Why I HATE Linguistics

Thanks to David Allen Martin II, Gigachad German Coach Incarnate, for being the German speaker in the video! He's a great language learning coach who can be found @LinguaThor or @linguathor_fluency on Instagram.

[bulba]

i will master linguistics in a single thursday evening to spite you

[SKO_EN]

> hates on phonetics
> proceeds to stream for hours constantly mispronouncing ы as уй

[panipaji]

Man I had it all backwards. I learned every language to learn IPA for my phonetics class this semester :/

[nwtnvnh]

There's nothing scientific about ordering orange chicken in flawless Chinese, but there's definitely a ton of science in studying how Chinese speakers order their orange chicken.

[Yudentheepicboy]

guys, he's telling you to roast his physical appearance, AND wearing a my chemical romance shirt? He's clearly depressed

[Naahuarem]

Linguistics is kind of like biology, its just for extreme accuracy but you dont need to be a biologist to know how to breath or the fact that drinking water keeps you alive

[Lunamanka]

Skill issue. Only real chads can handle both linguistics and language learning

[EstenOctavian]

This is probably LanguageSimp's most serious video

[davidp.]

Wait, you're telling me that an academic discipline that was never intended to have an application to language learning does indeed have no application to learning languages? Who would have thought?

[alenunya]

Where are my linguistics and grammar charts enjoyers at? Bring it in 🖐️

[thebeebz]

Learning phonetics is like learning the names of colors. Sure it helps to pick up the basics, but it's not the end of the world if you don't know the difference between magenta and fuscia.

[ziggystardog]

I’ve been drinking in the IPA for years and it hasn’t harmed me yet

[legacywolf]

I respect anyone of this opinion :3
I couldn't disagree more tho :3

My language teachers at school made learning way too hard by never talking about linguistics at all, solely relying on "absorbing". Once I got my hands on a German book that contained grammatical explanations, it all suddenly made sense and I finally knew how to speak correctly

[navisnau]

You only need to learn IPA symbols relevant to your target language not the whole of it

[PolyglotMouse]

Did somebody call my name?



Now I have to make a "Why I Love Linguistics"

[hcholm]

The problem with learning pronunciation only by ear is that many people's ears aren't that well tuned to picking up sounds in foreign languages. Learning phonetics and phonology can be of great help to improve your ears' tuning. It's not just theory. It has certainly helped me a lot, especially when listening for sound differences (phonemes) that don't exist in my native Norwegian, but are crucial in a target language. For instance, I could quickly be aware of the differences between open and closed e and o in Italian and how the various Polish fricatives work. Instead of spending ages not being aware of that and being misunderstood because of the confusion I caused, I could move on to learning vocabulary and other parts of the language, being confident that my pronunciation was at least OK.

It's odd to see how awful pronunciation many polyglots have. That includes Language Simp's pronunciation of the Russian ы, which ... leaves a lot to be desired. Good pronunciation isn't just about showing off, it's about getting understood easily. In the worst case, bad pronunciation will cause misunderstandings. Phonetics isn't that difficult to learn, and well worth the effort, because you can apply what you know to any language.

[namelessbeast]

I thought your legal name was Language Simp?! Who the frick is Earl?

[kianpfannenstiel]

For the most part you're pretty much right, but it's kind of like being right when you say night is darker than day. It's basically a non-statement, because that's like the defining feature of night. My extra pedantic corrections are in a response to this comment, it's already long enough.

So the thing is not 1 single actual linguist will tell you you need to memorize the entire ipa chart, vowels or no, except when you're taking a college or higher phonetics class. Most of us don't memorize the whole thing and even fewer can say all the different sounds. Mind you, ipa is flawed, but it's been created for a specific purpose, and it more or less gets the job done. It's like seeing a woodworker with a highly specific jig and getting upset at him because the jig isn't used for your table or chair or what have you, even though he never told you to use it for a table or chair or what have you.

Also, it is a very valuable thing to know the names of the verb tenses if you're learning in a group or with an instructor. It enables the meta-language that can be used to talk about mistakes being made. For self study it's also useful if you're working out of a book or something, but otherwise you should be fine without it.

I have no idea what your complaint regarding case was, so I can't really address it, but I feel like you were wrong.

[AmeDayo]

Hi, the feeling is mutual. We actual linguists hate polyglots. Hate the player and the game. Every time I tell someone I study linguists they ask "How many languages do you know?" as if I need to be a polyglot to be a linguist. You don't need to study linguistics to be a polyglot and vice versa. The answer is 4 btw, none fluent.

[zevelgamer.]

Language Jones not gonna be happy with that one 😮