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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

#131

Post by xg15 »

fenomas wrote: post #91
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 don't think that passage came within ten feet of anyone who speaks Japanese. Ao doesn't mean blue-green, it's more of a word that spans both, with set usages for things we'd consider unambiguously one or the other (e.g. a cloudless sky, or the "go" part of a traffic light). In the context of eyes it always means blue though, so the example doesn't make much sense.

Out of couriosity, how do they describe green eyes then? or do they have a separate word that only means green?

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

#132

Post by allendoerfer »

pluma wrote: post #99
allendoerfer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before. I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as…

Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere.

> I'm not sure how this distinction is made.

The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that.

What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.

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

#133

Post by eeks »

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 went and read that passage again, and I'm sorry but the phrasing is ambiguous.

"There is no double entendres in France" literally means that "double entendres" are nowhere to be found in France, which in itself makes no sense.

The sentence "there is no double entendres in French" would actually make sense but bears the meaning with which I credited it initially.

If the journalist meant "The expression double entendres is borrowed from French but not used in France where it has no meanings" he/she did a poor job phrasing it.

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

#134

Post by GordonS »

lokedhs wrote: post #49

In Swedish, a portable cassette play is (or was, who uses these anymore?) called a "freestyle". I have no idea what the etymology of that one is. Then there is the old word for baguette (the French type of bread) that was called "pain riche". This is from the first restaurant in Sweden to serve it which was called "Riche". I think everybody have heard stories about Swedes in the 80's trying to order that in France an…

I think 'freestyle' was a brand name, so it may have come from that?

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

#135

Post by dorfsmay »

bengalister wrote: post #55
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 the day to day spoken french in Quebec, you can hear also a lot English words too: check, game, lang, weird... There's a funny youtube video of a French Canadian girl who lives in France and compares the number of anglicisms in the movie "Starbucks" and its French remake (not sure why they did a remake) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Cw9ywW-TU Video is in French but the movie Starbucks had way more anglicisms i…

I'm originally from France but live in western Canada (which is predominantly english speaking).

My understanding, from spending a few days in Quebec, interacting with people from there, and listening to lots of shows about the french language, there are two school of thoughts in Quebec:

- one that french as to be pure, where pure means not a single word with roots that can be traced back to english.

- one that borrows a lot of words from modern english, which are pronounced with an english accent (as opposed to english word adopted in France, which are pronounced with a french accent).

I don't know where the line is drawn, if they are the same people in different context, or a social class, or just a conscious decision to adopt one vs the other, but all the jazz about language laws there seem to be coming from the first group.

Also note there isn't a single version of the french language in Canada, but several across the country which is based on where the original people came from in France, and what influence that language has had over the past 400 years.

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

#136

Post by xg15 »

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…

> Okaayshki (Океюшки)

So basically, Russians like to talk like Flanders? :P

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

#137

Post by xg15 »

pluma wrote: post #101
allendoerfer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I can't think of any German diminutive names but there are cases where the "short form" is distinctly different from the long form as in English "Bob" vs "Robert" or "Dick" vs "Richard". E.g. "Jupp" is short for "Joseph" and "Kalle" is short for "Karl" (or variants like "Karl-Heinz").

In theory there is -chen or -lein - e.g. Katze -> Kätzchen, Obama -> Obamalein. But I don't think it's used very much practically.

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

#138

Post by Smirnoff »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #125
pandaman wrote: post #13

I don't think Russian "face control" is borrowed from English entirely. "Control" (контроль) is a proper Russian word, borrowed from French/German and in this context means "checking","verification".

On other hand, it's usually written in Latin. And it's not so much about your face than about your dress.

Face Control is about your face and it does differ from Dress Code.

Clubs that only enforce Dress Code will prohibit you from entering only if your clothes don't match the requirements.

Those clubs with Face Control will prohibit your entrance for whatever reason they want. Usually it's just an extortion (левак) and you have to bribe your way in (дать на лапу). Although sometimes, it's about the gender ratio or your sexual preferences. Clubs have to make sure that the party doesn't turn into a sausage party and keep away people who can cause problems.

Левак = money made on the left (on the side). Most likely illegal or against company's policy

Дать на лапу = to give (money) to someone's paw (hand)

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

#139

Post by spraak »

Hopefully someone interested will read this comment, since it might be buried at the bottom: there is a fun project called Anglish that works to make the English language free from any non-Germanic loan words, using old(er) English and even made up words inspired by German, Dutch etc when no others exist. It's not, as far as I can see, a militant effort, but more fun and an inspiring linguistic challenge.

Check it out: http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_leaf

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

#140

Post by fenomas »

xg15 wrote: post #131
fenomas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that passage came within ten feet of anyone who speaks Japanese. Ao doesn't mean blue-green, it's more of a word that spans both, with set usages for things we'd consider unambiguously one or the other (e.g. a cloudless sky, or the "go" part of a traffic light). In the context of eyes it always means blue though, so the example doesn't make much sense.

Out of couriosity, how do they describe green eyes then? or do they have a separate word that only means green?

Yep - it's "midori". I'm no expert but according to wikipedia it all stems from a time when Japanese had only four color names (red, white, black and "ao"), whereas other more specific names came later.
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