See also: "al fresco", which in England means "dining outdoors" and in Italy "being in prison". I wonder if it's because eating English food under the English weather can be considered punishment on the level of incarceration...?
The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
41–50 of 205 posts
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#42I 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".
Yep, like passport control or customs control (at the airport).
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#43Reminds 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 was too lazy, scrolling down a bit on the same article mentions and explains the term "hand[y|ie]".
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#44Reminds 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".
"Handphone" is common in SE Asia, from the literal translation of the Chinese word.
> 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.
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#45If you use LaTeX for typesetting, the document class for slideshow presentations is called Beemer. My understanding is that this is a German psuedo-anglicism related to projectors.
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#46Note 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 Quebec they literally have a french word to replace all common english expressions and prevent borrowing. I met some ladies from Quebec while in France, and they were horrified at how tainted the French spoken by the natives had become. They said at one point they just started speaking exclusively in English because they couldn't stand hearing French butchered by the natives. It's apparently a common phenomenon th…
> It's apparently a common phenomenon that language continues to evolve and grow in the native country, while in colonies and former colonies, people tend to become more protective and orthodox about the language.
Language continues to evolve and grow everywhere. What's going on isn't some impossible impulse in the Quebecois to conserve their language; they are trying to differentiate themselves from English-speaking Canada. The French in France don't need to worry about getting culturally absorbed in the way the Quebecois do.
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#47Note 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.
'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 fought tooth and nail to preserve their culture and language and I think to this day there's still this inertia going on in the way modern French Canadians think.
Moreover, there has been a study/survey showing that isolated culturally homogeneous communities tend to heavy-handedly police (the US style) the use of their native languages. I wish I could find a link to that study :-(
As a native russian speaker living in the US i can actually confirm that the study seems to ring true; i dislike (very much so) when russian speakers start mixing in english words.
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#48Japanese 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…
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Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#49In 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 and the confused look from the French. These days people use the proper French word to describe it.
Re: The foreign words that seem like English, but aren't
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Handphone" is common in SE Asia, from the literal translation of the Chinese word.
> 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!