TikTok star Stage Door Johnny (stage_door_johnny) has made a name for himself creating content about the English Language on the app TikTok. The app has soured in popularity over the last few years and was quickly dubbed the new ‘Vine’ of social media apps. There is a very wide variety of content on the app, both educational and not so educational.
Stage Door Johnny has amassed a following of 1.4m people on TikTok, which is no small feat. His playlist called ‘English is Weird’ is full of videos highlighting the peculiarities of the English language in a conversational way.
The conversation is between 2 people, one person is requesting words or phrases for certain concepts and the other is answering. He plays both parts. In this way he is highlighting some of the strangest parts of English as if they were a choice made by one (insane) person. The conversations usually end in the version of Stage Door Johnny becoming increasingly frustrated with the answers he is receiving.
As well as being hilarious, these videos also do well in noting why English is one of the most difficult languages to learn! The video above refers to all of the different way the verb ‘to run’ is used. It’s far more often than you might think. This is true for a lot of verbs in English. he also has videos which discuss plurals as well as the seemingly arbitrary use of prepositions English uses. ‘On the train’ I’d much rather be inside it thanks!
Learning English can feel like an impossible task with so many things to consider but it is possible, just try to keep it simple and the rest will come!
