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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

#81

Post by pygy_ »

eeks wrote: post #26
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?

Of course there are "double entendres" in French. They can take the form of "sous-entendus" where the same sentence can be interpreted differently depending on the level of knowledge of the listeners for a particular context. Play-on-words are also widespread, including the "contrepèterie" art form unique to French. Various form of "argot" (slang) also use identical words bearing different meanings. All of these are…

I had to read that sentence twice, it wasn't very clear. I think the journalist meant that "double entendre" doesn't mean anything in French, not that French speaking people don't use double entendre.

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

#82

Post by whack »

Oletros wrote: post #57
kcorbitt wrote: post #6

ln Spain, everyone refers to Facebook as el face , (with the English pronunciation of the word "face") which sounded pretty funny until I got used to it.

I have never heard calling Facebook as Face, I live in Barcelona

I don't know if Barcelona is really very representative of Spain. From my last visit, I got the impression that Barcelona is to Spain like Montreal is to Canada. That cool "other" city where people speak a different language and have a culture different enough that they kind of want to secede.

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

#83

Post by jnbiche »

Oletros wrote: post #57
kcorbitt wrote: post #6

ln Spain, everyone refers to Facebook as el face , (with the English pronunciation of the word "face") which sounded pretty funny until I got used to it.

I have never heard calling Facebook as Face, I live in Barcelona

> I live in Barcelona

Do you speak Spanish or Catalan with your friends and family when discussing things like Facebook?

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

#84

Post by eternauta3k »

pilaf wrote: post #43
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".

At least in Argentina (not sure about other Spanish-speaking countries) "handy" is used for walkie-talkies, but not cell phones. I wonder if it comes from the German use of that word, or if both languages borrowed it from somewhere else. Checking the Wikipedia article for walkie-talkie just now, it seems the formal name for it is "handheld transceiver", so it makes sense that "handy" would derive from that. Edit: I w…

There's also "pendrive", which native speakers call "USB drive".

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

#85

Post by fenomas »

eeks wrote: post #26
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?

Of course there are "double entendres" in French. They can take the form of "sous-entendus" where the same sentence can be interpreted differently depending on the level of knowledge of the listeners for a particular context. Play-on-words are also widespread, including the "contrepèterie" art form unique to French. Various form of "argot" (slang) also use identical words bearing different meanings. All of these are…

That passage simply meant that the term "double entendre" isn't used in French.

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

#86

Post by frooxie »

glandium wrote: post #67
jrockway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kara is not 空 as in empty?

It is.

A weird detail is the Chinese transliteration of "karaoke":卡拉ＯＫ. It starts out with two Chinese characters pronounced "ka" and "la", and then tacks on the English "OK": ka-la-OK. So the English word "orchestra" turned into "OK" after two transliterations.

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

#87

Post by allendoerfer »

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…

In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it.

So for example "community, communities" becomes "die Community, die Communitys". I personally struggle with this rule, because I think the number of German people knowing the English plural "communities" is actually higher than those knowing the inflection rules for foreign words, making you look stupid when using the correct form.

Another one is that people do not get how to form compound nouns with English words. If you use it in German, "social media manager" becomes "(der) Social-Media-Manager". The rule is so simple: Write everything together, foreign words get a dash. As these words are very common in programming related fields, almost all of the agency websites get them wrong.

The gender of the word is derived from words of similar meaning or just similar sounding words, which sometimes creates conflicts about which gender a word has.

For example we are divided on whether a blog is male or neuter (der Blog/das Blog), we are only sure it is not female.

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

#88

Post by allendoerfer »

villedespommes wrote: post #51
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…

what we really like to do is to append a bunch of affectionate diminutive suffixes to English common and proper nouns. It's just soooo entertaining. You can do it all day. Here's a few examples: Mr. Obama (Обама) -> Obamushka (Обамушка) Mr. Trump (Трамп) -> Trumpuoshechka (Трампушечка) My personal favorite: Okay (Окэй) -> Okaayshki (Океюшки) If you curious you can fire up Google Translate and make it say all these wo…

Do you use them to make fun of them or just to make the words sound nice?

I think Russian makes heavy use of diminutives, doesn't it? I worked somewhere where two women were called Natalia and Natasha and I am still confused what their actual name were, because Natasha seems to be the diminutive form of Natalia and sometimes Natasha called Natalia "Natasha".

I do not think that there are any German names which are the diminutive of other names.

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

#89

Post by funkyy »

eternauta3k wrote: post #84
pilaf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Argentina (not sure about other Spanish-speaking countries) "handy" is used for walkie-talkies, but not cell phones. I wonder if it comes from the German use of that word, or if both languages borrowed it from somewhere else. Checking the Wikipedia article for walkie-talkie just now, it seems the formal name for it is "handheld transceiver", so it makes sense that "handy" would derive from that. Edit: I w…

There's also "pendrive", which native speakers call "USB drive".

Pendrive is common across whole English and the non-English speaking world.
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