Name: 【TEDx】TEDxValletta - Justin Tonna - The Wonderful World of Words
Uploaded: 2014-06-12T17:04:36.000Z
Duration: 15 min 45 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

And anyone who's ever stared  at a blank sheet of paper,

wishing that it would fill with the words they need to communicate,

But we human beings  are linguistic animals.

As our society evolves,  so our language evolves.

Now, people understood this,  and for a long time

knowledge was only given from the mouth  of the master to the ear of the student.

This is not an efficient way for humanity to transfer knowledge.

One tsunami, one earthquake,  one plague, one famine,

and whole bodies of knowledge  that have built up over centuries

In fact, we're still trying to figure out  a lot about ancient civilisations

It would have been a lot easier  if they left a handbook behind them.

We might actually know  what the pyramids were for today.

we can communicate knowledge  across our generations.

I can pick up a book written  by a grand master a hundred years ago,

Encased in that volume is  all his triumphs, his failures,

And it all comes to me in the time  it takes me to read that book.

I know it's the Internet  and Twitter and Facebook

but we all do still remember  what a book looks like:

it's not a flat screen,  it actually got paper in it.

if we can communicate  our knowledge through books,

All of us can pick up the Epics of Homer.

we can still see the world through  his eyes as we read those epics.

We can have access to the flights of fantasy of Tolkien,

the spine-chilling stories of Bram Stoker,

they are all there for us to access whenever we choose.

The power of words  communicates us that.

by the language they have used  and how we use it differently.

We now use 3-letter acronyms  for many things!

I've actually had people, in a conversation,

my mother chastised me terribly  for lolling,

A pennant lolls on upon a mast,  when there is no breeze!

when I communicate  that I'm laughing out loud,

there is this raucous effervescent laughter that bubbles out through me

If you want people  to understand what you're saying,

preschoolers born into professional families

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TEDx】TEDxValletta - Justin Tonna - The Wonderful World of Words

people

journey

life

reality