Mine is people who separate words when they write. I’m Norwegian, and we can string together words indefinetly to make a new word. The never ending word may not make any sense, but it is gramatically correct

Still, people write words the wrong way by separating them.

Examples:

  • “Ananas ringer” means “the pineapple is calling” when written the wrong way. The correct way is “ananasringer” and it means “pineapple rings” (from a tin).

  • “Prinsesse pult i vinkel” means “a princess fucked at an angle”. The correct way to write it is “prinsessepult i vinkel”, and it means “an angeled princess desk” (a desk for children, obviously)

  • “Koke bøker” means “to cook books”. The correct way is “kokebøker” and means “cookbooks”

I see these kinds of mistakes everywhere!

  • Gork@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Ambiguously used words like “biweekly”. Does it mean twice per week? Every other week? Business meeting calendar scheduling terminology is especially bad with this.

    Odd phrases like you can chop the tree down. Then but then you proceed to chop that same tree up.

  • U+1F914 🤔@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    How numbers are pronounced.
    In German the number 185 is pronounced as “hundred-five-and-eighty” (hundertfünfundachtzig), the digits are not spoken in order of their magnitude.
    Not terrible, not great.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      be the change you want to see, all young germans should start saying numbers sensibly and call anyone who does it the old way a boomer

    • Pea666@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Same thing for Dutch. For example, when we see 74 we pronounce it as four and seventy (vierenzeventig) and it makes no sense.

      I guess it’s a Germanic language thing.

      • akafester@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is the same in Danish, but weirdly not in Swedish.

        We say four-seventy for 74, and hundred-four-seventy for 174. But the swedes does it like the English. Don’t know about Norwegian though. Maybe OP can provide me with some new knowledge.

        • guyrocket@kbin.social
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          French: 80 is four twenties (“Quatre-vingt”)

          Edit: not four tens, four twenties. I can’t count in any language, dammit!

          • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            And 90 - 99 are even worse, in that they are basically eighty-ten, eighty-eleven, etc.

            Makes zero sense to my English speaking mind

            • Bangs42@reddthat.com
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              Oh, it’s worse than that.

              80 is basically four-twenties. 17, 18, and 19 are basically ten-seven, ten-eight, and ten-9. Which makes 97, 98, and 99 four-twenties-ten-seven, four-twenties-ten-eight, and four-twenties-ten-nine.

        • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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          I remember reading that one of the Scandinavian languages had a specific (successful) governmental policy to change from German-like numbers to English-like ones. I don’t remember which of them it was.

        • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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          It depens on age and/or dialect. My dialect is from the middle of Norway (trøndersk), and I say 74 as “fir’å søtti”. Other parts of Norway may say “søtti fire”. Luckily we do not do the weird danish numbers.

      • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        It depends on how old you are here. If you say “fir’å søtti”, you are at least in your 70s. If you say “søttifire”, you are not 70 but younger.

        And, to cause a bit more confusion, it also depends on your dialect, and if your dialect is the cause, your age isn’t. Easy.

  • Xariphon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It’s not so much a feature of English as it is a recurring bug in the way people use the language…

    If you write “of” instead of “have” or “'ve” you need to be taken out back and beaten with a dictionary, preferably until you can apologize to your ancestors in person for the effort they wasted in passing down the English language to you.

    Incidentally, when did people start saying “on accident”? It’s by accident! Has been for ages! Why this? Why now? I hate it.

    With that out of the way… English isn’t a language, it’s five dialects in a trenchcoat mugging other languages in a dark alley for their loose grammar.

    Edit: With regards to OP, “a cookbook” and “to cook the books” are similar phrases in English, too, but have, eh, wildly different meanings. XD

    • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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      “of” in place of “have” certainly had to come from people mishearing/misunderstanding “ve.” There’s no other explanation.

      The accident one is funny. I had to really think about when I’d use “on”, and it’s when I say something like: “he did it on accident.” Which is wrong when I think about it, but I know I’ve said this countless times. I can only guess it grew from “an accident” like “it was an accident.”

      Even though "on"and “by” are the same length, “by” sounds like it takes too much effort to say. How weird.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      Prepositions are so arbitrary. So it’s really stupid to be so angry about “on accident”. But I can’t help it.

  • EvilHaitianEatingYourCat@lemmy.world
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    In French they fucking have the same word for “no more” and “more”, and only differs in pronounciation of the last letter:

    “J’ai plus de pommes” pronounced as “j’ai plu de pommes” means “I have no more apples” (nobody says the “ne” particle)

    “J’ai plus de pommes (que toi)” pronounced as “j’ai plus de pommes (que toi)” means “I have more apples (than you)”

    Which is even worse because usually last letter is not pronounced, so that makes it an exception to the rule

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In some Caribbean Englishes, the pronunciations of the words “can” and “can’t”, which are opposites, differ only in vowel length: kyan, kyaan.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      So does that mean you can’t tell them apart in writing? Or in writing would that “ne particle” you mention be there?

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      Now try “I have more apples in my car” and “I don’t have more apples on my car”.

      Sounds like the people who try to keep french pure and proper should focus more on the ‘ne’.

  • creamed_eels@toast.ooo
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    Not my native language, but the one I speak the most is (American) English.

    So many homophones-words that sound the same but are different in meaning or spelling such as knight/night, altar/alter, ail/ale, isle/aisle/I’ll.

    Also homographs-words with same spelling but different meaning and/or pronunciation like minute, bass, capital, wind, moped.

    So confusing for people trying to learn English and also for people that actually speak it

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      I can’t speak for all native English speakers, but in my experience we’re very accepting of imperfect grammar from non-native speakers because we know how crazy this language is.

    • Lando_@lemmy.world
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      Homographs are just cruel. As a native english speaker, it’s like… bullying for someone trying to learn the language. Read vs. Read - evil.

    • marron12@lemmy.world
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      It can be pretty confounding, the words that look the same but are pronounced differently. Through, though, thorough, tough, trough.

      There are no rules, you just have to learn it. And it could be confusing if you mix them up. Through and throw, for example.

      English has never had a spelling reform, but you can see the “real” spelling in informal language sometimes. Through = thru (in texts and chats). Tough = tuff (in slang and brand names).

    • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      English person: “What’s your name?”

      Norwegian person: “Knut”

      English person: “Nnuut?”

      Norwegian person: “Kno 😢”

  • MrBakedBeansOnToast@lemmy.world
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    The four cases. Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Akkusative with their accompanying articles. It makes learning German as a second language a nightmare and even native speakers struggle with it a lot.

    • jmchrist@lemmy.world
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      Ah man, I think cases are great! I learned Russian in college, which has six cases, and they can be used to express so much with so little. English used to have them, you can see remnants in the apostrophe ‘s’ when denoting possession, and I’m bummed they went away.

      I’ll give it to you that they’re a pain in the ass to learn, but once you get the hang of them I think they’re super neat!

      Edit: they also allow for variable sentence structure which can be super fun and, again, express a lot of meaning just through text (at least in Russian, not sure if that’s the case in German).

      • marron12@lemmy.world
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        If the R is giving you trouble, you might try starting with a CH like in “Buch.”

        Start with “Brot” but add an extra vowel, so it’s like Bo-chot. Try to reduce the air flow to almost zero when you say the CH. You should end up with an R sound.

        You could do a trilled R too if that’s easier. People will understand you fine. The vowels are way more important to get right.

      • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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        “Lærerinne” in norwegian, but only if you’re extremely old. Gendered language to is not that much used any more. “Teacher” is used for both male and female

    • swordfish@programming.dev
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      Ha! We got 7 cases. The poor expats struggle learning Czech is real. I know only a few that speak on a decent level. Great respect for them.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    What I hate about English is what I love about English. The spelling.

    I hate that it’s an impossible system to teach in any logical way. No child can sound out common words like “once”.

    But I love that the ridiculous spelling of our words gives you a look into the history of the language. That it’s not just transliterations of the sounds, but letters in a pattern that holds more information than that.

  • BubblyMango@lemmy.wtf
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    Hebrew. I hate how everything is gendered. You cant communicate with a person without assuming his/her gender. You cant ask “how are you?” or “what is your name?” without using the other person’s gender. Its worse than spanish/italian. We have genders for verbs, our “you” is gendered, heck, NUMBERS have genders (two girls, two boys - you use a different word for two).

    Have you ever spoken to a person and werent sure about their gender? In hebrew you would be screwed.

        • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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          você, tu

          These pronouns adress the other person directly but the moment I have to ask or say something connected to said person I have to start using gendered words

          And numbers can be gendered.

          Two girls, two boys.

          Duas raparigas, dois rapazes.

          And things only get weirder from this point forward. It is possible to have a somewhat genderless conversation but it requires a good degree of effort and it is not a common form of speech.

    • Threeme2189@lemm.ee
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      You can kind of get around the gendered stuff sometimes.

      ‘How are you’ can be מה נשמע

      What’s your name can be איך השם

  • mongoosedadei@lemmy.world
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    My language is diglossic - it has a written form and a spoken form that are very different to each other. It’s quite difficult to understand the written form if you’ve only grown up speaking and listening to the language, as the written form is essentially the language as spoken in the 1600s.

    To compare it to English, it would be like saying “Where are you?” to someone over the phone, but then having to send them “Wherefore art thou?” as a text.

  • cabbagee@sopuli.xyz
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    “Do you mind …” has been mis-answered for so long that yes means no. It’s hard to explain because written down, yes/no have different meanings, but when speaking to someone it depends on tone, context, and body language.

    “Do you mind if I take that seat”

    “No” “Yeah” depending on tone can both mean, “I’m fine with you taking that seat”. Most people will add on to make the intention clearer like, “Yeah, go ahead” but not always. Absolutely crazy.

    • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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      Norwegian is easier. If you see a vacant seat, you don’t use it because sitting next to some one is what psychopaths do. You’re not a psychopath, are you?

      • Psythik@lemm.ee
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        In these situations, when people say “take that seat”, they usually mean it literally. As in take the seat with them and use it at the table they actually want to sit at.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      The problem is that “do you mind if” is really just an indirect way of saying “may I.” People often tend to reply to the actual meaning rather than the literal meaning.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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      Spelling and pronunciation were actually standardized and spelling technically still is. The problem is that the standardization is from a previous version of English with different pronunciation.

    • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldOP
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      Same as the norwegian “hjerne” and “gjerne”. They are pronouced the same, but the first is “brain” the secon is “yes, please”

      “Hjort” and “gjort”. Also pronounced the same, but the first one is “deer” and the second is “have done that”.

      Easy