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The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

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Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#31

Post by rincebrain »

astrange wrote: post #28
_ix wrote: post #2

I can't help but laugh at these—is there something the matter with me? "ofisuredii" is particularly humorous.

There's no reason to spell it that way unless you're being obnoxiously Orientalist.

In this case, they were quoting the article, but what about the spelling was Orientalist?

The only thing I could see would be the use of the pseudo-anglicism instead of the English phrase, but that just seems to be specifying the specific word that amused them, not exaggerating the English phrase we would associate with it for effect.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#32

Post by toufka »

jrockway wrote: post #27
ivarious wrote: post #9

And then there's the whole business of Wasei-Eigo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasei-eigo .

My favorite is "anime"; things went full circle and we got our borrowed word back!

'Karaoke' too. Originally, 'kara'-'okestura' - a compound word short for 'box-orchestra'.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#33

Post by GuiA »

vacri wrote: post #23
ekianjo wrote: post #7

They forgot parking in french which is the word for car park. And japanese has so many of such words that are imported from English with a totally different meaning you d need a book to cover them.

Japanese even has an entire alphabet just for loanwords (katakana)

For non Japanese practicers who are curious: katakana is not used just for loan words. It is also used for some names, onomatopoeias, to make text stand out (the way we might use all caps/italics), some scientific terminology, etc.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#34

Post by alricb »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #25
ekianjo wrote: post #21

Note that the academie francaise is way flexible to accept english words in the official vocabulary. In Quebec they literally have a french word to replace all common english expressions and prevent borrowing.

'Courriel' for email was an Académie invention, not Québécois. It isn't as clear-cut as you describe.

Courriel is definitely from Quebec; it was only adopted officially in France in 2003, while it had been in use in Canada since the late 90s.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#36

Post by byoung2 »

ekianjo wrote: post #21

Note that the academie francaise is way flexible to accept english words in the official vocabulary. In Quebec they literally have a french word to replace all common english expressions and prevent borrowing.

In Quebec they literally have a french word to replace all common english expressions and prevent borrowing.

I met some ladies from Quebec while in France, and they were horrified at how tainted the French spoken by the natives had become. They said at one point they just started speaking exclusively in English because they couldn't stand hearing French butchered by the natives.

It's apparently a common phenomenon that language continues to evolve and grow in the native country, while in colonies and former colonies, people tend to become more protective and orthodox about the language. There is some research that suggests that certain American accents are closer to the British accents of the colonists than the modern British accent is.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#38

Post by Lxr »

skykooler wrote: post #35

Reminds me of "handy", the German word for "cell phone". My German friend said "we just use the English word for that." I have yet to find an English speaker who calls a mobile phone a "handy".

"Handphone" is common in SE Asia, from the literal translation of the Chinese word.

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#39

Post by thaumasiotes »

ScottBurson wrote: post #22
ekianjo wrote: post #7

They forgot parking in french which is the word for car park. And japanese has so many of such words that are imported from English with a totally different meaning you d need a book to cover them.

> They forgot parking in french which is the word for car park. In the US that would be a "parking lot" -- so the French term is pretty close.

You can get the English even closer to the French by saying "parking is available".

Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't

#40

Post by themodelplumber »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #30

Japanese word for "blue" is apparently "boo-roo" “The Japanese language has no exact word for the color blue. The term the Japanese use, ao, is ambiguous – best translated as blue-green. Ao has the connotations of immaturity and inexperience that the English word green has. When the Japanese wish to be exact – when describing the color of Siamese cats' eyes, for example – they will sometimes resort to the English wor…

I've heard aozora for blue sky many times, so it's true but not used as a substitute in every case.

One of my favorite confusing words is charenji, or "challenge", which essentially means "to try [doing something difficult]". So a Japanese tourist couple shows up at an American bungee jump and they tell the guys, "we want to challenge!" which sounds like a mistaken version of "we want _A_ challenge" in English.

So the junior bungee jump guy looks over at his boss, and says, "hey...these two say they want a challenge..." not realizing they just want to try a normal bungee jump.

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