ISMO | The Hardest Words in English

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]English. It's not my first language. I don't know if I have to mention that. I think it's obvious. I grew up speaking Finnish. I uh I Yeah, that's what I grew up speaking. It's it's very common in in Finland.

[00:00:16]And um I speak English, okay? Like I speak fine, but there's some things I always get wrong, like these tiny small words in, on, at.

[00:00:29]I never know which one is the right one.

[00:00:32]I'm sure for you it's like automatic.

[00:00:34]You just know, but like I don't like you're you're in the car but you're on the bus.

[00:00:42]How am I supposed to know that?

[00:00:46]And and this is worse. You're in the chair, but you're on the couch. What the [ __ ] Like what why is that different?

[00:00:59]You're doing exactly the same thing.

[00:01:02]You're sitting on your ass in your living room.

[00:01:06]But if the thing you're sitting on is narrow, the chair, it's in.

[00:01:10]But if it gets a little wider, on in on.

[00:01:16]And the worst one is is the the bed, the bed, cuz you can be both.

[00:01:23]You can be on the bed, you can be in the bed.

[00:01:26]and I figured it out. It only depends on whether I'm naked or not.

[00:01:35]If I have my jeans on, I'm on the bed.

[00:01:39]If my dick is out, I'm in bed.

[00:01:42]Oh. So, yeah. I figured it out.

[00:01:51]But I try. So, what's the thing you say?

[00:01:52]Like, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing in you. No, no, no.

[00:02:00]Cuz I try to get it right. Like people ask me, "Where are you?" And I try to answer correctly and I fail. Like they text me, "Where are you?" And I'm like, "I'm in I'm at I'm on the airport at the bathroom in the toilet."

[00:02:20]No, no. I No. I got I got all of those wrong.

[00:02:27]But I am pretty sure that I know where I am right now.

[00:02:32]I am in Colorado.

[00:02:38]I am in Colorado at the Boulder Theater on stage.

[00:02:44]Yay. Yay. Yay.

[00:02:51]Thank you. I I thanks. I practiced all day and uh it's it's great to be at here.

[00:03:08]I also I don't ever know how to pronounce things correctly. Did I pronounce that? Colorado.

[00:03:14]Colorado. Colorado.

[00:03:21]Boulder. Balder. Boulder. I never how to pronounce things, but like I went I went on this accent reaction class to teach me how to pronounce English better. And the teacher made me practice this phrase. Um, she shells.

[00:03:36]No, there's more. There's more.

[00:03:39]She shells. She shells by the seashore.

[00:03:47]And that is [ __ ] impossible.

[00:03:51]I practiced so many times. I just kept practicing and I can't get it. And then suddenly I stopped practicing cuz I realized that wait a minute I am never going to need to say this.

[00:04:09]Why am I wasting time practicing? Like I can't even imagine a situation where I would have to say the thing like how would that scenario go like first of all I would have to be by the sheore and then I would have to run into a lady who is uh shing sheell and then for some reason I would have to point her out and say to some third person cuz there should be like a third person who is like completely unaware of what's happening and he'd be like Ismo what's going on over there and I'd be like let me tell you it's not going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen. And and even even if it did, even in the super unlikely case that whole scenario would happen, even then I could just say that oh the the lady has some clams on sale at the beach.

[00:05:22]Or is it on the beach in the beach? at the at I'm pretty sure I'm not going to even I'm pretty sure I never even will run into anybody selling shelves by so I can't imagine a worse business idea especially at that location.

[00:05:48]There are three seashells right next to her.

[00:05:56]That's with business. They always say location, location, location.

[00:06:00]Well, my advice is that if you are selling seashells, sell them as far from the seashore as possible.