31–40 of 133 posts
Random example: "work/life balance"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"te quiero" = "i adore you"
Not really. "I adore you" is literally "te adoro". "Querer" in Spanish just means "to love", it's a synonym to "amar", also "to love". "Querer" is more common language and applied non-romantically all the time, and "amar" is more poetic and veers more towards romantic love, but they both mean the same. BTW, "querer" means "to want", but when it is used to convey love (easy to tell by context), it doesn't ring of obje…
I’m always wary of these lists, because if you search for the languages you know you always see that most of them are actually translatable and/or rare expressions that nobody uses.
For example, "björntjänst" under Swedish. If you actually check the Reddit post, you can see that people have posted "niedźwiedzia przysługa" (Polish), "Bärendienst" (German), "medveđa usluga" (Serbocroatian) and "bjørnetjeneste" (Norwegian) as the literal same word. I can also confirm that the Finnish "karhunpalvelus" is also a literal one-to-one translation.
I’m always wary of these lists, because if you search for the languages you know you always see that most of them are actually translatable and/or rare expressions that nobody uses.
The problem with this list in particular is that it's composed of user submissions on Reddit, where people probably only know their language + English + maybe a third language. For example, "björntjänst" under Swedish. If you actually check the Reddit post, you can see that people have posted "niedźwiedzia przysługa" (Polish), "Bärendienst" (German), "medveđa usluga" (Serbocroatian) and "bjørnetjeneste" (Norwegian) a…
I think that 'Fika' is an interesting one. In Spanish, or at least in Spain, 'to go for a coffee' implies the same things that 'fika' does. Nobody expects to buy coffee to drink at the office, or at home, as to talk and socialize is more important than the coffee itself. I guess that in English speaking countries it could mean literally to go to buy a cup of coffee and hurry back with the coffee to your desk. Wouldn'…
Some non-English languages are importing English words/phrases when the English one represents an idea that it's a bit more complicated to express in the non-English language. I'm not talking about technical terms. Random example: "work/life balance"
Is this for words or expressions? Clicking through a few, it seems both. I'm not sure it's fair to say phrases don't translate...they just aren't used word for word. I think single words that have no single word translation in other languages is far more fascinating. Like say, Schadenfreude.
As of writing this, 53 Interesting Words in English That Don't Translate... "pearl-clutching" English speaker and I never heard this. If pearl-clutching counts, there's a million more words on Urban Dictionary I'm sure
TIL there's no English word for "to speak among Esperantists in a language besides Esperanto", although I'm not sure one is needed either.
What if you do: s/Esperantists/English-speakers/ and "non-English" AFAIK, the English language is very verbose. If there are so many words, many of which have very similar meaning to others, then many of those words are not needed? Should be removed, even, until everyone forgets them and doesn't miss them at all?
> Should be removed
Language is an emergent social phenomenon, not something anyone really controls or directs, so what “should” be done with it is a bit meaningless.