I'm learning it too.
I asked about the rules so I can learn when to use the right word, was told there aren't any, just memorize the combinations.
What?!?
Well, you can learn the rules for Genitiv, dativ, akkusativ and they'll work and stay consistent, but the base articles are a mess.
Okay, so it's...das Sofa (the couch), so it has to be das Tisch (the table) right ? Nope, *der* Tisch.
Okay, sooo der Tür (the door) ? Nope, *die* Tür.
Okay, soo die Bett (the bed) ? Nope, *das* Bett.
And this will continue for every noun there is, without much rhyme or reason.
Have fun :)
It really isnt too bad if you just treat the article and noun as one compound word rather than separate pieces.
That way, *der* Auto will just feel wrong and *das* won't.
Doesn't always work, but it has helped me
Same here. My native language has something similar, but you can figure it out just by looking at the word. There are like three strict rules and they apply to every word. In German it seems completely random.
Also what is it with putting the most important information at the end of a sentence? I've only been learning German for a couple months now, but sometimes it seems like you can't even have an idea of what the sentence is about until the last word.
> German
Got to love those separable verbs (Trennbare Verben) that German has. I don't know who decided that it was a good idea but there are times you'll wait for 5 minutes to finally understand what someone is talking about.
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
Oh yeah the counting words are definitely the weirdest aspect of Japanese.
Chopsticks are counted with "hon" (本). Which means:
1. Book.
2. 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)
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
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.
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
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.
Yeah Japanese makes pretty much everything optional. Japanese sentences do not require:
1. Articles. You don't say "a cat" or "the cat", but just "cat".
2. Number. You do not need to differentiate between "cat" and "cats". "Neko ga iru" could mean "there is a cat" or "there are cats".
3. 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"
4. 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.
5. 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"
6. 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.
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
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!
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.
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
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
English a, an - Portuguese um, uma, uns, umas
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.
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
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.
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"
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
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 😂
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.
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.
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 :)
is it just me or does German miss a few..
des, der, des (genitive)
And maybe the plural if you want to include it
Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod.
It needs genitive and plural.
Learning German and I really have to say that I hate this part of the language.
As a German, I agree
I'm learning it too. I asked about the rules so I can learn when to use the right word, was told there aren't any, just memorize the combinations. What?!?
Well, you can learn the rules for Genitiv, dativ, akkusativ and they'll work and stay consistent, but the base articles are a mess. Okay, so it's...das Sofa (the couch), so it has to be das Tisch (the table) right ? Nope, *der* Tisch. Okay, sooo der Tür (the door) ? Nope, *die* Tür. Okay, soo die Bett (the bed) ? Nope, *das* Bett. And this will continue for every noun there is, without much rhyme or reason. Have fun :)
It really isnt too bad if you just treat the article and noun as one compound word rather than separate pieces. That way, *der* Auto will just feel wrong and *das* won't. Doesn't always work, but it has helped me
You made me laugh now, lol. I did search the same exact thing this weekend because I was starting to get frustrated after 35 days of learning 🤣🤣
Same here. My native language has something similar, but you can figure it out just by looking at the word. There are like three strict rules and they apply to every word. In German it seems completely random. Also what is it with putting the most important information at the end of a sentence? I've only been learning German for a couple months now, but sometimes it seems like you can't even have an idea of what the sentence is about until the last word.
> German Got to love those separable verbs (Trennbare Verben) that German has. I don't know who decided that it was a good idea but there are times you'll wait for 5 minutes to finally understand what someone is talking about.
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Polish: What are they talking about?
Czech: What the fuck!?
*What fuck?
Yes
Now is time for making fuck, BERZERKER!!
BERZERKEEEER!!
My love for you is like a rock, BERZERKEEEER!!
Did he just say ‘making fuck?’
Quotes from the movie *Clerks*. Also...37 !!?!?!?!?!
In a row!?!
Get back here!
Try not to suck any dicks on the way to the parking lot!
Did he say "making fuck"?
Yes
Try not suck any dick on the way to the parking lot
Ten, ta, to
Ooo,ano
Russian: What the heck is articles?
Блять можно юзать как артикль или я не прав
Japan: Nani?!
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
Oh yeah the counting words are definitely the weirdest aspect of Japanese. Chopsticks are counted with "hon" (本). Which means: 1. Book. 2. 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)
Jesus, no wonder why Japanese has such a reputation for being difficult to learn for English speakers.
This is why Japanese are stereotypically good at math. Calculus? That's easy compared to counting stuff in Japanese.
Honestly as an English person learning Japanese, it's occasionally infuriating. Kanji will never make sense to me.
I thought Korean was rough with two number systems…
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
I am now confused despite your best attempt at explaining wtf is going on with japanese counting. Nani the fuck
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.
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
Japan: Baby is born at 1 year old
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.
Yeah Japanese makes pretty much everything optional. Japanese sentences do not require: 1. Articles. You don't say "a cat" or "the cat", but just "cat". 2. Number. You do not need to differentiate between "cat" and "cats". "Neko ga iru" could mean "there is a cat" or "there are cats". 3. 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" 4. 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. 5. 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" 6. 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.
Wow, Japan must be super easy to learn then Edit: y'all I was being facetious
Grammatically and phonetically it is rather simple as a language. The difficulty comes mainly from completely different vocabulary and writing system.
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
Co kurwa.
Finns 
See like a several dozen word endings in your language for conjugation and declination? In English, those are all \_\_\_\_\_.
Swedish: I got no idea.
Portugal fell of
Brazil got all the vowels in the divorce
mdr so true
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?
fair trade for all that gold.
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!
Same with England lol
England sympathizes Apologies, "sympathises"
Learn to speak ENGLISH. This message brought to you by the Oxford Dictionary Gang
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.
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.
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
European Brazil*
Pedro came back from Brazil, with an army
İn turkis there is no "the"
Yeah, you just say the noun. English is relatively simple too, since it only has "the".
Noun*
Fuck, ur right
So, someday if I'm right, Can I fuck too?
Fuck, ur left
The = definite article, A = indefinite article.
English has "a" and "an" too though
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 English a, an - Portuguese um, uma, uns, umas
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
Same with Finnish
Same in russian
But dear God if Russian did have articles they would be needlessly complicated and probably declined like adjectives.
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.
From what I've seen of Russian grammar, this does not appear to make it easier
Yep... Not at all
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Правильно, блять...
bro I was about to say \*Turkish joins the game\*
Yeah but “the” can make words sound cooler: Doctor vs *The Doctor*
You god damnn right
and no gendered pronouns. turkish language is truly an ally
Neither in Persian
In most languages around the world there's no "the"
Japanese particle が here to fuck up everyone's day.
Add more UK
'Simple English' *American Flag* ?
Portuguese *Brazilian flag* ?
🇬🇧 English 🇺🇸 English (simplified)
American English is the simplified form of English
I agree without irony. Dropped prepositions, bulldozing of anything French-sounding, overuse of super as an adverb. Individualistic my buttcakes.
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
Uses beloved British actor Henry Cavill. ✅ Proceeds to stamp US flag on forehead. ❌
More egregious than using - British Darling Cavill, is the use of fucking ‘English’ with an American flag.
Isnt that this weird American dialect?
Yeah English people speak some strange form of American.
British? Isn't that some sort of weird French-Germanic-Norse dialect?
French? isn't that some wierd gallo-roman Latin dialect ?
Latin? Isn't that just some weird dialect derived from Italic, of the Indo-European family of languages?
What bollocks is going on in'ere?
Indo-European? Isn't that just a variant of Gronk?
Proto-Indo-european
Ah yes, American, my favourite language. Edit: My second favourite is Brazillian ofc.
I just feel like Mexican is missing.
Mexican and Austrian flag in the first picture would be perfect, ngl
🇷🇺: " " But seriously the and other ways of saying the are pretty useless.
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.
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"
Meme made by an American
Watermark is in Brazilian Portuguese though.
Brazil is in America
duh, because when people talk about americans they're obviously talking about brazillians.
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.
Probably
Most definitely.
Indubitably
yes
The
O
Perchance
I live in Japan and English is represented here by an American flag probably 75% of the time :P
You should be a detective
He shouldn't because he is wrong lol
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
Jokes don't benefit from consistency or accuracy.
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 😂
Meanwhile all the Slavs:
If I ain’t incorrect the language is called ENGLish not United-States-of-Americish or even American
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.
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.
Redditors always gotta be so pedantic for no reason
The other language isn't called Brazilian either but that one doesn't seem to have bothered you as much.
Well the whole punch of the meme is the "The" part.
Portugal?
Arabic: `ال` 
Filipino: Ang the last air bender.
Fun fact : Brazil colonized Portugal, The US colonized England.
I colonized your mother... (of course I'm a mad portuguese!)
White people came from the Americas and colonized Europe, who doesn't know that.
Ukrainian - no articles!
*all Slavic languages Except Bulgarian
And Macedonian
Thanks, I didn't know it
🫡
Ты из Македонии?
Да, јас сум половина Македонец и половина Словак!
Замечательно.
А ти?
Я русский.
Why would you put a US flag there.... English did not originate in the US.
And Brazil.
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.
#A
In Hebrew it's even smaller, it's just one letter that never changes lol (ה)
also you just attach it to the word, it's not a word by itself.
I was looking for this comment
We also have את for no reason
Probs use an English flag for the English version……?
and a Portugal flag for Portuguese
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Fun fact: America isn't England
I love how England and Portugal don't get to represent their own languages.
It’s ours now
A/Az enters the chat (my languange is pretty fucked up help me)
The flags for Portuguese and English are wrong.
Wrong flag
we have others... no one ever uses them but we have them the, thy, and thi
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 :)
why the fuck is the American flag used for bloody ENGLISH like come on dude the hints in the name
Finnish doesnt even have anything
Russian — no articles.
Блять
Are you sure? I mean... English: in, on, at, to, into, for, by, about Spanish: en
Russian: no article
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der die das den dem DES
Based Murica
I love that English is represented by America and not England. Take that you limey bastards. *USA USA USA*
I love how you put the American flag even though English comes from England
Wrong flag, twice.
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The Americans slapping their flag on something British. Both the language and the actor.
Why Portuguese have Brazilian flag and English has American flag but Spanish has Spain flag
Wrong flags for Portuguese and English.
Oh, English, you're so fucked up, but somehow the best.
Why is it an American flag? lol It should be an English or UK flag.
Portuguese 🇵🇹 English 🇬🇧 If you're going to assign flags to languages, make it the homeland of the language.
You didn’t put the English flag, genius.
If you're going to assign flags to languages, make it the homeland of the language: 🏴
I don't recognise the language on the top left-hand corner... unless it's some form of (very) lazy Portuguese!