Awesome Language

With its intuitive, immersive training method, Rosetta Stone will have you reading, writing, and speaking a new language in no time. Choose from Spanish, French, Italian, German, Mandarin, or Japanese, and save 33% in on a lifetime subscription in The Awesomer Shop.

With the right rhythm and melody, a good song can easily get stuck in your head. Earworms takes advantage of this phenomenon to help you learn another language. Choose from Spanish, Italian, German, or French lessons, and save 50% in The Awesomer Shop.

Did you know the phrase “balls to the wall” got its start as a term pilots used because their throttle controls had balls on the end of them? See, you already learned something today. Sam O’Nella Academy is here to school us on the etymology of a few other phrases as well.

The WT2 Plus is a pair of language translation earphones. In automatic mode, you and another person speak directly to each other by each wearing an earphone. It also has an ask mode that uses an app to translate what you’re saying to someone who doesn’t have the unit on.

Did you know that “doom” used to refer to a judgment handed down in court? John Green of Mental Floss schools us about 27 words we use today, and their very different meanings back in the day. We love how Elmer Fudd had an influence on our vocabulary.

When we were in Tokyo, we were fascinated that when we wanted some “vanilla ice cream,” we had to ask for “Baniraaisukurīmu.” Double Yolk looks at how Japan incorporates English words and deeper meanings into their language in some truly wonderful ways.

While certain words, objects, and even animals have similar traits, it turns out that they didn’t always evolve from the same origin, and sometimes just organically arrived at a similar point. MinuteEarth explains how likenesses between things aren’t always what they seem.

Mental Floss explores a bunch of tidbits and trivia about language, including some of the many quirks of English, how dictionaries work, and a serious polyglot – a man who claims to speak over fifty languages. That “whether” or “if” thing always trips us up.

It’s time for today’s dose of politically incorrect humor. This Is Barry presents a rundown of the complete English alphabet, as interpreted by folks in India. We’re so singing this instead of the old Alphabet Song from now on.

For those of us who primarily speak English, languages without Latin characters in them are generally pretty daunting to learn. But Sam Gellman shows us a way to understand basic concepts of the Korean alphabet in a snap. We already feel so much smarter.

YouTuber xidnaf presents two theories behind the origin of African American Vernacular English. More importantly he points out that it’s not “broken English”, but a dialect with a set of rules that are also found in other languages.

Mental Floss’ John Green takes a look at 43 words and terms that have made our way into our lexicon, after being made up by authors who decided think outside of the dictionary. That Samuel Taylor Coleridge sure was prolific.

With the help of Pleated Jeans, we now know the difference between a man eating chicken and a man-eating chicken, thanks to this amusing and educational grammar lesson.

You’d think that the English language had one of the more colorful vocabularies around, but after watching this clip from BuzzFeed, we really need to start making up some new words of our own. Thank goodness for Urban Dictionary.