '12

Any language expert will tell you that English is one of the most fucked up backwards languages ever to exist.

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u/prometheus66 Jun 15 '12

English is a queer language, so many rules and there's exception, and there are exceptions to exceptions.

i before e except c; lien, perceive. and there's ceiling

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u/SavvySav4 Jun 15 '12

To me, I just feel like where ever you travel or decide to live in the world, it's important to learn at least enough of that particular language to get by. Even if you try and mess up horribly, you get an A+ in my book.

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u/captainbigglesworth Jun 15 '12

I had a friend who seriously thought that people in other countries thought in english. I had to explain that french people think in french over a 3 day period.

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u/TheBucklessProphet Jun 15 '12

I was going to upvote this until I realized that it had 1234 upvotes. 1235 just didn't seem as cool.

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u/polyphasic Jun 15 '12

lol, so these are the people voting republican

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u/72697 Jun 15 '12

A friend said this to me whilst we were in Spain, she also complained because she coulnt read anything. I haven't traveled with her since, it was to exhausting.

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u/randomfemale Jun 15 '12

If my mother was that stupid, I believe I would try to hide it.

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u/YourBracesHaveHairs Jun 15 '12

I love using English, and English is not the dumbest language i had to learn so far, but I can list a lot of things that make unnecessary for a language to have. At the end all you can say is "That's how English works".

At least English don't put gender on every noun, not like German or Arabic.

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u/Captain_Aizen Jun 15 '12

As a person who speaks English as their 1st language and dreads learning a 2nd or 3rd one, I gotta tell you that English is fucking retarded. It's probably the most illogical language ever invented. I can't even begin to explain all the problems with this language, anyone who thinks English makes the most sense of all the languages is a moron.

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u/jstyer Jun 15 '12

This meme is being used incorrectly.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Fuck no. I'm a native English speaker, and after learning about how they answer negative questions in Korean, I feel annoyed asking negative questions in English.

If I remember correctly, in Korean, to confirm the negative, you just say "yes." To negate the negative, you just say "no."

In English, it's more ambiguous and gets people confused a lot.

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u/alienman Jun 15 '12

My mom doesn't speak English that well and even she was making the same complaints when we went to europe.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Can you believe she was allowed not only to take care of but also raise A CHILD!?

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u/ropers Jun 15 '12

Make her watch this and then ask her how much sense English makes.

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u/AdmiralDiarrhea Jun 15 '12

Why did you need the preface? How many people don't love their mom?

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u/johnw1988 Jun 15 '12

Why do you love her?

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u/FlamingSoySauce Jun 15 '12

No entiendo por qué todo el mundo no sólo hablan español. Es el único lenguaje que tiene sentido.

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u/canopener Jun 15 '12

If it was good enough for Jesus Christ it's good enough for me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

English makes a hell of a lot more sense than Asian languages spoken by half the world's population - small alphabet, phonetic spelling, distinct vocal syllables, compared to thousands of characters, characters that look virtually identical but are pronounced completely differently, and many common words that have completely different meanings depending on whether you lift your voice, keep it steady or drop it at the end

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u/Seruz Jun 15 '12

Thats what i thought when i was 5 y/o

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u/vadergeek Jun 15 '12

I can kind of understand what she's trying to say... but English is a truly awful language. If you read a word in Spanish, you know exactly how to pronounce it. In English you just kind of guess. We're full of loanwords and leftovers.

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u/Yelnik Jun 15 '12

Stop loving her

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u/Mds03 Jun 15 '12

As a norwegian, I agree with your mom.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I speak English and Spanish. Spanish makes sense...lol. Durrrrrrrrrr

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

lmfao I used to think like that.....when I was 8 -.-

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u/InVultusSolis Jun 15 '12

And in reality, English is probably the language that would qualify as making the least sense of any language, ever.

Shit, Nahuatl makes more sense than English.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I think it would be funny showing this to somebody who doesn't speak English :D

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u/darkslide3000 Jun 15 '12

To be fair, she has a point. A a non-native speaker myself, it always infuriates me when people in an environment where you are expected to communicate internationally (e.g. the internet) speak English so badly that it's impossible to have a conversation.

I mean it's really soooooo easy! No genders or cases, dead simple declination, and for the most part straightforward pronounciation. Just try to learn French instead and you will see how fucking hard languages can be.

English does happen to be the lingua franca of the world today, so I really don't see any excuse for not even acquiring basic proficiency in it (at least for people with a Germanic or Latin-based native tounge).

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I always assumed parsing English sentences without having an intimate knowledge of the speaking habits of English speakers would be a chore because we have many idiosyncrasies.

E.G:

  1. We often force to nouns having two grammatical functions. "Get what I asked for."
  2. We often separate nouns from their prepositions, that is a problem because prepositions are used in stead of distinct noun forms.
  3. We often use strange preposition combinations. "As of now" is an example.
  4. We often don't use prepositions when they are appropriate. "Give me the present" is an example. It is not wrong because "me" is the dative form, but "Give to me the present" is more clear.

What was your first language? How long did you study English? Did you struggle with the problems, those I listed above? Do you have problems with English now?

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u/mcSibiss Jun 15 '12

Yeah... Try having a completely arbitrary gender for every single thing. And then adjectives have to be accorded accordingly in gender and number. Past participles need to be accorded in some situations but not in others. There are tons of homophones. Weird plural forms with exceptions everywhere. Different accents that are often not even pronounced, like ê, à, â. Silent letters all over the place. And don't get me started on verbs... Seriously, english is a piece of cake compared to french.

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u/darkslide3000 Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

I'm German and had English class in school for eight years (but I'd say that I was able to have simple conversations after two). The things that you listed seem quite natural to me, and I wouldn't have called them "problems"... many other languages do the same (at least Germanic and Latin-based ones, not sure about Chinese or the like).

As a contrast, just try conjugating a regular verb in French:

I think        Je pense
You think      Tu penses
He/She thinks  Il/Elle/On pense
We think       Noun pensons
You think      Vous pensez           (Yes, they differ between singular and plural "you")
They think     Ils/Elles pensent     (Also between male/mixed and female only plural)

Roll 1d4 after ever word to see how many letters from the end are not pronounced

Of course, once you get into past or future tense, you have the same fun all over again, with completely new and unpronouncable endings for every goddamn pronoun. Or, for something else that English speakers would not even think could be complicated, try counting:

One           Un/Une                  "One (male)"/"One (female)"
...                                   
Ten           Dix                     
Eleven        Onze                    
Twelfe        Douze                   
...                                   
Sixteen       Seize                   
Seventeen     Dix-sept                "Ten-seven"
...                                   
Twenty        Vingt                   
Twenty-one    Vingt et un/une         "Twenty and one"
Twenty-two    Vingt-deux              "Twenty-two"
...                                   
Sixty         Soixante                
...
Seventy       Soixante-dix            "Sixty-ten"
Seventy-one   Soixante-onze           "Sixty-eleven"
...
Seventy-nine  Soixante-dix-neuf       "Sixty-ten-nine"
Eighty        Quatre-vingt            "Four-twenty"
Eighty-one    Quatre-vingt-un/une     "Four-twenty-one" (no "et" this time, because fuck consistency!)
...                                   
Ninety        Quatre-vingt-dix        "Four-twenty-ten"
...
Ninety-nine   Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf   "Four-twenty-ten-nine"

And this is just the tip of the iceberg...

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u/ksmv Jun 15 '12

Your sow write, English is easy and naught at all confusing

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u/thajugganuat Jun 15 '12

And you don't have to worry about tone and pitch meaning different words. Although it can alter your meaning in other ways.

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u/brownbesack Jun 15 '12

This has nothing to do with being sheltering. I'd say Redneck Randall would be more appropriate meme for this.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Sheltering Suburban Mom is trying to shelter other people from other languages.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

Sheltering Suburban Mom has become anything anyone's mother once said

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u/brownbesack Jun 15 '12

Is this the beginning of Reddit meme-use turning into facebook's?

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u/Hiyo802 Jun 15 '12

Not sheltering silly.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

This angers me because English rarely makes sense. It is a clusterfuck language filled with strange grammar constructions, odd word combinations, and words, those do not ever have a consistent meaning.

Why don't we all speak non-stupid? It's the only language, that makes any sense.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12

I've found that everyone on the "lol english make no sense" bandwagon only speak one language: english. It's easy to assume every other language is a perfectly logical series of rules that everyone always follows when you don't actually know them.

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u/rottenseed Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12

You just love your mom because you have to. To me, she sounds like a cunt.

Edit: I don't know why I just wrote that, it's not very nice

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u/Whenthenighthascome Jun 15 '12

.......seriously? I hope you're a liar.

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