The Language That Baffles Each Country
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Languages are complex and fascinating, often leading people to describe unfamiliar ones as perplexing or incomprehensible. There's a popular idiom in English, "it's all Greek to me," used to convey confusion, as if something were as challenging as understanding the Greek language. Interestingly, many cultures have similar idioms, but the language of reference changes. For example, in France, they might say "it's Chinese to me," expressing the same sentiment. In Italy, it's "Arabic," and in Greece, they turn the tables by saying, "it's Chinese." These idioms don't reflect the true complexity of a language but rather its perceived foreignness to another culture. Each culture has its own 'mysterious' language, a testament to our shared human experience of feeling baffled by the unfamiliar. This phenomenon showcases how cultures perceive each other and highlights the shared human experience of navigating linguistic diversity.
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I like how Mandarin is so hard to learn that their analogies involve ghost and animals, like the the only way to get a harder language is the switch realms. 😂
HAHAHA you're right 😂🤣😂🤣
Ghost is often used as slang for white people
@@wrestleroni Chinese folk religions and mythologies are very spiritual. Ghosts and hauntings have existed long before the colonial age. It's far too general a term to use for a specific group of people, not without other words attached to them. So no, "ghost" here isn't referring to white people.
Mandarin is a boogeyman to western speakers, but is actually very simple. It's just that our mouths aren't used to making the type of sounds they use and it's so lyrical that people struggle if they have a monotone voice (I know I did!).
It doesn't conjugate verbs or use articles, so compare it with English with multiple verb types, irregular verbs, etc. and it's so much easier to learn.
@@hey_thatsmyname I tried Spanish and the conjugations were a nightmare to memorise hahahaha
In Egypt when something is confusing we say is that Hieroglyphics 😂
We say it in Italy too, but it’s very cool that even Egyptians themselves say it lmao
@@mauropuglia7991nice too know 😂
@@mauropuglia7991 where
Now your just lying we don't say that at all
@@yousseyplayz لا بنقول
One of my favorite English expressions is when someone says something crude to follow up with, "Pardon my French."
Same in Russian!
Same in Italy!
I’m starting to think some people perceive the french as being rude…
@@bruhbruh-us6glFrench humour will seem to foreigner a bit rude.
As a romanian, I can confirm we often use Chinese as a stereotype for a confusing language too. For example, you are more likely to hear someone say "Zici că e chineză" (Looks like Chinese) than something related to Turkish. In fact, "Eşti turc?" is actually used as an insult, meaning that you don't understand something that feels obvious.
I was gonna say… “Esti turc?” (Are you turkish?) is closer to “are you stupid?” hahaha😅 (I guess it is our vengeance for history lmao)
romanians still pressed oh damn
@@i.n8826 im turkish...
GERMANY IS ROMANIAN?!
"Are you turkish?" could possibly be one of the most insulting things a romanian can say to you lol
In German we also refer to Chinese for incomprehensible language.
If we don't understand something it sounds like 'Bohemian Villages'
And the classic: If you stand, slightly confused in front of the Drill Seargent: "DO I SPEAK SWAHALI?"
You forgot the most important one "I only understand train station."
As a Danish person, I have never heard anyone actually say that.
Well, then you should probably educate yourself. "En by i Rusland" is a common phrase for something that is very weird or strange. It's just not limited to being used to describing something undecipherable.
I feel like it is more common to say "det er ren volapyk" (it is pure Volapük). I like throwing shade at a constructed languages.
As a Dane I hear it all the time, I don’t get how you’ve missed this one so far
For det meste bruges det som et sarkastisk svar, fx;
- Hvad er høflighed?
- En by i Rusland
Ni pratar ju fan ett hittepåspråk såklart du inte hör orden
When you speak a language so hard you can't even mock other languages😭
fr imagine being so complicated you have to move onto a different species 😭😭
1000th like
"no human language could baffle me so"
Me: Okay, I AM SURE THERE IS PATTERN IN THESE LINES, ALL I HAVE DO IS FOLLOW THE LINES
Try lithuanian it took me 5 years to learn and not fully
In Latin America, Chinese is the go to when we have no clue what the other person is going on about 😂😂
En Cuba decimos que hablan en chino también, pero si queremos amplificar la idea de que no se entiende añadimos árabe saharaui.
O sea, podrías decirle a alguien
Tu no me entiendes o es que yo hablo chino o en árabe saharaui?
Y lo mejor es q pronunciamos "sajarawí" 😂😂
@@FrankMuina_cu ah mira vos 😂 gracias por el detalle bro
Yep, can confirm in Peru it's also some version "estas hablando Chino?"
En españa tb lo decimos, pero eso pir alguna razón tb decimos de todos los idiomas "sueco". Pq sueco? No c.
En Brazil decimos "tá falando grego?", referindo a la lengua de los gregos, no sé por cual razón.
I’m Turkish it is also Arabic the saying goes “ if I understood that I’d be Arabic”
We also have "i am french to this subject"
@@aet5228so you say that you gave up at it?
@@BluePixel-4544 it means : i am far to understand this
“Anladıysam arap oliyim”
We also use, "u speek Chinese or something?"
I love that chinese is so complicated that they don't even turn to another language when something is confusing, they just ask if someone is speaking bird lmfao
Dialects can be so far apart in Chinese that a foreign language can be feasibly confused with a removed dialect of actual Chinese.
Theres actually a lot of like 'sub languages' in Chinese other then just Mando and Canto, and the pronunciation changes depending where your from or what you grew up lesnring
Probably because China is so old lol
To be fair that’s true for a lot of countries.
“Bird language” is actually a way ppl describe Cantonese in China, “The More You Know”
as a bird, i can approve that we ask “are you speaking human?” when we don’t understand something
you arent a bird a real bird would say birb
@@Rarkssyou aren’t a birb, only a birb would say birb.
@@iscrampad2194 sorry i failed the birb masters
you look more like a capybara to me tbh but you do you ig 🫡
Sir or madam or whatever… you appear to be a capybara
I’m a Iranian-Canadian and I thank you for using our pre-1979 flag. Because literally every country info channel uses the modern flag that represents the bloody totalitarian dictatorship.
i knoww!!! i love seeing the shir-o khorshid flag, it has so much history behind it :))
German is a fun mix too.
If you don't understand something, you say "I only understand train station".
For when someone doesn't understand something you said, you ask "Am I asking Chinese?"
And when something doesn't sound right and you're suspicious, you say "This seems Spanish to me."
isnt it "am i speaking chinese" or ist that an austrian thing?
@@mariosoadfan no, it's speaking.
I just got tangled up in the writing
I'm finnish, and our word for "gibberish" is "pig's german". Idk when, why or how that started lol. And if we don't understand something, its "hebrew" to us.
@@Fireworker2Klikewise, in the reading. My brain just read the correct word. 😅
@@mariosoadfan"am I speaking chinese?" is more Russian things. I heard a lot of parents/teachers using this phrase when speaking to kid and he doesn't understand.
"Is that a town in Russia?" LMAO I'm stealing that.
Me too lol
Well, it's not what it means in Danish. Like so many others, we use Chinese as the unintelligible language of choice.
"That's a town in Russia" means something like "you can forget about that".
@@KlipsenTube This whole video is just a fun stereotyping experiment of sorts. In Russia you can say any of the above, I would imagine It's probably the same for any other language as well. If it sounds Chinese, you say that it's Chinese, or Arabic or Estonian , or Bird language, or are you high etc etc. Depends on the context.
I’m Danish and I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone mention “Chinese” as the go-to for confusing words. In my experience people usually say it’s “volapyk” (trans: “made up nonsense language”)
Same
In Polish we say "mowie po chinsku?" Which means "do i speak chinese?" when we ask if we are not understood by the person we speak to
same! in Bangla our teachers sometimes scold us by saying "ami to chinese bhasha boli nai" aka "I didn't speak in chinese, did i?"
Same applies to German (Do I speak chinese?). We also use "kommt mir Spanisch vor" (It all seems spanish to me) as something confusing or foreign.
Same in Hebrew
In czech we usually use "mluv česky"... "speak czech". For example when we are hearing our health check we us it cuz they use latin so it make sance. Bit it depends on situation. We also use "je to pro mě španělská vesnice"... "it's Spanish village for me".
Hier, sprech ich denn Chinesisch oder was!?
German is pretty funny too. They say “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” which literally means “I only understand train station”
Petition to make "are you speaking birds" an actual phrase
At least Siegfried knows birdish...
in northern part of turkey some people talk with whistles, they refer this as bird language
Itawis language?
SpongeBob already gave us that phrase. "Sorry, I don't speak Italian"
“Chicken scratch” is already a term
In Japanese, people say “What’s that? Is it tasty?”
Lol Germans say something similar depending on the situation
"Punctuality? Can you eat that?"
@@shadowserenity1879 we say " what's that, is it edible?" in England too 😂😂 we also say "are you speaking double dutch?" 😂 or "you're talking irish, start again". 😂
@@braddo7270
As an English speaker from the U.S., I find all three of those tidbits very interesting!
Lmao in spanish we do that too, we say "que es eso? Se come?" Literally whats that? Can you eat it?
So, they literally made the "can I eat it" meme.
"Bro is speaking Enchantment Table 💀"
The us way to say it
Oh yeah, I love this one
The gen z way
The gamer way
That’s the internets language
As a romanian we use both turkish and chinese as examples
Can confirm 👍👍👍
why turkish tho?
@@gzdeelms probably because of the ottoman empire
@@gzdeelms romanians and turks don't get along and have a history of occupation and culture mixing so its used as an insult againt the turkish gibberish language
in arabic, my mom would always say “what, am I speaking sanskrit?” and it took me so long to realize that’s a real language
Yeah we Arabs say that for Chinese and Hindi too
why stereotype Hindi & Sanskrit, they’re beautiful languages 😭😭
@@mrleastlol It’s not about whether they’re beautiful or not, it’s just that they’re completely incomprehensible and foreign as opposed to other languages in the region like Persian or Turkish.
@@mrleastlol Did you even watch the video? He literally explains why people do this
@@hadialabrash1845 well persian and sanskrit have same origins
Here in Finland we say ”It’s all hebrew to me”.
To the rest of the world, hebrew probably ain’t much harder than finnish tho
You forgot to mention that now a days its about as common to say it's pigs German (darn typos while writing on phone had to edit this upon noticing...)
Yes its yrue
Cool. in Hebrew we say "Chinese", but imagine if it was finnish 😮
@@flowapowa4307 Might as well be! Our languages are worlds apart in grammar, sentence structure and phonetics.
It is harder. (At least for me 😅)
The "bird language" thing could be that 鸟 can also mean penis in Mandarin, kinda like cock in English. So "what bird language are you speaking" is essentially "what the fuck language are you speaking"
😂😂😂
Bro what? Good to know👍🏻
Yeah however I'm not sure anyone uses it like that 😆
True
@@DinoBryce Idk, I think the vulgar part of the meaning did in fact become weaker and weaker overtime, but the phrase as whole lived to the day.
Though I do believe many people know this other mean of 鸟 as I trivia lol
In Turkish, people usually say "It's French to me" or if there's a conversation about a topic they don't really know they say "I'm a little French to the topic" Benefits of trips to Istanbul also comes with helpful friends
We usually say a line about being "Arabic" instead, but there is a line like that for sure :)
Arapça demiomuyuz ya
Ama konuya fransız kaldım demekte var doru
@@uga6160 internette iki defa duydum ama kimseyi bunu söylerken duymadım biraz tuhaf geldi açıkçası :D
@@dreamcanfound7999nasıl desem gündelik hayatta çok duyacağın bir cümle değil "Konuya Fransız kaldım." sosyete bir havası var. Ama anladıysam Arap olayım veya Çince mi konuşuyorum? 'u duyarsın.
In Hungary we also say “Are you speaking Chinese?” but when somebody’s cursing we go “Don’t speak German/French to me!”
In english we sometimes say "pardon my french" after cursing.
In Greece too we say something along the lines of "he started speaking French" when someone curses
As a french speaker I find it absolutely funny. ^^
We usually just say "c'est du chinois" ("that's chinese"). But when someone speaks german, we can also say "à tes souhaits" ("bless you").
Kinda funny how German's the one for swearing when Hungary's old pal Austria is literally right next door
@@Helios8170 You do know that Austria speaks German,right?
A video on the equivalents for illegible handwriting might be fun. "Chicken scratch" is the common one in my area of the English-speaking world. In my family, we describe my dad's handwriting as "written by a seismograph" and my brother's as a "tap dancing spider".
In Norwegian, illegible handwriting is often called "crow-toes" (kråketær)
people normally say I write hieroglyphs (I'm brazilian)
Love tap dancing spider!!!
I remember indonesian is using similar term "cakar ayam".
Doctor’s penmanship.
In Czech Republic we say ,,that’s a spanish village to me”
Same for Sovakia. And almost same as Germans.
Es gibt im Deutschen auch die "böhmischen Dörfer" = czech villages.
XD I’m Spanish and there are some weird sounding places but 😅
I once met a Czech who belittled the Spanish, my people, so I mocked his puny country for being almost insignificant in influence and glory. The black legend pervades the world.
@@SiGa-i1r Ok, I respect that you didn’t like when he mocked your country and your people but that doesn’t mean you should mock our country. We, for example were very important during Middle Ages. When communists came to our country, our progress became to slow down very quickly and I think that’s the reason why we are now not so important or significant to many people. Finally, I want to say, be the bigger person, when somebody’s mocking your country, I understand it’s hard to not mock his country too, but it’s not right solution.
Danes have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT throwing shade to any other language.
"Is that a bird language?"
The etymologynerd channel: "Makes sense to me."
Chinese people: 什么鸟话
This is so fax tho
It feels so weird when people reference other channels I watch 😂😂
More like the etymologybird channel
Funnily enough, ancient Filipinos thought Chinese people were speaking kind of like birds cuz they're pitchy and sing-songy lol.
I love that the Chinese response is, 'Well, if I don't understand it, it must've been written by ghosts'
I'm not sure about the "bird language" but I'm pretty sure ghost is somewhat derogatory slang towards white skinned westerners.
@@scruffydarealog2632 I'm pretty sure you're refering to 鬼子, which... has nothing to do with the 鬼 used in this context.
And that derogatory term is not even based on skin color, but targeted to all foreigners, usually invaders, which most recently is commonly used when referring to Japanese during WWII. Under this context, the term's meaning is closer to 'devil' or 'ghoul' of western culture rather than the spiritual ghosts mentioned here.
@@scruffydarealog2632not really, it’s correct translation is “a ghost drawing a talisman”. If you’ve seen some Chinese ghost movies there’s always a Taoist or priest who has these yellow slips of paper with red symbols on it? Those are ghost warding talismans. Basically the phrase is referring to those. Not a decretory name for westerners. (Btw also the reason why westerners are called “gwai lo” is because they came from the west and in Chinese beliefs, the west is where the land of the dead is)
In Malaysia, you might hear us say “natang apa tu?”, a colloquial way of saying “What animal is that?” 😂
in terms of writing Malaysian says "cakar ayam" what it mean is the scribble that chicken do with its feet on the ground.
@@fymalesame thing with Indonesian, but with Javanese influence, it becomes "ceker ayam" instead; still describes bad handwriting. Example sentence: tulisanmu koyok ceker ayam = your handwriting is like chicken feet
Lol, but I do remember some Malaysians kinda use other people's languages, like "Kau cakap Cina/Tamil/Arab/Jawa ke?" if they can't understand you
@@SiPakRubah I've never heard anyone say these phrasea except online, but I think those people might be genuinely asking because that's thebonly context ive seen it used sob
Normally people would say “merapu” or “merepek” which is literally gibberish like “kau merepek apa ni?” Or “boleh tak jgn cakap merapu?” But other times, although this is frowned upon because of the negative connotation but you’ll hear people will sometimes use “cakap keling” or “cakap macam keling” but that is mostly when what people is saying don’t make sense or keep changing their statements
Never heard the phrase “it’s all Greek to me”, but I have heard and used phrases like “are you speaking Chinese?”
Completely agree.
French people have it two ways: we react to a strange word or name with "bless you" as if the person uttering that word just sneezed 🤧. And if we encounter a sentence that's too hard to understand we just say it sounds like Chinese.
that exists in english too, "gesundheit", like it's a sneeze
In Turkey we say "I'm French on the topic." to emphasize it's strange to us.
We also have the saying "Parler comme une vache espagnole" ("Speaking like a Spanish cow")
Sure but "parler comme une vache espagnole" is used for someone who speaks another language badly
中文真的很難嗎？
In the UK you'll occasionally hear someone say "Am I speaking Swahili?" if they're not being listened to/understood
In México some people use "Am I speaking Chinese or what?" the same way
in germany we say "sach ma, sprech ich spanisch oder was??" which, translated word by word, would mean "tell me, do i speak spanish or what??". "sach ma" is a rough version of "sag mal" but it's used to express being offended in this context instead of asking someone to tell them something. funny to see how much languages have in common tho
I'm not surprised since they used to be colonial cunts.
Another one that's not place specific is gobultygoop
In ireland we commonly say "you'd swear I was speaking chinese".
in finnish we say ”it’s all hebrew”
Also if we cant understand something it's pigs german
@@nimimerkillineni think pigs German usually means closer to something completely made up.
Kinda like the song Ameno.
@@henkkahenrik4183 both I guess 🤔
In Hebrew we say Chinese
@@lior_shibolithat we do
In Egypt when someone don't understand us some people say "I don't speak Chinese!" In Arabic "أنا مش بتكلم صيني!" And some people say "I don't speak Hieroglyphic!" In Arabic "أنا مش بتكلم هيروغليفي!" Even though Hieroglyphic is a writing way not a language but because it's an unusual thing to see or hear as it's ancient
In Danish we would also say "That is pure Volapük". Volapük was a conlang that died out fairly quickly.
Well we still use the frase, det kan lige så godt være en by i rusland, if it dossent matter to you, det er græsk katolsk.
And what is a company?
@@ozdoitsfirma
Volapyk is used a lot in the Faroe Islands. Town in Russia is also used here.
@@HeriEystberg the faroe Island are danish, we granted Them independence
My favorite response to when someone says something you don't understand is a quick, concise, "gesundheit."
Does that mean it sounds like a sneeze...?
@@animarul6149yes
@@animarul6149I use Gesundheit too and to me it's more like: the only good explanation for whatever nonsense the other person just said is that they're sick (usually either because the claim was completely outlandish or because I have never heard the word(s) before). it also works pretty well at prompting the other person to repeat themselves in one word without having to resort to "hä".
I like responding "what'd you just call me?" as if what they said was some kind of foreign insult
Momento mori
In French we also say "stop speaking chinese to me" it even appears in cartoons like the French dub of Spongebob
In the Philippines it's the same if can't understand what you are saying we will say it's all chinese to me
汉语漂亮的语言😡😡😡
We say "Fransız kaldım" in Turkish if we don't understand what say. Fransız kaldım means like I became French
@@mehmetaliergun7749 Avrupa'da büyümüş bir türk olarak hayatımda hiç duymamıştım bunu
It's the same in Russian
As an american i can confirm, i have literally never heard someone say "It's all greek to me" Before. Its always just been "huh?" Or "what was that?"
Genz 😅
In danish, "it's a town in Russia" is a way to sarcastically imply that something is not done or unknown to another person, like saying "for politicians, abiding the law is a city in Russia". Usually, if we don't understand something, we say that it's pure Volapük
As a Russian, I don’t get it.
As a Russian, I get it
Or black speech (det er sort snak)
@@mikkellh95the in language is It's black talk when translated
Oh that’s funny, my mom uses “Volapük” also but we’re French and i’ve never heard anyone else use it.
In Germany, we say “I only understand train station.”
👌
German student here😂😂 I've enjoyed reading this!
Or bohemian villages
In the Netherlands
Hieroglyphs get used if something is unreable
My handwriting is bad and I hear”that looks like f*cking hieroglyphs to be honest”
All the time
Sounds spanish to me 👀
In Japan, when someone says a joke that doesn’t make sense or isn’t funny, they call it an American Joke
hahahaha fucking perfect!
- korega amerikanjouku desu.
- naruhodo.
✈️🏢🏢
As an American this is fucking hilarious to me
@@jenlifh2871 that wasn’t even Japan🤷♂️
In Pakistan they say, "are you speaking farsi" or sometimes even pashto which is funny because some people actually understand pashto
Im a Pakistani and i made the same comment...that we use farsi when we dont understand anything... Though im a Baloch and its kinda similar to farsi but its a Pakistani thing
"is that a town in Russia?"
Damn, the Danish got some humour
wow you repeated the thing he said in the video
That’s not actually what we say tho, either we call it “volapyk” which basically means gibberish, or we call it Chinese… never have I heard of someone call it a Russian town
@@gustavweimann3002It is a saying here in Denmark. Min mor siger i hvert fald at hun har hørt det før, måske er det bare ved at gå ud af stil lol
@@tjudi nå okay, jeg har sku aldrig hørt det...
@@tabbyy_yy yes, and added a comment
At least I didn't add a skull emoji
In Denmark we would also say "What kind of fish is that?"
And "that's pure volapyk"
@@oHeroCS same
Har aldrig nogensinde hørt nogen sige “Er det en by i Rusland?” Hvor har han det fra?
A hva’ for en fisk?
Hvad for en fisk er langt mere ikonisk
in german we say that something seems spanish, not only if we don't understand but also if something is not quite right
I would add that we also say that we just understand "Chinese" or "trainstation" lol
In Bulgarian 🇧🇬 the German language is literally called немски - the language of the mute.
In Austria its either spanish or french (we despise the french very much, it's even used as a slur)
@@zevtred212well if that isn't ironic considering the stereotypes...
@@johannes_286 that's what I say and im german
Actually in Swiss-German we say “I only understand train station”. Idk why we say that instead of a language 😭 if anyone knows lmk
In Canada we say “You may as well have been speaking German”
in germany when you explain smth for example and the other person doesnt get it you ask them: "am I speaking spanish?"
can someone from spain tell me what they say?
In finland we say what pigs german are you speaking
And its actually real in finnish it is siansaksa
In Québec we just say "c'est du chinois!'' which means "this is chinese!''
@@marcuby and he could answer with "i only understand bohemian villages"
In Finland we say "Siansaksaa" witch literally means "pig's german"
"Are you speaking pig's german?"
We also say “It’s all Hebrew” for words that people (outside of the group) don’t understand
We also have a saying if the handwriting is unclear or hard to read. "Harakanvarpaita" which literally mean magpie toes.
"siansaksa" is pig latin in english :D a "real" language
@@hexostatus4658
מה?
Pig's German v.s. pig latin
The Chinese saying "is that a bird language" is the ultimate shade
Exactly. It's like they're implicitly saying that other human languages are simpler than Chinese. 😂
Very popular in Singapore too, one of the weirdest Singlish word I learnt is "talk cock, sing song" which is derived from that chinese phrase
@@3000franky😂😂😂😂😂 wtf
In Cantonese, I've heard Roman script (cursive perhaps?) being described as "chicken guts/intestines" because it's all squiggles 🐓
@@3000frankyOMG you're right!!! I'm Singaporean and never really thought about where we got "Don't talk cock" from.
In Argentina (spanish language) we say 'that's basic chinese'
Spanish speakers (at least in Mexico) also attribute something unintelligible to the Chinese language, as in the phrase "está en chino" (it's in Chinese). It could also be used to talk about a complicated situation.
As an Argentinian, this applies to most Spanish speaking countries.
most latino countries, in colombia we use "papi estoy en hablando en chino o que?" when someone does not understand us
Spain as well, so I believe it's a common thing Hispanosphere-wide
So far we just just need confirmation from Ecuatorial Guinea
It’s the same for Cuba too!
In German the most commonly known sentence of communication confusion is "Ich versteh' nur Bahnhof" (I just understand trainstation) and I think that's beautiful.
you would say das kommt mir spanisch vor
If someone doesn't understand you we also often say "Sprech' ich chinesisch, oder was?" (Am I speaking mandarin or what?)
@@killuatokarev1514ja ne das sagt man doch wenn’s einen komisch vorkommt oder. Das kommt mir spanisch vor ist wie „das ist nicht ganz koscher“ oder
I like the quaint "das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer" (that's all Bohemian villages to me).
Meine Lehrerin hat immer gesagt "Spreche ich Suaheli?"
As a molecular biologist, i got insane whiplash seeing "bodipy fluprophore" in a TH-cam short out of nowhere
So you aren't going to tell us what it means? ;)
@@Laura-kl7vi I got you. A fluorophore is basically anything that fluoresces (emits a certain wavelength of light when hit with another certain wavelength of light). Bodipy is a certain family of these fluorophores. We use them in biology because they're fairly easy to stick to other compounds that we want to investigate. If those compounds are collected or broken down somewhere in a cell, then we can see that by shining a light and seeing if/where the correct wavelength of light shines back at us. Hope that was informative!
@@sportsam26thanks
IKR! I was like hol’ up
@@sportsam26 I actually did my graduate chemistry research synthesizing new Bodipy compounds, really cool family of compounds
In Persian we mostly say "Is that a foreign word?" But sometimes we say "Is that English?"😂
Btw, thanks for using the true Iranian flag
Love how Chinese is so complicated and confusing that other countries use it to describe confusing stuff. And I have actually heard my dad say "is this a bird language?" when I was explaining the US citizenship test to him.
This is why the "chinese" finger trap is called chinese too. If it's perplexing then it might as well be Chinese. English speakers also did that
In German, we tend to say "ich versteh nur bahnhof", basically meaning "i only understand train station"
That is violently German, I love it!
Eigentlich sage ich of: "das kommt mir spanisch vor", als würde ich sagen, dass es Spanisch ist.
im absolutely using "is that a town in Russia"
We have some weird ass towns, indeed :D
смешные названия деревень
@@qoombertwhy did your comment make me chuckle😂
Sadly, it doesn't work as a fellow Slavic speaker when the towns take identical format (eg: historic name + grad)
I've also herd Russians say "это какой-то матюк на немецком?" which means "is that some bad word in German?"
As an American, I’ve never used “it’s all Greek to me” I just use “it looks like chicken scratch”
In Egypt, we normally just ask if they're speaking in Hieroglyphs.
Agreed
Lmao fr
Fr tho?
@@billyjuegos as an Egyptian we do indeed say that
Yes
انت بتتكلم هيروغليفي يبني؟
As soon as you said "it seems Greek" (as I'm an Italian native speaker) , I thought "this doesn't quite sound right. How do we say in Italian? Oh yes, we say Arabic, not Greek". A second later you proved my point. It's so fun to learn about languages!
Loll, that's what happened to me! As a native Arabic speaker i was like 'people say Chinese not Greek right?' Then i realised that was in Arabic only 😂
My young child overheard this video, then made some funny noises, then said to me "Is that an Italian bird in Russia?" 😂
Message received ✔️
Long-distance heart melting received.
That's probably the same way the germans taught their children in 1920s.
All those boys are still somewhere in our fields.
In South Africa if a problem is really confusing we say it’s like hieroglyphics
In brazil, when something sounds confusing, we say “bless you”, like the other person sneezed some words out of
Sou brasileiro e NUNCA ouvi falar nisso.
This was the kindest and cutest I have ever heard of
@@gabrielhenriqueg2382acho que é tipo quando alguém fala uma palavra muito complicada e a gente fala "saúde"
@@gabrielhenriqueg2382Você já foi pra outra cidade ou estado além da região de onde você mora?
Na minha região fala "Você está falando grego/árabe?"
As a person from Nizhny Novgorod, I can understand Danish people
Oh wow. You're a long way from Denmark too 😂
In Turkish we use "I'm French to the topic" when we are not familiar with what the conversation is about.
yet I don't think it is related to the video
@@trustoryz8399 Let me add something related. When we don't understand a writing we usually say "What is this, wedge-writing ?"
@@trustoryz8399it is related.
Being/remaining French is "not caring about the topic", not "being unfamiliar"
@@beliws it's not being familiar in Turkey, more specifically we use it when 'someone has no idea about what's going on'.
Bro tamils say 'enna malayalathla pesuriya??'
In Czech we say "It's a Spanish village for me" when we don't understand some topic.
Fun fact: I just found out that the author of this saying is Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In Germany there was a saying "It's a Czech village for me". Goethe, who often visited Czechia, didn't like it and decided to change it to Spanish village.
Whoah! Thanks for sharing, really cool.
Oh I see, I was thinking what was so weird about Spanish villages but Spanish is my native language so I wouldn't have known for sure
Same for balkans 😂
in turkish we say "it's so french for me"
İ have never heard that before aa a person who is turkish
@@TurkishOneFurkanOlaya Fransız kalmak knk nasıl duymadın
O sözün videodaki olayla alakası yok. Yanıtladığın kişinin yazdığı sözün çevirisi o bile değil zaten. @@hacerkalayc7431
@@TurkishOneFurkan "konuya fransız kalmak"
Fransız kaldım, yazın Arapça/Çince gibi...
Really appreciate you using the lion and sun flag instead of the regime one (:
fr, it makes me smile knowing that ppl remember iran’s pre-1979 flag
As a Russian, we also say something like "Are you speaking Chinese right now?", but towns here really do have crazy names though 😂
Tatar seems to come up an awful lot in Urals, too
Sometimes Russians say, is this in Hebraic?
светлана2558, ваша собака у меня😈
More like "I don't speak Chinese" to anyone we don't really understand
А еще есть выражение - китайская грамота
And there is also an expression - Chinese literacy
As a Russian i can confirm that some of our cities' names can be rather confusing, lol
Причём названия странные в разных регионах. Кому то сложно сказать Blagoveshchensk. А у нас в Башкирии есть город Стерлитамак, это тоже звучит странно для многих. В Хакасии и Тыве есть города и посёлки с названиями как из Мордора. И я вообще молчу про Якутию
Sigma dane
Crystal-goose, Electrosteel and God birthplace are all in Russia, so yeah...
@@djpupsik98 why are you listing Christian rock bands? Jokes aside we have more funny names if you search
@@djpupsik98WHERE THE FUCK IS CRYSTAL GOOSE
In germany we say: "I only understand trainstation"
Is that referring to the audio quality from the announcement loudspeakers? If so thats brilliant! In the USA we don't have so many train stations, but I could definitely see people relating this to their school morning announcements or something like "are you speaking pilot?" (To be clear I made those 2 up)
@@revenevan11i read its from the WW since many soldiers went home via trains and when someone asked them something they didnt wanna answer they just said "i only understand trainstation" which means their sole focus is on getting home
Or mock Spanish
No in German we use Latin as reference
No, we don't use Latin. it's either "das kommt mir Spanisch vor" so "that seems Spanish to me"
Or the already mentioned trainstation.
Or the Bohemian villages. " das sind alles böhmische Dörfer für mich"
The term Anglerlatein is not really universal.
In germany we say: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof“ this means I only understand train station
In Thailand, we say “ Is this an alien language?” For Thai context, it’s more like “not of this world/Earth” thus incoherent . 👽🇹🇭
Alien also means "foreign"
@@christianjudeberbano3134 for Thai context it’s more like “not of this world”.
Makes sense with Buddhism ☸️ and Hinduism 🕉️ being major religions.
Both have non-human sapient beings being really important and largely independent of human affairs.
So it would make sense they speak a language unknown to humans and that possibility will be on Thai people's minds a lot.
Ooo we have "那是人话吗？Is that a human language?" but the implication is more like "What you said was just plain heartless/without empathy/cruel."
Hi, Danish person here. While we do have the phrase mentioned, it’d be more accurate to say “You’re speaking volapyk”. Volapyk doesn’t mean anything, but we use that instead of greek.
The phrase mentioned is more used about things that are strange or nowhere to be seen. For example “Kindness is a town in Russia for the Swedes.” Saying that Swedes aren’t kind.
Volapyk sounds like a town in Russia too
Volapuk is an (infamously confusing) conlang, which was invented around the same time as, and eventually supplanted by, Esperanto!
@@andrewphilos Huh, I never knew. That's really interesting.
@@andrewphilosAhah, esperantists love so much making jokes about Volapuk. I impediately tought about that reading "volapyk".
My dad had also heard about Volapyk for some reason, but he didn't know what it was. Seems like it was more popular as a concept in the 20th century. But yeah it is a conlang
My mum always says „You could be speaking Swahili to me“, and I‘ve never understood why she always picks that language in particular 😭
Maybe she understand Greek 😮
I speak Swahili, and I can guarantee you it's not that complicated 😭
I think my mom says that too sometimes
In Polish, we also say „Co, po chińsku mówię?” („What, am I speaking chinese or something?”) when a person we’re talking to doesn’t understand what we mean.
Crazy to think China has like 302 dialects, must be an experience of a lifetime for Chinese trying to talk to other Chinese
Northern dialects all sounds the same tho
I mean, the Dutch language within the Netherlands and Flanders already has 24 dialects and that area and population is tiny when compared to China.
India has like 1300 dialects
But most people learn the most popular language that would be similar in China
Most of them speak some mandarin
That's the reason mandarin was invented in the early 1900s
@@vladimirlenin843yeah now they do...
In Taiwan, if someone pronounces very badly or the sentence is just gibberish, we would say “he’s speaking French”
Hazah four French slander
In British English it is possible to say ‘Excuse my French’ to apologise for cursing or swearing.
@@oldvlognewtricksyeah, they're kinda hostile even until now 😂
@oldvlognewtricks
It's not only Brits who apologize for cussing that way. Americans do too.
@@jessicaharris1608 Thank you for the clarification. I could only speak for the language with which I am familiar.
As an Israeli we dont use a stereotype for somthing confusing we say "what its is Gibberish? " => "מה זה זה ג'יבריש"
In Germany we usually say "I only hear spanish" or "Am I speaking spanish?!"
I thought it was Chinese, at least that's what I've heard
@wolfzmusic9706 yes both Chinese and Spanish. Or the specific instance that the only word understood was "trainstation" (ich versteh nur bahnhof)
No we say : „Ich versteh nur Bahnhof“
Or train station
There's also the somewhat old-timey option of Bohemian Villages
In french we also have Chinese for the difficult language. In general we say “Am I speaking Chinese ?” when we’re angry about someone that seems to not do what we want them to do on purpose.
Or "it's like Chinese to me" if you're the one not understanding some weird text.
Same here, I'm from Chile. We say "estás hablando en chino" (You are speaking chinese).
Same in Russia. When we don’t understand a text or just a whole topic of the conversation, we may say “Это (как) китайская грамота» [eto (kak) kitayskaya gramota] which means “it’s (like) a chinese charter” (charter as a “text”). As for me it’s funny, because I’ve started to learn Chinese in university and in 2-4 years I’ll be pretty much able to understand the Chinese texts)
yeah lol “it’s all Chinese to me” “am O speaking Chinese?” are terms my parents use frequently
@@ItsJustValHereLo mismo en Filipino. Decimos "Para kang Intsik" (Suena como un chino).
In Hungarian, we also say "It's Chinese to me". And also, if there is a huge crowd somewhere, we say "There are as many of them as the russians"...
Same in Poland
Same in Romania.
@@loneycornel778 It's mostly for Hungarians living in Romania
Same in Russia (not about the latter)
dudes didn't know that Bangladesh has bigger population than Russia
My matha teacher used to say, "Why aren't you understanding this? Am I speaking Mesopotamian?"😅
Germany : "i only understand TRAINSTATION"
Well, train station PA announcements are usually hard to understand, so.
that's my favorite lol
HELP
What about: that sounds spanish to me.?
@@yankeedpmNo one says that
Lmao, as a half Turk half Romanian, my cousins keep slipping "esti turc?" and profusely apologizing when they realize what they did.
Do you know any Turkish or just (me assuming) just English and Romanian?
@@ADJLfanatic52 I speak both turkish and romanian fluently
@@web3wizard381One of the Ottomans descendants 😂😂😂 your family got left behind in Romania as they returned to Turkey 😂😅😅
As an Arab naturalised in Italy my friends will be like " this is Arabic to me " and I often say that it can't be Arabic since even I can't understand it 😂😂😂
So funny
Finnish has "Siansaksaa", which (literally) translated would be "Pigs german", and "Lampaanlatina" = "Sheeps latin"
Also "täyttä hepreaa" which means "completely hebrew", poorly translated.
Germany (german) Italy (latin) Jews (heprew) where have I seen these before 🤔
Do latin and Italy really have that much in common?
@@ayskaripepperooni2770Rome
@@ayskaripepperooni2770 Latin is from ancient Italy
@_magnify Urdu is the National Language of Pakistan. You used the wrong flag for it 😊
In Turkey we use the phrase "Konuya Fransız kalmak", meaning "Being French to the issue/topic" to express that we're not familiar with the topic being discussed. French being the main Western language that we derived words from, I think it makes sense.
"Çince mi konuşuyon" da diyoruz
Çok kullanmıyoruz ama "çince mi konuşuyorsun?" Doğru olanı herhalde
@@doga-rh3os biz kullanıyoz
"Çince mi kullanıyon/konuşuyon?"
ya da
"Çivi yazısı mı bu?", bu sadece eğitimli insanlarca kullanılır
Bir de "Bir şey anladıysam Arap olayım." da var 😅
@@Braid_group_magdurubende bunu demeye geldim! hahaha
So, in case anyone was wondering, the card with the Greek words he was holding translate as "decaying body."
Eeeemmm... Nope. It' s a chemical. BOronDIPYrromethene that carries (phore) fluor.
Fascinating... and slightly troubling.
Wwwhattt? Nouuuuuuu😅
Oof
👀
And 100% of Spongebobs say "Sorry, I don't speak Italian."
In Turkish we say "You are French to that." When you don't know anything about something.
German: *“I only understand Train-Station”*
I mean „ ich versteh nur Spanish“ is also something that’s said but yeah „Bahnhof“ is far more common
@@Jan-nl6kqIn the west we say "that strikes me as Spanish"
"Das kommt mir spanisch vor"
„SAMMA SPRECH ICH CHINESISCH??“
@@lobbyhoe01Chinesisch rückwärts!!!
@@Astrobay13 YOOOOOO SPANISH MENTIONED
In Brazil we have the expression "Falando grego" meaning the same as "It's all greek to me" (grego means greek).
But oddly, most Brazilians nowadays refer to words and sentences they don't understand as arabic. In some brazilian memes, whenever someone is saying something incomprehensible the caption of the video will be full of random words in Arabic lol
My Brazilian family just say it is either English or Japanese/Chinese (they don't know the difference)
fala portugues aligenigina
Turkish version is also good, i cant precisely translate it but it has roughly this meaning: I'll be an Arab if I understood anything
Also "to be french to something"
@@markusoliverasagtg9704 yeah we also use that like "im french to context"
In Iran we say "why are you speaking Turkish!"
Indeed, one is "left out as a french"(fransız kalmak) or something like that. Other is "I swear I will -would have- become an Arab if I have understood anything about this" (anladıysam Arap olayım!)
Nice thing about Turkish. In both cases people blaming themselves instead of what they hear. That's a very positive expression. I read all the comments only Turkish expressions in two ways like blaming themselves just so cute. Anladıysam Arap olayım.(I am possibly Arab if I understood.) Fransız kaldım. (I have been French to..) (ben biraz farklı çevirdim tâbi)❤
In Slovakia when you write something no one can read you say it’s hieroglyphics or you scratch like a tom cat
In Egypt we say it too , in the same situation
My Italian immigrant primary school teacher who learned English in the UK once had an outburst when we didn’t understand something she was talking about saying, “what, am I speaking Arabic?” And I was like, “no, my neighbors speak Arabic, you’re just confusing.”😂
Urban Los Angeles is a trip.
Germans out here be like: i only understand trainstation 😂 literally translation btw
no language is too hard to learn for a German but the awful speakers at train stations are just bad engineering
The DB man... he always confuses me
German has two actually! The other one is: "Seems somewhat Spanish to me."
Or : ich verstehe nur Bahnhof, I only understand train station.
@@Meminjo "Seems somewhat Spanish to me." (das kommt mir Spanisch vor) has the connotation there is something suspious about it, more like: I don't understand it yet, but there is something wrong with it.
If you totally have no clue about something someone is talking about, this phrase exists: "These are Bohemian villages to me" (Das sind Böhmische Dörfer für mich).
If someone uses a very specific scientific language hard to follow you can also call it "Fachchinesisch" (specialist field Chinese).