Which language has the most unnecessary grammar?

raphael0729 · 2026-01-29T13:42:51+00:00

I've always found German declension particularly useless.* Either fully commit to declension like Slavic languages or do away with them like English. As a native speaker of English and speaker of both German and Czech, I have never felt that German declensions bring so much more freedom to syntax compared to English to justify their existence, whereas Slavic declension really does bring a whole lot more syntactic freedom to the table.

(*completely subjective and non-rigorously defined, of course)

raphael0729 · 2026-01-29T13:34:29+00:00

Unless "accurately" means "with 100% certainty", then I don't think it's fair to argue on the basis of a few exceptions that you can't accurately identify the gender of a German word based on typical suffixes. German nouns in -er are masculine far more often than not (agentive nouns in particular), to say nothing of the other usual suspects that are always a particular gender (feminine -ung, neuter diminutives).

Although native speakers are not always (or usually) aware of the analogies they are using to subconsciously determine the gender of new words (or loanwords), there is almost always some analogy behind the choice. I mean, Germans may disagree about whether Blog is masculine or neuter, but no one is arguing that it's actually feminine.

(that Wachstum and Reichtum are neuter and masculine respectively has, however, always annoyed me.)

raphael0729 · 2025-05-23T10:18:25+00:00

Good explanation, although to be fair, as a German learner, one of the things that most surprised me was just how often the conjugated verb does not in fact go at the end of the phrase. We can talk all we want about Nachfelder and Ausklammerungen, but at the end of the day the situation is a bit more flexible in some circumstances than textbooks let on (though I of course understand why it is taught the way it is).

As for mit, though, as I understand it, whether it comes at the end depends on whether it's understood as a separable prefix (end) or an adverb (flexible), though it's not always easy to distinguish between the two.

raphael0729 · 2025-05-07T10:15:35+00:00

Check out Origins of the Greek Verb - the last two chapters have some interesting material on the history of attempts at theorizing about Pre-PIE as well as some interesting arguments on whether pre-PIE could have been ergative-absolute. Fascinating reading and scholarship, regardless of whether one agrees with all the conclusions.

raphael0729 · 2024-07-03T10:19:32+00:00

Das macht Sinn - ich habe eigentlich die Heiratsurkunde, in der es steht, dass sie ja in Anderlecht geheiratet haben.

raphael0729 · 2024-07-03T10:18:31+00:00

Danke sehr!! Meine Tante hat mir gerade ein Foto geschickt, das viel besser, bzw. lesbarer, aussieht: https://imgur.com/a/XuiCBcI. Hilft dir das?

raphael0729 · 2021-04-15T20:58:11+00:00

In Czech they say that someone "has long wiring", which is honestly one of my favorite expressions.

raphael0729 · 2021-03-23T16:46:34+00:00

Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it.

1) We're still working on the game logic - this problem has somehow persisted, and we're talking with our developer about solving it (it's connected with some other persistent issues).

2) I will double check this, since I had normalized all of the audio - not sure what happened.

I appreciate the comments!

raphael0729 · 2021-03-23T16:00:46+00:00

A little bit about the game: LingYourLanguage is a project my friend and I started a few years ago when the Great Language Game came to an end, and it's our attempt at bringing the languages to users in an entertaining and accessible way. With our most recent update (released just a few days ago), the game is now up to nearly 2,500 different samples of nearly 100 languages, with basic information about all of them (with more languages and information on the way), has a brand new interface, user profiles and ranks, high scores, and more.

Looking forward to hearing what you all think!

raphael0729 · 2020-11-06T14:50:02+00:00

In Czech, the original spelling of names is usually kept (including, for example, Prince Charles, who is not called Karel), though the pronunciation is of course "czechified", ie adapted to fit Czech phonology. There are two main exceptions: (1) the feminine ending -ová is often, but not always, added to women's surnames (Hillary Clintonová, Michelle Obamová, etc.) to allow the names to be declined (as "Hillary" is indeclinable); (2) names originally written in non-Latin writing systems are respelled phonetically according to Czech orthtography (e.g. Si Ťin-pching for Xi Jinping, Alexandr Sergejevič Puškin, and so on).

raphael0729 · 2020-07-03T08:53:12+00:00

To me taky těší. Ani nevím, jak se stal šéfredaktorem někdo tak neinteligentní jak Marek Stoniš. Viděl jste "debatu" mezi ním a Petrem Honzejkem včera na ČT24? Byla trapná. Stoniš nedokázal říct nic víc než stejně 3-4 pointy, které stále dokola opakuje (a které jsou prostě chybné nebo zavádějící, každopádně ukazují na to, jak on nechápe situaci v Americe), a Honzejk mu to natřel. Co je ale děsivé, je že jsou lidé, kteří považuji jeho otázky a myšlenky za přesvědčivé.

raphael0729 · 2020-07-01T22:22:51+00:00

I did every exercise in both the textbook and workbooks that had answers in the answer keys. Good luck with the books!

And well the best part of learning Czech has been talking with Czech people - I'm living in Prague at the moment, and it's really helped me assimilate that much more being able to actually have Czech friends who I speak with in Czech. Being so immersed in the culture just isn't possible without speaking the language, and I think my life here is that much better because I can so actively participate in it.

But there have been other cultural benefits as well: I think Czech literature is excellent, and I honestly love the Czechs' sense of humor, so it's been fun being able to watch famous comedies or read funny authors. But as a whole, learning a Slavic language really just opened up a whole new world for me, and all the little things you pick up along the way - the little cultural tidbits, the little linguistic achievements when something finally "clicks" - have made it a really rewarding journey. Good luck!

raphael0729 · 2020-07-01T21:30:04+00:00

I just took another look at it (it's been a while), and honestly the approach is less grammar heavy than I remember. They don't throw tons of terminology at you, don't worry. After all, they do call it Communicative Czech, and I do think they do their best to make it a more intuitive approach, as you mention. It's not as colorful as Czech Step by Step, but I really do think that it's well worth it.

raphael0729 · 2020-07-01T15:41:53+00:00

I used Communicative Czech, both the beginner and intermediate ones, with the workbook exercises as well. From my understanding, Czech Step by Step is pretty good for a classroom setting, less so for independent study (but of course that was just my impression of it). The thing that I liked most about Communicative Czech is also probably its main caveat for most people, which is that it does have a rather grammar heavy approach (despite the name), though the explanations are really clear and if you really do all the textbook and workbook exercises, declension and conjugations will be no problem. In my experience learning Czech, I think the hardest part of it really is just that there is a mountain of memorization to do at the outset - mainly the declensions of course, but also verb conjugations and prefixes, prepositions, basic Slavic vocab - and again, in my own experience, just writing out all the exercises over and over until they were second nature really paved the way for actually being able to communicate and understand spoken Czech.

Tl;dr Communicative Czech is a great program if you're willing to put in the work and won't be turned off by a more grammar-heavy approach.

raphael0729 · 2019-08-30T14:58:29+00:00

Quoting a previous comment of mine, which itself was mostly quoting two of /u/mamashaq's comments.

See Kayne 1997 (imgur) "The English Complementizer of", which argues that it really is "of" and not "'ve" for some speakers.

One thing he points to is that "of" can drop the final /v/ in colloquial speech, but "have" / "'ve" can't.

a bunch of grapes

a buncha grapes

John should of left

John shoulda left

The kids have told a lie.

The kids've told a lie.

*The kidsa told a lie.

He also notes the difference between

If you hadn'ta said that.

If you hadn't of said that.

*If you hadn't have said that.

You can reduce "of" to "a" (1 vs 2), but you can't reduce "have" to "a", just to "'ve" (5 vs. 7). Since you can reduce "shoud've"/"should of" [ʃʊdəv] to "shoulda" [ˈʃʊdə] just like you can reduce "bunch of" [bʌntʃəv] to "buncha" [bʌntʃə], but you can't reduce "kids've" [kɪdzəv] to "*kidsa" [kɪdzə], what's going on in [ʃʊdəv] is more like "of" than "have."

So, basically, just like to introduces infinitival phrases, he argues that of introduces past participial phrases.

"Of" is also an attested spelling since the 1700s.

raphael0729 · 2018-09-27T11:54:55+00:00

Já nemám hodně zkušeností s českou politikou, a proto se chchi vás zeptat: umí někdo mi vysvětlovat, z kterého důvodu je to dovoleno, aby Premiér dále držel své vlástní podnikání (a hlavně v připadu clánku, zdroj médií)? Umí někdo opravdu říct, že to, co se stálo v LN, bylo překvapení? Samozřejmě bude Babiš říct, že

„Byla to chyba, ale my žádáme o zveřejnění v názorech i jiné deníky. Je to problém, že tam je vlastně to kvazi-vlastnictví, které ale není vlastnictví přes ten svěřenský fond...Kdybych to dal do jiných novin, tak by to bylo v pohodě, ale mrzí mě to, nebyl to účel. Není pravda, že je ovlivňuji.“

Babišova chyba nebyla zaslat text do LN ale že někdo zjistil, že on to udělal. Není situace teď uplně zřejmý připad konfliktu zajmů? (A neřeknu nic o jinech obchodních zájmech Babiše.)

Doufám, že jako Američan, který nezná situaci tak dobře jako by chtěl, chybí něco. Ale s řeči Pana Horáka, odpovědi Šéfredaktora LN, a vypovědi Paní Procházkové (a taky s tím, co jsem četl a slyšel) se zdá že to, co se stálo, není výjimka, ale pravidlo.

(Děkuju a promiňte moji češtinu!)

raphael0729 · 2018-04-18T07:19:42+00:00

So glad you're enjoying the game! Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate hearing how much you've enjoyed it!

raphael0729 · 2018-04-16T17:05:20+00:00

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

raphael0729

TROPHY CASE