"Idealist" is unexpectedly "idealist" or very close to that in almost all European languages.
Are any words the same in all languages?
81–90 of 511 posts
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#82My first thought was "mama" (and possibly "dada"), as I believe I've seen it attributed to the fact it's an easy word for babies to make since it mimics the first sounds we make. But it's not even mentioned..
Nope, see finnish for supereasy counterexample
... well go on then, what do the Finnish babies say as their first word?
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#83It seems that many languages use mama or something close for mother.
Probably because it's easy for babies to say.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#84TV? WiFi? Bus?
> TV? WiFi? Bus?
At least the first two words are different in German:
- TV: [der] Fernseher
- WiFi: WLAN (Wi-Fi is rather a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance; in my observation spreading the usage of this trademark was mostly successful in the USA)
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#85A little pedantic, but it's worth mentioning that the assumption here is _spoken_ languages. There's a whole set of sign languages around the world as well.
do sign languages even have words? i understand that they have signs, and they have methods to communicate words from a spoken language. but is there a sign language that has words, not signs, that are specific to the sign language?
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#86"OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK
IMO it got popularized a lot by computers and other similar devices because it's so omnipresent in UIs.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#87Baal?
As in, Dutch for (hay) bale?
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#88My first thought was "mama" (and possibly "dada"), as I believe I've seen it attributed to the fact it's an easy word for babies to make since it mimics the first sounds we make. But it's not even mentioned..
In Russian there's no "dada", it's "papa" instead.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#89Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#90"Taxi" is universally understood, in my experience. (TFI calls it a "runner up" candidate.) "Kaput" is another.
Taxi, bar, hotel, restaurant, are very common. Maybe because of tourism? I have no idea what “kaput” means…
> I have no idea what “kaput” means…
"kaputt" is a rather colloquial German word for "broken".
My stance as a native German speaker: don't use it in written German, and avoid it in spoken German, too, since you will appear somewhat uneducated (remark: in spoken German, you typically use a more formal language register than in spoken English).