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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

#71

Post by dotancohen »

memracom wrote: post #29
thisonetime wrote: post #24

Russians like taking plurals of English words, add a Russian ending that denotes plural and attach a specific meaning to the newly minted word. For example, бутсы. It's pronounced "boots-y" where 'y' denotes plural. The word referes to these things https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%82%D1%81%D1%... . Also, "le week-end" comes to mind although it's not different from its English original. "Naan bread" is…

My personal favourite is sportsmenki which means female athletes. The corresponding word for male athletes is sportsmeny and the singular for a male athlete is sportsmen.

Don't forget businesswoman: "Businessmenka"

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

#72

Post by seszett »

villedespommes wrote: post #47
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

my two cents. I took a couple of French classes in Canada and I can vouch that those guys don't mess around; they are like French vocab nazis :-P so it's always "la fin de la semaine" and "courriel electronique". In contrast, one of my friends is "French" French. She got no issues saying "le weekend" or "e-mail." When the French lost to the british in 177x-ish, people of Quebec were left to fend for themselves. They…

> it's always "la fin de la semaine" and "courriel electronique". In contrast, one of my friends is "French" French. She got no issues saying "le weekend" or "e-mail."

But on the other hand, your Québec friend will tell you that you can "plugger" your "laptop", he has "checké" that there is a "plug" that is "loose" on the nearby "powerstrip".

I lived there for a bit more than a year, and I'm pretty sure they use at least as many anglicisms in daily life as we do in France. However, we both pay more attention to the anglicisms used by the others when we're in their country because we're not used to them.

They avoid them a lot more than we do in written language though.

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

#73

Post by kalleboo »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #68
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".

Japan had several cell phone networks using an alternative to GSM called the Personal Handy-phone System. This was an urban only network with extremely small cells that let them make ridiculously small and inexpensive phones.

One of the PHS networks is even still running! You can still get a PHS phone from Y!Mobile (yes, a Yahoo! brand) https://online-store.ymobile.jp/regi/?oid=WX01SH&plan=000K13

What's interesting is that in Europe, DECT was designed to work the same way, but it never caught on as anything aside from a home cordless phone standard. Wikipedia says there was even a public DECT network in Italy until 2001.

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

#75

Post by yaowenjiaozi »

Lxr wrote: post #50
thaumasiotes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the literal translation of the Chinese word Well, they both refer to hands, I guess. The Chinese word is 手机 shouji "hand machine". "Phone" is 电话 dianhua "electric speech". Those two words aren't related.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification!

"Handphone" is from 手提电话, meaning hand-held telephone.

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

#76

Post by beevai142 »

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…

Many words in languages do not have an exact counterpart in a given different language. The blue-green issue in particular is not unique to the English---Japanese language pair, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction...

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

#77

Post by rm445 »

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.

Careful. Loanwords into Japanese are transliterated into a fixed syllabary, that can then be transliterated back in a standard way.

i.e. that's an authentic transcription of a (borrowed) Japanese word, not a rude impression of a Japanese person mangling English.

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

#79

Post by Manishearth »

codyb wrote: post #4

There are no double entredre's in France because they never say anything that could mean two things or because, "double entendre" (double hear), literally doesn't make sense?

"double entendre" means "double to hear"; it's grammatically incorrect. Its a corruption of "double entente" (double meaning), though "double sens" is used these days.

French makes use of double entendres, they just don't call it that.

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