full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Poet Ali: The language of being human

Unscramble the Blue Letters

PA: I want to ask you guys a question. How many languages do you seapk? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually want you to think of a number. For some of you, it's pretty easy. Inside your head, you're like, "It's one. You're speaking it, buddy. I'm done." Others of you maybe are wondering if the language an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend taught you, where you lraeend all the cusswords, if it counts — go ahead and count it. When I asked myself the question, I came up with four, arguably five, if I've been drknniig.

Open Cloze

PA: I want to ask you guys a question. How many languages do you _____? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually want you to think of a number. For some of you, it's pretty easy. Inside your head, you're like, "It's one. You're speaking it, buddy. I'm done." Others of you maybe are wondering if the language an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend taught you, where you _______ all the cusswords, if it counts — go ahead and count it. When I asked myself the question, I came up with four, arguably five, if I've been ________.

Solution

  1. learned
  2. drinking
  3. speak

Original Text

PA: I want to ask you guys a question. How many languages do you speak? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually want you to think of a number. For some of you, it's pretty easy. Inside your head, you're like, "It's one. You're speaking it, buddy. I'm done." Others of you maybe are wondering if the language an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend taught you, where you learned all the cusswords, if it counts — go ahead and count it. When I asked myself the question, I came up with four, arguably five, if I've been drinking.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
dirt beneath 2
stay standing 2

Important Words

  1. arguably
  2. asked
  3. buddy
  4. count
  5. counts
  6. cusswords
  7. drinking
  8. easy
  9. guys
  10. head
  11. language
  12. languages
  13. learned
  14. number
  15. pretty
  16. question
  17. rhetorical
  18. speak
  19. speaking
  20. taught
  21. wondering