full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John McWhorter: 4 reasons to learn a new language

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside ggrnoig cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and yares at a time.

Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mtuoh not some baker's dozen of vlwoes like English has, but a good 30 different vowels scoinchog and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.

Open Cloze


So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside _______ cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and _____ at a time.

Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my _____ not some baker's dozen of ______ like English has, but a good 30 different vowels _________ and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.

Solution


  1. scooching
  2. vowels
  3. years
  4. mouth
  5. gorging

Original Text


So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside gorging cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and years at a time.

Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mouth not some baker's dozen of vowels like English has, but a good 30 different vowels scooching and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
speak english 4
language channels 2
english speaker 2
speaks english 2
english language 2
awful lot 2
highly recommend 2


Important Words


  1. bees
  2. book
  3. cake
  4. cambodian
  5. cat
  6. chinese
  7. dick
  8. dozen
  9. eating
  10. english
  11. feels
  12. find
  13. fine
  14. good
  15. gorging
  16. hat
  17. hive
  18. imagine
  19. language
  20. learn
  21. learned
  22. mandarin
  23. master
  24. mistake
  25. mouth
  26. oozing
  27. phrase
  28. return
  29. roll
  30. scooching
  31. time
  32. tub
  33. vowels
  34. years