My nephew, a six year old Australian born, when visiting Croatia with his parents, would yell after my boys: Čekaj za ja, čekaj za ja, which was his translation of "wait for me"!!!!
How about, 'on the face of the place' hahahaha....iliti 'na licu mjesta'....maybe in English would be 'on the premises' or less formally, 'on the spot'...
I will never forget my English teacher, she was from US and her lessons were always descriptive when it came to common mistakes. Like - juice is concentrated, you are focused 😊
For some time I thought "focused" was the only correct term here. But lately I've heard many native english speakers use "let me concentrate" in standard speech, so I guess both is fine nowadays.
@@Jetpans many native speakers don't know difference between TO and TOO, so I wouldn't consider native same as profound in language 😊 But you a right, they use concentrated in everyday language.
This was so funny and informative and I learned more stuff in this video than in school. The way how you explained all those mistakes is really fun and memorable so now I will always have a picture of the parrot when thinking about when you use on and in haha Please make more videos like this, I wish I had this entertaining teacher while I was learning English in school because now my grammar would be probably much better :)
@@PaulBradbury Thank you for a such nice article and this video. I read article from top to the bottom and it's a quite informative, interesting and funny. Thank you very much.
I often hear for "sitting in the sun(light)" : " I am sitting ON the sun!" A direct translation from Croatian! Of course then I imagine them sitting on top of the sun - hot!
Get on the bus, but once you get on, you're in, correct? "Get on the plane! ... I say f*** you I'm getting in the plane! There seems to be less wind in here" - George Carlin
Yes it is quite tricky. You get on a bus, plane, ferry and train, but you get in a car. Once you are in, you are still on, I think - Where are you? I am on the bus to Split, but I guess you could also say I am in a bus to Split, but that sounds strange. Best advice to avoid confusion is to walk.
That is true, a lot of Croats make these mistakes because they literally translate Croatian to English, so they speak English the Croatian way instead of speaking English the English way :D
The adjective/adverb distinction really is a big one. One good meme I found on the topic was when one character said: "I'm doing good." to which the other replies: "No. Superman is doing good, you're doing well." 😆
Haha. Yes it is, and quite easy to fix once you understand the distinction. I come across it a lot, but with people from all over the world, not just Croatia.
Yep, the double plurals are funny... my dear Mum, God rest her soul, used to complain that her 'tits' hurt, (teeth). We used to laugh so much at this. However, on the flip side, Croatian has very difficult grammar too. The change in nouns dependent upon which case, eg: dva oka, (two eyes) vs ispod očiju (under the eyes). To me it always sounded right to say dvije oči 😄Also, you don't say a human being died the same way you say an animal died - umro vs krepao😕
Thank you, but the articles would take months. Explaining the general rule is simple, but then the exceptions - i am still learning how, but I will try and do one when I have time (not this year)
Thank you for this video, today I'm 43 years old and I'm making the same mistakes.I was not a good student, and I heard English on TV. today i spoke english, swedish, italian. learned everything on the street with people.I appreciate your effort and honesty. Croatia is my homeland. God bless you Mr.
Thank you very much for your lesson today! I live in Canada for past 55 years and still make many mistakes in English language! Sadly ,never have opportunity to take appropriate lessons and being 88 years old ,I guess I will died without ever spiking perfect English! I love your short lesson in this video ! I will try to memorize correct way to use certain pronunciation! Velika Vam HVALA uz želju da govorite ” MOJ” jezik mnogo bolje nego kako ja govorim vaš!👏🏻👍 Pozdrav I sve najbolje! ,Ana 🇭🇷🇨🇦
These are common mistakes for Romanians, too. Truth be told, I am amazed of how many grammatical mistakes I notice in the language of native speakers, things that our students don't make. For example, "should OF said" instead of "should HAVE" said. Bottom line, Croatia is one of the countries I visited where I had no problem whatsoever in getting to understand people. Everywhere I turned around, people would speak English and that is absolutely great.
@@ivrtaric indeed, they naturally know this. And they also know very well the difference between "there", "their" and "they're", which a lot of natives don't know nowadays.
My top 3 Croatian to English mistakes: "My best player/film/song" - favourite / "I am boring." 🤣 - bored / goodest and baddest - better and worse
Рік тому+6
Oh, I remembered one! My gf always corrects me and says that I'm not "drinking a pill" but "eating a pill" and that it is "drinking a soup" and not "eating a soup". So which is it then? That drives me nuts because every time she says that she drank a soup I get a mental image of her chugging a pint of soup lmao. And every time she says she ate a pill I get a mental image of her chewing on a pill instead of getting it down with a gulp of water.
Taking a pill is what we usually say, even though we usually drink water to take the pill. Eating soup is correct, even though it's runny it's not a drink 😊
A translation I saw in a restaurant in Dubrovnik that sent (and still sends!) me into hysterical laughter was a menu item translation of "jaje na oko" (sunny side up) as "egg on eye" !
u'r giving 2much credit to Croatian schools, main reason why every1 in Croatia speaks English well is subtitled tv programme. it's to this day my main language learning tool, I can speak English, Spanish, German, now I'm learning Japanese same way. Listening is most important thing is language learning, I believe
I am surprised Paul, that you didn't mention my pet peeve; the insistence of English speaking Croats on pronouncing English vowels, specifically A and U in a weird way, so Rugby becomes Ragby (and is spelled that way!) and Cat becomes Ket. I am told they are taught that way in school and it's how they interpret the American version of English (though there are a huge amount of variables in USA alone.) So you get Croatians speaking perfect English but with a pseudo US style and a Croatian accent. When I had a school English teacher call me "e Fanny Men" I knew I had found a crusade. So, to make it absolutely clear, ´"A" in English is pronounced the same as in Croatian. "U" however is almost the same , but if Croatians pronounce it as they would in Croatian, it sounds like a strong Yorkshire accent, so it needs to be a little softer, like the double o in cool. I think I deserve "e pet on the head" for that!
Yes agreed. Several other things I could have added. Will be doing a lot more vids in the New Year, and the language ones seem popular. Have a few ideas.
My fluent Croatian wife mangles the vowels. We had an American friend named Brett and she called him Brat She also can't get the double consonants right. Te nis instead of ten nis.
This is great, good job! I watched a lot of similar videos because I reached a certain level of english where I can speak fluently and understand 99% of the things BUT I'm completely aware I'm simply making (too) many small mistakes. So besides watching videos like this one I also started to read in English (I'm basically just buying books that I enjoyed reading or wanted to read jn Croatian and now reading in English). Is there anything else you'd recommend (apart from watching movies or taking classes)?
Thanks! Not sure where you are, but chatting to native speakers is always good. There are various expat groups all over Cro on FB, which have a mix of locals and foreigners and they organise meetups and events
je je nepravilnie imenice...knife-knives....jednostavno ih se mora naučiti. ali u engleskom jeziku na primjer ne postoji dupla negacija koja je u hrvatskom jeziku. kao i 3 padeža viška koja engleski jezik nema
Until we stumble on Alanis Morissette's lyrics from Canada: "It always looked GOOD on paper, sounded GOOD in theory!" Feels good. Seems good to me ;) Yes, he can't play "good" but you see what I'm talking about, don't you?
I learned most English from the internet, music and video games, and some of it were from actual English periods in school. I've consumed said media too much that I basically speak English with an American accent.
I stayn with my mistakes and using my short English, learned from country pop rock songs couse I often been around school, even catched two years of study but war for Croatia independent begun and I broke with study. Now bordering with my English but people can understand what I trying to say sometime, and that is inaf for me.
People got this habit of forming up sentence in their mind on croatian first, and then they try to translate "that" sentence directly into English instead just speaking English naturally right away. And it comes out so weird at times its actually funny. Like for example, instead of saying "me too" or " i would like the same", they fire out "me same" xD
I studied German and Italian at school. Learned English through movies 😛 In the end I didn't use German and Italian for 20 years, so in the end I only know English 😑
As an English teacher in Split, I have noticed the exact same things - use of Past Tenses, articles and phrasal verbs, collocations... we work tirelessly to avoid these... Thanks for posting - I am going to use this in the classroom every single year!👏👏
I wouldn't pay too much attention to my English, it is full of strange things. I am the only person I know, for example, who say sprint, sprant, have sprunted
Croats don't know in their own languages, well, not articles but declinations, like when died one music star, Dino Dvornik, people were like- song of, something of.. Dine Dvornika, that would be correct if he was a girl named Dina, the correct form would be song of ... (pjesma Dina Dvornika, smrt Dina Dvornika ne Dine Dvornik, I see they can't do last name either). Prepositons, and pronouns, and adverbs (time and place) some padezi.. trust me, they don't know that in Croatian. And people speak their dialects. So, kinda.. complicated. But a, an, the is nothing in comparation to spanish, there is so irregular, or to ci, ce, ne in italian that also comes for the sky. Slavic languages interesting, are the only ones that kept some latin spirit in - not having articles, rather only declinations, without having latin declinations, and well, a lot of them don't have latin root (Chakavian probably only slavic thay does have). Well. I do prefer latin languages, much easier to pronounce. What I hate the most of modern Croatian, is that war declaration to vocals, after treating them quite better, Hrv was once Harv in the old Croatian, and well, a lot of words now are missing vocals. Like it literally breaks my tounge, it took me so much to pronounce letter r, and h, that I learned those first in italian pronounce correct, when I was a child. They say blue hair? This I haven't seen coming, because in Dalmatia, and Kvarner, people say blonda, bjonda, bjondina for plavuša.
@@PaulBradbury Which one? Dino Dvornik? Yes, they do that as if he was Dina Dvornik. Or blue/blonde? Well, I swear, this crussade against vocals.. like in written the language was named haruacki or harvacki.. ts was c, and č was c, ž was x, and ć was ch. Marin Držić was Marin Darxich. This Czech orthography, is due to panslavism in Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Croats went along due to Hungarian nationalism (they lived in peace before that for 800yrs, and prefered to have some king that os far away rather the local warlord and when due to Ottomans, Croats choose Habsburg, Hungarians first went for Zápolya, a Croat), and it was Czechs who with Austrians had that strong anti-italian sentiment (Austrians ofc as even Veneto fell under Austria and well Italy supported Prussians). Anyhow. Natural language was Dalmatian, and extinct latin language, and probably first Croatian that was Chakavian, was due to this quite vocal friendly. I swear, I couldn't pronounce R and H/G in Croatian, I have learned in italian first as I child. It still sometimes fracture my tounge, I swear.
Very interesting. Native English speaker from South Africa living ten years in Zagreb. My wife has a degree in English literature so speaks fluent English. She still however uses funny expressions. I will put the laundry out to dry. Instead of I will hang out or just hang the washing.
Being from North America, "I will put the laundry out to dry" sounds fine to my ear. Maybe "I will hang the laundry out to dry" is better, but I wouldn't find the first to be incorrect.
Hahahaha, as a menu designer myself I can tell you, I've seen people bring me their old menus with such butchered English to the point of people thinking it's a completely new cocktail or something xD Though I'm also guilty of butchering German. I can fix the English translation but the German is all google translate baby XDDDD
You know when I learnt the difference between adjectives and adverbs - by learning Esperanto. The difference is so clear to me, that I'm surprised that many native English speakers confuse things like good and well.
a=general the=specific and I don't know about an, or should I say I don't know how to explain it and it just kinda comes naturally for me even tho I'm not a native English speaker
also, you could say let's sit down for a coffee, also also you could use fishes if you refer to different types of fishes once again it's not fair as I am in touch with the English language all day every day and so I can understand the mistakes that you pointed out about my lovely countrymen
Рік тому+3
Blue hair hahaha :''), I never actually heard anyone say that when speaking English but I always wondered why we call the blond hair a blue hair and how that would sound to an English native speaker if we said that. Makes no sense when you think about it XD
My children grew up England and they could never understand how we say blue hair - plava kosa when it is not blue. That is probably the weirdest thing in Croatian for them.
I am croatian and I only did 3 of these mistakes. I actually make more mistakes in croatian lol. I kinda grew up with both english and coratian. I speak and understand english like its my own language.
"Plava" in this sense means "washed out", diluted. Hair diluted - blonde. Black diluted - blue. Think "isplavljena" (few languages can do with werbs that Croatian can. We are weak in nouns, though
As usual - great and funny content, Paul! 🙂👍I'd say lack of articles is prolly a main thing. Croatian language has no acrticles so many Croats, even those who speak English so perfectly, tend to forget them. I must confess, I leave them out too. Many times. :p
when i was in the croatian army we had to write some universal test on english and the resoults give u representation on how good u know english i had 90 % i was proud and i can wreally comunicate grate on english but when i listen to this man afther this video i feel stupid .
lol i`ve waited for than and then....I am 41y old and I still remember my first english textbook when i was in 4th grade. but perhaps our best teacher of english language is tv set. we use subtitled not dubbed movies or series. don`t you agree? it does help a lot
Half-island Peljesac, 'blitva' on menus translated as.... 'manigold' (wtf?), W = V (Varvick Avenue), and 'put book on shelves' (My NW London juniors always laugh at the apparent luck of 'the', or, "say 'lethal' tata"). 'Reversely'....I lived in Djubrovnik where people (mainly) support Hajdzuk Split. And modus operandaj, drinking ekspreso itd. Takes two to tango....innit bruv.
3:20 in ENGLISH, not Croatian. Btw., all very good points, but if I HAD a penny for every time I heard an ENGLISH person say he/she/it DON'T ... which is not to justify it, 'fcourse. And the "th" sound is either an "f" or a "v" to an Eastern Londoner! Depending if it'sa word such as "birthday" or a "brother".
I must admit, you made me laugh as I am native croatian speaker living in Australia for the biggest chunk of my life, I recognize in Croatian community over here ( I mean in Australia ) mistakes like those even people spending decades still unable to master those mistakes. Awesome clip. Goodonya (I had to do that)
Dariomostar, ovo sam puno puta čula ali ja ne mogu prevesti. Ona zadnja riječ ja mislim da smo mi u Karlovcu samo probali da ponovimo i to više puta i sve brže, mi smo rekli malo drugačije. Skaskafiskaknjaf. Pozdrav od Ljiljane.
Singular informacija, plural informacije. Singular Savjet, plural Savjeti. We don't really use it but it exists. Informacije is a bit tricky because it can also be referred as a singular, example: Izvor informacije (Lit. The source of information) or just the word Informacije which is a plural on it's own meaning: Informations and the singular is Informacija.
I made exactly the same errors (as a Croatian). Thank you for the correction, I'll try to keep this in mind. At least I know why my auto correction always mark my words in documents :)
If I may add: pronouncing a K sound, instead of a G sound, at the end of the - ING syllable,... e. g. 'workinK' It's pure a phonetics issue, probably an issue other Slavic language speakers encounter
There is one problem with english language in Cro!.... As a kid, I learned it in school, but we all watched movies and cartoons american english spoken! 🤢 Big american influence! I like more original! British english is so elegant and polite!
In school, we were taugt that the capital of England (and UK) is Landn. To my surprise when I went there I found out they call it London, same as we. We also have an old name for this city, Londra
My girlfriend has fantastic fluency in English and despite that has a funny habit of saying "no matter that" when she normally means "even though" lol.
Language related videos are always so interesting and these are good observations and advice's 👍 Yeah, lot of people translate to English directly how something is said in Croatian and in many cases that doesn't make any sense in English. But because of that sometimes we translate Croatian directly to English just for fun :) One thing that I prefer in English is writing every word in the title with first capital letter (except articles), in Croatian it really annoys me that only first word has capital first letter, that just doesn't look nice to me, so sometimes I break that rule and write the title it the English way :) But even though my English is quite good I still haven't mastered fully when to use 'a' and when 'the'
You never WILL do my friend. It is a near impossible task for a Slav. It still, still drives me round a bend. And, yet, I would almost consider myself a native English speaker.
@@PaulBradbury yes, portals have different approaches when it comes to titles, but when it comes to names of the songs, book titles etc. it is almost always with all caps, I was thinking about that.
Aleksandar I think it's quite easy - 'a' (or 'an') is used when we don't mean exactly a known thing ... and 'the' is always used when we know something we're talking about ... I want to thank Mr. Paul for such an amazing video and all his other videos are amazing ... really amazing
@@PaulBradbury I get it, just saying the similar sounding words with one letter off are what connects all English speakers of a certain level of fluency.
I am a Croatian woman, but don't have a habit of making those kind of mistakes. I am not saying that my English is perfect or that I'm better than everyone else, but these mistakes are common among Croats.I hope you understand that many Croats learn English on the principle: let me learn as much as I need to communicate with others on a basic level. The rest is not interesting to them. I am not talking about all Croats here, but there are quite a few of them. For example, I learned English through series and movies. I never used a book to learn grammar. I learned to speak the language and grammar correctly by ear. I am happy that you love our country.
@@PaulBradbury It is quite high, yes.Thank you. I had to come back to this video to see if you responded. Unfortunately I didn't get notified about your response. I am happy you love Croatia and that you enjoy living here.
The funny thing is that in UK we do have blue hair, the Blue Rinse Brigade - older ladies who dye their hair a blueish colour to cover the grey - a little different from a plavusa - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rinse
hrvatski je svjetski jezik kojim govore samo najpametniji ljudi. Nisam toliko pametan, trudim se. I am not pefect with the padezi but not bad, but there are many other languages in the world with padezi, some much worse than Croatian. I have been coming across and dealing with them since the age of 9 with Latin, Ancient Greek, German and Russian. And especially after Russian, Croatian grammar is relatively easy as I already understood the Slavic structure.
@@draganavolaric1152 haha but my accent really sucks
Рік тому+4
This video is so incredible! xDD Personally I haven't seen anyone making any of those (probably b/c I'm a Croat myself) but if I spoke English with my countrymen more often those would be the exact mistakes that I'd expect. It's so funny XDDD You've really picked the good ones like blue/blond and sit on a coffee hahah XDD
I'm an Italian who speaks Croatian and in my experience I've never heard any of these errors except the use of the articles. Since Croatian doesn't have articles, this is a skill that not many Croats can master properly (the have the same issue when learning Italian, though)
Рік тому+1
@@stefanotironi1423 In my opinion, the younger generations often speak close to perfect English. With people being more detached with their local friends, spending more time at home and online especially since Covid-19. For example I'm 26, living in Croatia, working as a software developer, having a (long distance atm) gf from North East India. I hardly ever get a chance to use Croatian today. I find myself thinking in English and it gives me problems when I have to speak Croatian eloquently because I formulate the thought in English in my head but now it has to come out in Croatian. It's a real struggle sometimes.
Why is no-one offended by this person critising Croats for being grammatically incorrect in ENGLISH in Croatia, our own country. Shouldn't you be grateful that out English is communicable? Can we hear your command of Croatian and how clunky you sound to our Croatian ears? English arrogance. That lawyer was right. Zivio englez
Haha, I am not criticising at all, and if you listened to what I said, I said that the level of English spoken in Croatia is excellent, but here were 25 things I had noticed for those interested. The number of positive reactions versus this negative ones indicates to me that it was appreciated by the majority. Nothing arrogant about it. And yes, I do speak Croatia, and yes, I would love to come across a video like this for the Croatian language where I could learn see my mistakes and improve.
Most of those are simply just because they’re translated word for word how it’s said in Croatian, which might not be the exact phrase in English. And some are also only because there’s only one word in Croatian for both words in English, like your examples of borrow and lend (posuditi), and teach and learn (učiti). And you’d be surprised how many Americans also don’t know the difference between than and then. 😊
@@PaulBradbury Yes! It's more about the thing that i usually think in Croatian so when i switch to English it is like CPU unit that is called brain starts to slow down and filter information in different way .
When I was visiting Canada, a decade ago, people there use to ask me, not: How are you? but: How are you doing? My response: I'm ok, or, I'm good. Even today I don't understand why they put this "doing" in the end.
Croatian "English" language is a mixture of UK grammar and a bunch of American words (99% that come from American series and movies) What would be interesting is to go through the menus in the restaurants - how they translated the dishes into English or even better business titles when literally translated from Croatian to English 😁
These were some really good examples, Paul. My favourite is: 'a shit of paper", which is how most Croats would pronounce 'sheet'. Generally speaking, most Croats have great difficulty mastering their 'own' language for a variety of historical and political reasons. But, that is a different topic, altogether.
great video, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of people, who studied English, didn't study grammar properly either, because they didn't feel like it,...
You missed to reflect, at least a little bit, on the issue of pronunciation of the "th" sound, be it voiced or unvoiced, which always ends up being pronounced as hard "d" or "t", also "W" being pronounced the same as "V" or vice versa.
My nephew, a six year old Australian born, when visiting Croatia with his parents, would yell after my boys: Čekaj za ja, čekaj za ja, which was his translation of "wait for me"!!!!
Haha
It's funny 'cause "čekaj ME"(correct way) is much closer to "wait for ME" than "čekaj ja" 😜
😂
🤣😂👍👏
"Čekaj za ja" would be "wait for I".
My favorite literal translation is:
kako da ne - how yes no
This one is legendary!
How about, 'on the face of the place' hahahaha....iliti 'na licu mjesta'....maybe in English would be 'on the premises' or less formally, 'on the spot'...
Tko te šljivi...who plums you
hahaha, dobra!
well, in that case "da" in "that" and not "yes" so it would be "how that no". anyway, na licu mjesta is one of my favourite
I will never forget my English teacher, she was from US and her lessons were always descriptive when it came to common mistakes. Like - juice is concentrated, you are focused 😊
Very good!
Most Croatians I've talked to seem to know US English rather than UK English.
For some time I thought "focused" was the only correct term here. But lately I've heard many native english speakers use "let me concentrate" in standard speech, so I guess both is fine nowadays.
@@Jetpans many native speakers don't know difference between TO and TOO, so I wouldn't consider native same as profound in language 😊 But you a right, they use concentrated in everyday language.
This was so funny and informative and I learned more stuff in this video than in school. The way how you explained all those mistakes is really fun and memorable so now I will always have a picture of the parrot when thinking about when you use on and in haha Please make more videos like this, I wish I had this entertaining teacher while I was learning English in school because now my grammar would be probably much better :)
The parrot is great. Thanks for your kind words. Subscribe to the channel. Plenty more where this came from. Cheers.
@@PaulBradbury haha after the parrot part, you got me so I am looking forward to your new videos. Have a great day :)
I've been learning Croatian for about 7 years now. They get their own back on us with their grammar!
You might find this useful, from a viewer of this video - fantastic info www.total-croatia-news.com/lifestyle/66160-croatian-language-horrors
@@PaulBradbury Thank you for a such nice article and this video. I read article from top to the bottom and it's a quite informative, interesting and funny. Thank you very much.
@@dbunic you are welcome. Lots more coming if you want to subscribe
@@PaulBradbury a great article and I totally connected with that woman’s energy.
100 mistakes australians make while speaking croatian
number 1: pronounciation of every word
Roit, mayte.
I often hear for "sitting in the sun(light)" : " I am sitting ON the sun!" A direct translation from Croatian! Of course then I imagine them sitting on top of the sun - hot!
Even hotter than sitting on a coffee
Get on the bus, but once you get on, you're in, correct? "Get on the plane! ... I say f*** you I'm getting in the plane! There seems to be less wind in here" - George Carlin
Yes it is quite tricky. You get on a bus, plane, ferry and train, but you get in a car. Once you are in, you are still on, I think - Where are you? I am on the bus to Split, but I guess you could also say I am in a bus to Split, but that sounds strange. Best advice to avoid confusion is to walk.
@@PaulBradbury It's amusing.
@@PaulBradbury How about bicycle?
You say red wine because you look wine through glass. We say black wine because we look wine through bottle.
haha, nice try, but seeing as more red wine in cro is drunk from plastic bottles, i wonder if that really is true...
@@PaulBradbury I mean wine color in glass or plastic cup (čaša) in comparation with glass or plastic bottle (boca) and big bottle (demižonka)
Više te nikad neću vozit na festival vina :)
Učim, hvala puno
Relax Riba, there is a special dialect of English called Ribafinglish which is protected by UNESCO.
@@PaulBradbury 😜😜😜😜👍!Love your sence of humor.(I nearly wrote "...FOR humor")🥴
That is true, a lot of Croats make these mistakes because they literally translate Croatian to English, so they speak English the Croatian way instead of speaking English the English way :D
Yes, we English are not much better, but hope the video helped.
LeptirMariposa "Translate me across the street!"😜
The adjective/adverb distinction really is a big one. One good meme I found on the topic was when one character said: "I'm doing good." to which the other replies: "No. Superman is doing good, you're doing well." 😆
Haha. Yes it is, and quite easy to fix once you understand the distinction. I come across it a lot, but with people from all over the world, not just Croatia.
Yep, the double plurals are funny... my dear Mum, God rest her soul, used to complain that her 'tits' hurt, (teeth). We used to laugh so much at this.
However, on the flip side, Croatian has very difficult grammar too. The change in nouns dependent upon which case, eg: dva oka, (two eyes) vs ispod očiju (under the eyes). To me it always sounded right to say dvije oči 😄Also, you don't say a human being died the same way you say an animal died - umro vs krepao😕
Thanks for these
Mr Bradbury, could you please delve a little deeper into those "pesky" definite and indefinite articles?
You are a great teacher!
Thank you, but the articles would take months. Explaining the general rule is simple, but then the exceptions - i am still learning how, but I will try and do one when I have time (not this year)
We all fall to same trap,speaking as we used to in our native language.
Thank you for this video, today I'm 43 years old and I'm making the same mistakes.I was not a good student, and I heard English on TV. today i spoke english, swedish, italian. learned everything on the street with people.I appreciate your effort and honesty. Croatia is my homeland. God bless you Mr.
thank you and happy birthday!
today I speak (not spoke if today)
How funny, it is probably not his birthday, he uses today I am 43 instead of now I am 43. Hilariously funny.
Thank you very much for your lesson today!
I live in Canada for past 55 years and still make many mistakes in English language! Sadly ,never have opportunity to take appropriate lessons and being 88 years old ,I guess I will died without ever spiking perfect English!
I love your short lesson in this video ! I will try to memorize correct way to use certain pronunciation!
Velika Vam HVALA uz želju da govorite ” MOJ” jezik mnogo bolje nego kako ja govorim vaš!👏🏻👍
Pozdrav I sve najbolje! ,Ana 🇭🇷🇨🇦
Haha thanks. You can do it!
Thank you for this feedback. It is mostly helpful.
Glad it was helpful!
How yes no
haha vrh
These are common mistakes for Romanians, too. Truth be told, I am amazed of how many grammatical mistakes I notice in the language of native speakers, things that our students don't make. For example, "should OF said" instead of "should HAVE" said. Bottom line, Croatia is one of the countries I visited where I had no problem whatsoever in getting to understand people. Everywhere I turned around, people would speak English and that is absolutely great.
Totally agree with you. Perhaps I should do a vid 25 most common mistakes native speakers make speaking English
@@PaulBradbury that would be interesting. I'd also redirect it to my students.
The Romanians at least have a natural understanding of when to use "the" vs "a/an" (Romanian has the suffix -ul which pretty much means "the")
@@ivrtaric indeed, they naturally know this. And they also know very well the difference between "there", "their" and "they're", which a lot of natives don't know nowadays.
My top 3 Croatian to English mistakes: "My best player/film/song" - favourite / "I am boring." 🤣 - bored / goodest and baddest - better and worse
Oh, I remembered one! My gf always corrects me and says that I'm not "drinking a pill" but "eating a pill" and that it is "drinking a soup" and not "eating a soup". So which is it then?
That drives me nuts because every time she says that she drank a soup I get a mental image of her chugging a pint of soup lmao. And every time she says she ate a pill I get a mental image of her chewing on a pill instead of getting it down with a gulp of water.
Taking a pill is what we usually say, even though we usually drink water to take the pill. Eating soup is correct, even though it's runny it's not a drink 😊
A translation I saw in a restaurant in Dubrovnik that sent (and still sends!) me into hysterical laughter was a menu item translation of "jaje na oko" (sunny side up) as "egg on eye" !
Now check these out www.total-croatia-news.com/lifestyle/21467-lost-in-translation-the-croatia-edition
Hope they have hotdogs 😂😂
few vs a few was really cool to learn :) I've always felt there was a difference, just didn't bother to dive deeper into it I guess. Thx!
Good to hear. It is actually one of the biggest mistakes I come across, and easy to fix. Glad it helped.
One that my dad makes all the time is saying "explain me" instead of "explain to me", it's driving me crazy 😂
Very true - and he said me. It is not easy.
Oh yes, and "translate me over the street" :-))
@@Vienna1902 😂😂
drive you crazy because you are crazy, shame on you
Then there is the problem of have or ima. He has his birthday today. And I ask am I invited? 😄
Paul, thank you so much for useful advices. But, how is your Croatian going on? Can you put some video clip with your real croatian speaking? 😊
Useful advice, not advices... (see the video). Me speaking Croatian? Be careful what you wish for facebook.com/TotalSplit/videos/1214333185366614
@@PaulBradbury change(es) when talking about money.
u'r giving 2much credit to Croatian schools, main reason why every1 in Croatia speaks English well is subtitled tv programme. it's to this day my main language learning tool, I can speak English, Spanish, German, now I'm learning Japanese same way. Listening is most important thing is language learning, I believe
Fo sure UA-cam etc is the driving force, but that is true elsewhere as well, and the standard of English in Croatia is far above the average.
Its not television. Its more PC games and internet than television.
I am surprised Paul, that you didn't mention my pet peeve; the insistence of English speaking Croats on pronouncing English vowels, specifically A and U in a weird way, so Rugby becomes Ragby (and is spelled that way!) and Cat becomes Ket. I am told they are taught that way in school and it's how they interpret the American version of English (though there are a huge amount of variables in USA alone.) So you get Croatians speaking perfect English but with a pseudo US style and a Croatian accent.
When I had a school English teacher call me "e Fanny Men" I knew I had found a crusade. So, to make it absolutely clear, ´"A" in English is pronounced the same as in Croatian. "U" however is almost the same , but if Croatians pronounce it as they would in Croatian, it sounds like a strong Yorkshire accent, so it needs to be a little softer, like the double o in cool.
I think I deserve "e pet on the head" for that!
Yes agreed. Several other things I could have added. Will be doing a lot more vids in the New Year, and the language ones seem popular. Have a few ideas.
My fluent Croatian wife mangles the vowels. We had an American friend named Brett and she called him Brat
She also can't get the double consonants right. Te nis instead of ten nis.
Thank you for this video, I have learned something new.
Glad it was helpful!
This is great, good job! I watched a lot of similar videos because I reached a certain level of english where I can speak fluently and understand 99% of the things BUT I'm completely aware I'm simply making (too) many small mistakes. So besides watching videos like this one I also started to read in English (I'm basically just buying books that I enjoyed reading or wanted to read jn Croatian and now reading in English). Is there anything else you'd recommend (apart from watching movies or taking classes)?
Thanks! Not sure where you are, but chatting to native speakers is always good. There are various expat groups all over Cro on FB, which have a mix of locals and foreigners and they organise meetups and events
je je nepravilnie imenice...knife-knives....jednostavno ih se mora naučiti. ali u engleskom jeziku na primjer ne postoji dupla negacija koja je u hrvatskom jeziku. kao i 3 padeža viška koja engleski jezik nema
Ali duplu negaciju svejedno često koriste, npr. "I didn't do nothing!"
Until we stumble on Alanis Morissette's lyrics from Canada: "It always looked GOOD on paper, sounded GOOD in theory!" Feels good. Seems good to me ;) Yes, he can't play "good" but you see what I'm talking about, don't you?
Haha
I learned most English from the internet, music and video games, and some of it were from actual English periods in school. I've consumed said media too much that I basically speak English with an American accent.
Hvala vam što ste dodali ovaj video. Našao sam se kriv u nekim izrazima. 😅
Glad to hear it. We will have more like this on the channel if you want to subscribe.
@@PaulBradbury thank you, I already subscribed.
I stayn with my mistakes and using my
short English, learned from country pop rock songs couse I often been around school, even catched two years of study but war for Croatia independent begun and I broke with study. Now bordering with my English but people can understand what I trying to say sometime, and that is inaf for me.
People got this habit of forming up sentence in their mind on croatian first, and then they try to translate "that" sentence directly into English instead just speaking English naturally right away. And it comes out so weird at times its actually funny. Like for example, instead of saying "me too" or " i would like the same", they fire out "me same" xD
Haha
Good video, sir! I am guilty for a few of them. ;) (this is probably incorrect, too ha ha)
haha - well is it is almost none then few of them, if it is more than that, then a few.
I studied German and Italian at school. Learned English through movies 😛 In the end I didn't use German and Italian for 20 years, so in the end I only know English 😑
Same here.Movies and music.
Yes, it's important we learn something in an interesting way.
As an English teacher in Split, I have noticed the exact same things - use of Past Tenses, articles and phrasal verbs, collocations... we work tirelessly to avoid these...
Thanks for posting - I am going to use this in the classroom every single year!👏👏
haha thanks, nice to hear. We have several more language ones coming next year, so subscribe to the channel if you want to catch them. Cheers!
@@PaulBradbury already done, kind sir!👍🏻
The last phrase "a little way" caught me off guard, I've heard of a wee bit, but this is just another level of BrE
I wouldn't pay too much attention to my English, it is full of strange things. I am the only person I know, for example, who say sprint, sprant, have sprunted
Croats don't know in their own languages, well, not articles but declinations, like when died one music star, Dino Dvornik, people were like- song of, something of.. Dine Dvornika, that would be correct if he was a girl named Dina, the correct form would be song of ... (pjesma Dina Dvornika, smrt Dina Dvornika ne Dine Dvornik, I see they can't do last name either).
Prepositons, and pronouns, and adverbs (time and place) some padezi.. trust me, they don't know that in Croatian. And people speak their dialects. So, kinda.. complicated. But a, an, the is nothing in comparation to spanish, there is so irregular, or to ci, ce, ne in italian that also comes for the sky. Slavic languages interesting, are the only ones that kept some latin spirit in - not having articles, rather only declinations, without having latin declinations, and well, a lot of them don't have latin root (Chakavian probably only slavic thay does have). Well. I do prefer latin languages, much easier to pronounce. What I hate the most of modern Croatian, is that war declaration to vocals, after treating them quite better, Hrv was once Harv in the old Croatian, and well, a lot of words now are missing vocals. Like it literally breaks my tounge, it took me so much to pronounce letter r, and h, that I learned those first in italian pronounce correct, when I was a child.
They say blue hair? This I haven't seen coming, because in Dalmatia, and Kvarner, people say blonda, bjonda, bjondina for plavuša.
Haha, that has got me thoroughly confused.
@@PaulBradbury
Which one? Dino Dvornik? Yes, they do that as if he was Dina Dvornik. Or blue/blonde?
Well, I swear, this crussade against vocals.. like in written the language was named haruacki or harvacki.. ts was c, and č was c, ž was x, and ć was ch. Marin Držić was Marin Darxich. This Czech orthography, is due to panslavism in Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Croats went along due to Hungarian nationalism (they lived in peace before that for 800yrs, and prefered to have some king that os far away rather the local warlord and when due to Ottomans, Croats choose Habsburg, Hungarians first went for Zápolya, a Croat), and it was Czechs who with Austrians had that strong anti-italian sentiment (Austrians ofc as even Veneto fell under Austria and well Italy supported Prussians). Anyhow. Natural language was Dalmatian, and extinct latin language, and probably first Croatian that was Chakavian, was due to this quite vocal friendly.
I swear, I couldn't pronounce R and H/G in Croatian, I have learned in italian first as I child. It still sometimes fracture my tounge, I swear.
Yup, the same mistakes Serbs make, too... Which isn't a surprise since we speak the same language xD
Haha
"Th" pronunciation is also often incorrect. There are many people there who want to "tank" you.
I gave up. What I say is either "denk you" or, if I try harder, "senk you". Next I might sink.
Very interesting. Native English speaker from South Africa living ten years in Zagreb. My wife has a degree in English literature so speaks fluent English. She still however uses funny expressions. I will put the laundry out to dry. Instead of I will hang out or just hang the washing.
Being from North America, "I will put the laundry out to dry" sounds fine to my ear. Maybe "I will hang the laundry out to dry" is better, but I wouldn't find the first to be incorrect.
@@evc1782 it's not incorrect to my ear either. Just sounds a bit strange.
First time someone explained the difference between "than"and "then" to me, that was actually very helpful,so thanks for that! Heh
Great to hear. Sometimes a simple explanation helps.
I think you could do a special clip on menus
Oh we have some great material on menus lined up
Hahahaha, as a menu designer myself I can tell you, I've seen people bring me their old menus with such butchered English to the point of people thinking it's a completely new cocktail or something xD
Though I'm also guilty of butchering German. I can fix the English translation but the German is all google translate baby XDDDD
You know when I learnt the difference between adjectives and adverbs - by learning Esperanto. The difference is so clear to me, that I'm surprised that many native English speakers confuse things like good and well.
It is scary how many native speakers can't get this basic thing right in English.
Great video! Thank you Paul! I have heard 'angry at' used quite a lot though - perhaps a regional (or situational) thing in the Antipodes 😊
Thanks, and I am sure there are some regional differences down under. People here say 'angry on you' a lot as well. Thanks for watching.
Thank you. Even as a certified translator I can vouch that some things said in here are soooo true.
Haha, but I have to say that the level of English in Croatia is amazing
@@PaulBradbury I have to agree with you. Maybe Dutch could be compared with us, but Dutch do it, well, the Dutch way... Greetings from Zagreb!
a=general
the=specific
and I don't know about an, or should I say I don't know how to explain it and it just kinda comes naturally for me even tho I'm not a native English speaker
also, you could say let's sit down for a coffee, also also you could use fishes if you refer to different types of fishes
once again it's not fair as I am in touch with the English language all day every day and so I can understand the mistakes that you pointed out about my lovely countrymen
Blue hair hahaha :''), I never actually heard anyone say that when speaking English but I always wondered why we call the blond hair a blue hair and how that would sound to an English native speaker if we said that. Makes no sense when you think about it XD
There is a lot more in English that makes no sense. The joys of language.
My children grew up England and they could never understand how we say blue hair - plava kosa when it is not blue. That is probably the weirdest thing in Croatian for them.
Thank you! A very useful video! Greetings from Croatia!
Glad it was helpful!
I am croatian and I only did 3 of these mistakes. I actually make more mistakes in croatian lol.
I kinda grew up with both english and coratian. I speak and understand english like its my own language.
22 out of 25 is a good score, well done
"Plava" as in "blond hair" would be "pale" in English - etymology comes via Latin and German :)
An Englishman correcting an Englishman in Croatia - whatever next? Interesting, thanks for etymology.
Wasn't meant to be a correction, just a linguistic observation 😉
"Plava" in this sense means "washed out", diluted. Hair diluted - blonde. Black diluted - blue. Think "isplavljena" (few languages can do with werbs that Croatian can. We are weak in nouns, though
How yes no😀
We often apply our own language constructions in other languages😅
Yes, it is a natural thing to do (in all languages).
As usual - great and funny content, Paul! 🙂👍I'd say lack of articles is prolly a main thing. Croatian language has no acrticles so many Croats, even those who speak English so perfectly, tend to forget them. I must confess, I leave them out too. Many times. :p
Getting the articles right is one of the hardest things in English
when i was in the croatian army we had to write some universal test on english and the resoults give u representation on how good u know english i had 90 % i was proud and i can wreally comunicate grate on english but when i listen to this man afther this video i feel stupid .
Haha you are doing great
lol i`ve waited for than and then....I am 41y old and I still remember my first english textbook when i was in 4th grade. but perhaps our best teacher of english language is tv set. we use subtitled not dubbed movies or series. don`t you agree? it does help a lot
Yes subtitles are a great asset
Very common is ”to cook a coffee - skuhati kavu” instead of ”to make a coffee"
Yes true, forgot that one.
Skuhati kavu 😄
Isto kao popiti tabletu ili 💊
You can take tablets or pills with water but also without so you will take them but not drink them
Usually if you make it yourself, is "to brew a coffee".
I still can't wrap my mind around Bosnians' "to bake a coffee" - "ispeći kavu" :D
Half-island Peljesac, 'blitva' on menus translated as.... 'manigold' (wtf?), W = V (Varvick Avenue), and 'put book on shelves' (My NW London juniors always laugh at the apparent luck of 'the', or, "say 'lethal' tata"). 'Reversely'....I lived in Djubrovnik where people (mainly) support Hajdzuk Split. And modus operandaj, drinking ekspreso itd. Takes two to tango....innit bruv.
3:20 in ENGLISH, not Croatian. Btw., all very good points, but if I HAD a penny for every time I heard an ENGLISH person say he/she/it DON'T ... which is not to justify it, 'fcourse. And the "th" sound is either an "f" or a "v" to an Eastern Londoner! Depending if it'sa word such as "birthday" or a "brother".
I must admit, you made me laugh as I am native croatian speaker living in Australia for the biggest chunk of my life, I recognize in Croatian community over here ( I mean in Australia ) mistakes like those even people spending decades still unable to master those mistakes. Awesome clip. Goodonya (I had to do that)
Haha tx. Lots more coming if you want to subscribe
🙏 Promo-SM!!
Translate this:
Riba ribi grize rep
Miš uz pušku,miš niz pušku
Škafiškafnjak
You got me with this one
Dariomostar, ovo sam puno puta čula ali ja ne mogu prevesti. Ona zadnja riječ ja mislim da smo mi u Karlovcu samo probali da ponovimo i to više puta i sve brže, mi smo rekli malo drugačije. Skaskafiskaknjaf. Pozdrav od Ljiljane.
Singular informacija, plural informacije. Singular Savjet, plural Savjeti. We don't really use it but it exists. Informacije is a bit tricky because it can also be referred as a singular, example: Izvor informacije (Lit. The source of information) or just the word Informacije which is a plural on it's own meaning: Informations and the singular is Informacija.
I made exactly the same errors (as a Croatian). Thank you for the correction, I'll try to keep this in mind. At least I know why my auto correction always mark my words in documents :)
I am glad it was helpful
If I may add: pronouncing a K sound, instead of a G sound, at the end of the - ING syllable,... e. g. 'workinK' It's pure a phonetics issue, probably an issue other Slavic language speakers encounter
There is one problem with english language in Cro!....
As a kid, I learned it in school, but we all watched movies and cartoons american english spoken! 🤢 Big american influence!
I like more original!
British english is so elegant and polite!
Tnx mate for the adviceS 🤣🤣🤣....great video 👍
Haha thanks - lots more coming if you want to subscribe
In school, we were taugt that the capital of England (and UK) is Landn. To my surprise when I went there I found out they call it London, same as we. We also have an old name for this city, Londra
My girlfriend has fantastic fluency in English and despite that has a funny habit of saying "no matter that" when she normally means "even though" lol.
The same mistakes doing the Germans too. I know this because i seapk both German and Croatian fluentlly.
Language related videos are always so interesting and these are good observations and advice's 👍 Yeah, lot of people translate to English directly how something is said in Croatian and in many cases that doesn't make any sense in English. But because of that sometimes we translate Croatian directly to English just for fun :) One thing that I prefer in English is writing every word in the title with first capital letter (except articles), in Croatian it really annoys me that only first word has capital first letter, that just doesn't look nice to me, so sometimes I break that rule and write the title it the English way :) But even though my English is quite good I still haven't mastered fully when to use 'a' and when 'the'
Interesting. Different portals in English have different approaches, I personally prefer things with capitals.
You never WILL do my friend. It is a near impossible task for a Slav. It still, still drives me round a bend. And, yet, I would almost consider myself a native English speaker.
@@PaulBradbury yes, portals have different approaches when it comes to titles, but when it comes to names of the songs, book titles etc. it is almost always with all caps, I was thinking about that.
@@zoranorlic2423 looks like it unfortunately :)
Aleksandar I think it's quite easy - 'a' (or 'an') is used when we don't mean exactly a known thing ... and 'the' is always used when we know something we're talking about ...
I want to thank Mr. Paul for such an amazing video and all his other videos are amazing ... really amazing
you're right. It is our litterally translation of Croatian expressions
I do the same from English to Croatian - it is not easy!
@@PaulBradbury It happens to me also with Italian as I am part of the national minority in Croatia. A lot of black wine :D
This is better than a comedy show!
Haha
The last one is the one I have been waiting for.The worst.
You are showing up...is it gramatically correct?
It depends what you are trying to say.
thank you Mr. Bradbury.You have explained some things that were a bit off for years to me and my rusty english.
You are very welcome
Than and then is a universal issue with non-native and some native English speakers.
Yes, so are several others. But these were the 25 most common i came across in Croatia
@@PaulBradbury I get it, just saying the similar sounding words with one letter off are what connects all English speakers of a certain level of fluency.
I am a Croatian woman, but don't have a habit of making those kind of mistakes. I am not saying that my English is perfect or that I'm better than everyone else, but these mistakes are common among Croats.I hope you understand that many Croats learn English on the principle: let me learn as much as I need to communicate with others on a basic level. The rest is not interesting to them. I am not talking about all Croats here, but there are quite a few of them. For example, I learned English through series and movies. I never used a book to learn grammar. I learned to speak the language and grammar correctly by ear. I am happy that you love our country.
Good for you - I am amazed at the high standard of English here - really impressive.
Yes, as long as you understand what others say and others can understand what you are saying that is fine 😊
@@PaulBradbury It is quite high, yes.Thank you. I had to come back to this video to see if you responded. Unfortunately I didn't get notified about your response. I am happy you love Croatia and that you enjoy living here.
You are sooooo arrogant narcissist
@@tweetybird30 odvratno, razmisli malo o sebi ,preispitaj se
some natives in the UK could do with learning he does instead of saying he don't hahaha
True story, David Beckham among them
@@PaulBradbury hahaha
Thanks for these tips as a future professor of English language a piece of advice from a native speaker is allways wellcome.
You are very welcome. You guys speak excellent English, but with just a few tips, if can be even better
I read English perfectly but I struggle a bit speaking it because I don't really have a chance to speak it a lot
She's a plavusa 🤣🤣
The funny thing is that in UK we do have blue hair, the Blue Rinse Brigade - older ladies who dye their hair a blueish colour to cover the grey - a little different from a plavusa - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rinse
How is your Croatian Paul? Did you master padeže?
hrvatski je svjetski jezik kojim govore samo najpametniji ljudi. Nisam toliko pametan, trudim se.
I am not pefect with the padezi but not bad, but there are many other languages in the world with padezi, some much worse than Croatian. I have been coming across and dealing with them since the age of 9 with Latin, Ancient Greek, German and Russian. And especially after Russian, Croatian grammar is relatively easy as I already understood the Slavic structure.
@@PaulBradbury fantastic, I’m impressed.
@@draganavolaric1152 haha but my accent really sucks
This video is so incredible! xDD Personally I haven't seen anyone making any of those (probably b/c I'm a Croat myself) but if I spoke English with my countrymen more often those would be the exact mistakes that I'd expect. It's so funny XDDD You've really picked the good ones like blue/blond and sit on a coffee hahah XDD
Haha, glad it helped. Many more to come like this if you want to subscribe to the channel.
@@PaulBradbury I subscribed instantly :D
@@PaulBradbury it would be fun to hear about your challenges while you have been learning Croatian. Thank you for this video, excellent as always!
I'm an Italian who speaks Croatian and in my experience I've never heard any of these errors except the use of the articles. Since Croatian doesn't have articles, this is a skill that not many Croats can master properly (the have the same issue when learning Italian, though)
@@stefanotironi1423 In my opinion, the younger generations often speak close to perfect English. With people being more detached with their local friends, spending more time at home and online especially since Covid-19. For example I'm 26, living in Croatia, working as a software developer, having a (long distance atm) gf from North East India. I hardly ever get a chance to use Croatian today. I find myself thinking in English and it gives me problems when I have to speak Croatian eloquently because I formulate the thought in English in my head but now it has to come out in Croatian. It's a real struggle sometimes.
Why is no-one offended by this person critising Croats for being grammatically incorrect in ENGLISH in Croatia, our own country. Shouldn't you be grateful that out English is communicable? Can we hear your command of Croatian and how clunky you sound to our Croatian ears? English arrogance. That lawyer was right. Zivio englez
Haha, I am not criticising at all, and if you listened to what I said, I said that the level of English spoken in Croatia is excellent, but here were 25 things I had noticed for those interested. The number of positive reactions versus this negative ones indicates to me that it was appreciated by the majority. Nothing arrogant about it. And yes, I do speak Croatia, and yes, I would love to come across a video like this for the Croatian language where I could learn see my mistakes and improve.
Sod off thin skin, why are you pretending to be a native anglophone with your user name then? Gfy!
Jezik bi trebalo govoriti ispravno. Najbolji nacin za nauciti je uciti ga od izvornog govornika,
Actualy, you confuse me with wine. I mean, where is the black one? :D We have 3 types of wine, crno-black, crveno-red, bijelo-white. :)
blackwine whitewine
Oni vino gledaju kroz čašu, a mi gledamo kroz bocu.
Let me fix the title of the video:
'25 Grammatical Mistakes in the English Language'
....your welcome
My welcome or you're welcome?
Most of those are simply just because they’re translated word for word how it’s said in Croatian, which might not be the exact phrase in English. And some are also only because there’s only one word in Croatian for both words in English, like your examples of borrow and lend (posuditi), and teach and learn (učiti). And you’d be surprised how many Americans also don’t know the difference between than and then. 😊
Yes agreed. And yes, some native speakers could learn something from this vid
I know i make all mistakes you just talked about lol
Haha, well at least you know now and can improve if you choose.
@@PaulBradbury Yes! It's more about the thing that i usually think in Croatian so when i switch to English it is like CPU unit that is called brain starts to slow down and filter information in different way .
Yes this is true.
We need more informative videos like this one to improve ourselves. Thank you.
More to come!
@@PaulBradbury Glad to hear that 💪🏾
When I was visiting Canada, a decade ago, people there use to ask me, not: How are you? but: How are you doing? My response: I'm ok, or, I'm good. Even today I don't understand why they put this "doing" in the end.
Never though about it but possibly related to the more formal How do you do?
Croatian "English" language is a mixture of UK grammar and a bunch of American words (99% that come from American series and movies)
What would be interesting is to go through the menus in the restaurants
- how they translated the dishes into English
or even better
business titles when literally translated from Croatian to English 😁
There are some real classics
These were some really good examples, Paul. My favourite is: 'a shit of paper", which is how most Croats would pronounce 'sheet'. Generally speaking, most Croats have great difficulty mastering their 'own' language for a variety of historical and political reasons. But, that is a different topic, altogether.
Haha, that's a great favouite
@@PaulBradbury I speak both languages natively, my father says "we swim at the bitch" (beach).
Waaaaait now, shit and sheet are pronounced the same, aren't they??
@@damirfux2265 Ne, razlika je u naglasku. Shit se izgovara kratko, kao hrv. kit, a sheet dugosilazno, kao hrv. štit.
@@kitstamat9356 ovo nisam znao, hvala.
great video, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of people, who studied English, didn't study grammar properly either, because they didn't feel like it,...
and they still speak really well
You missed to reflect, at least a little bit, on the issue of pronunciation of the "th" sound, be it voiced or unvoiced, which always ends up being pronounced as hard "d" or "t", also "W" being pronounced the same as "V" or vice versa.
Yes true. There are a lot of things to add - I will try and do another video of 25 more