Current Events > The ability to know every word and its meaning or ability to know 3 languages.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Of your choice instantly.

Also you would know how to spell all words easily AF.
Which ability would you rather have?

TBH knowing every word and its meaning known to man would be hella fun and useful. While the languages is a good plus. But the words will help in general life more imo.
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More languages for me

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If you know every word and its meaning wouldnt you basically know every language?

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Languages. Words are easy enough to learn as you need them.

you'll sound like a pretentious ass if you take the vocabulary

but travel and hooking up so much easier with more languages

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Mistere Man posted...

If you know every word and its meaning wouldnt you basically know every language?

I'm assuming you'd know the words, but no grammar.

Personally I'd go for three languages, each from a different branch. It's fascinating how you can tell by how a language works that people perceive the world through a whole different mentality than you're used to.

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More languages

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I don't think there's a realistic situation or lifestyle where knowing the meaning of every word in existence would be useful.

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ChrisTaka posted...

I don't think there's a realistic situation or lifestyle where knowing the meaning of every word in existence would be useful.

Some game show has to come along

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I think language. Navajo, Japanese, and German maybe. Mandarin should be on the list, but I've got no interest in the culture or using it for monetary gain, so I'll leave that one on the table.

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Honestly I think I take the words as I would be able to read everything in any language (like forgotten languages) and understand it, and if I need to communicate I can just write it out.

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Words. I get stuck mid sentence too much from not finding the exact word Im looking for.

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Words. Learning the grammar of a language is the easy part, acquiring a nativelike lexicon takes much longer. I could learn far more than 3 languages well if I knew every word

Aressar posted...

It's fascinating how you can tell by how a language works that people perceive the world through a whole different mentality than you're used to.

Not really a thing, actually.

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Im holding in my hand a device that can tell me the meaning of any word, (assuming I can get the spelling close enough for google to guess correctly). And chances are the people that voted word do as well.

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mustachedmystic posted...

Im holding in my hand a device that can tell me the meaning of any word, (assuming I can get the spelling close enough for google to guess correctly). And chances are the people that voted word do as well.

Yes, because looking up a word and already knowing them all so you can easily produce them in a sentence is totally the same thing

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Shezarr posted...

Not really a thing, actually.

That's how I experience it, at least. There are distinct differences between the way various language branches work, like Germanic and Romanic languages have a noticeable differences in things like articles/pronouns, numbers (especially the sixties), and names for certain places or things. It often provides a little insight into the mentality or cultural associations people have.

Some languages from countries where it snows all the time have several words for different kinds of snow, whereas other countries where it rarely/never snows have just one. It can be difficult for many people of the latter group to even conceive of various types of snow, let alone how there are different words for it, because they have not experienced various types of snow themselves.

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I couldn't care any less about languages that aren't English.

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I'll take words. I already speak 3 languages.

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Shezarr posted...

Yes, because looking up a word and already knowing them all so you can easily produce them in a sentence is totally the same thing

Perhaps, but I'll still take the languages, thank you.

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Aressar posted...

That's how I experience it, at least. There are distinct differences between the way various language branches work, like Germanic and Romanic languages have a noticeable differences in things like articles/pronouns, numbers (especially the sixties), and names for certain places or things. It often provides a little insight into the mentality or cultural associations people have.

Some languages from countries where it snows all the time have several words for different kinds of snow, whereas other countries where it rarely/never snows have just one. It can be difficult for many people of the latter group to even conceive of various types of snow, let alone how there are different words for it, because they have not experienced various types of snow themselves.

You can definitely make an argument for a language's lexicon reflecting the needs and interests of its population over time, but the idea that speaking different languages necessitates a different worldview has been thoroughly debunked, that's the part (or at least what I got from your initial post) that I was taking issue with

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shiby with it posted...

I couldn't care any less about languages that aren't English.

What an unsurprising but typically disgustingly anglocentric statement.

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