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So many different words | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3898 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 1 of 14 19 July 2014 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I've noticed this in German particularly (and Mandarin in the past) but I'm sure this applies to probably every language.
When I look for a translation for a word, there is the main translation, but then there are also so many other meanings for that same word, and they don't even seem to have any connection. For example, in German: anziehen = to dress. But it you look for other uses of the word, you have "to attract", "to tighten", as a noun it means "initial set", an example sentence: "Anziehen der Preis" = "To harden the price". I've seen much worse examples than this. Are these just colloquial uses of the word? It's pretty daunting to think that there are so many different meanings to some words, of which have no connection to each other. Edited by soclydeza85 on 19 July 2014 at 1:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 14 19 July 2014 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Context is everything. There are just as many examples in English that we take for granted every day. That's where massive exposure to native materials comes in handy. If you see a word used differently in different contexts, you start to see patterns and reasons as to why a word may have different meanings depending on those contexts.
Parallel texts come in handy in the beginning stages of reading and exploring a language. Word for word translation sometimes just doesn't serve well. Also, I find a good monolingual dictionary gives better guidance as to different meanings in context than a typical, run of the mill, bilingual dictionary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5757 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 14 19 July 2014 at 3:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Look up the word 'cap'.
I don't know where you get 'initial set' from. The idea behind those words is the root, to pull/draw, together with an- which marks beginning and/or a motion towards something. You draw on clothes so that they are on your body. You pull a screw so that it sits tight. (Actually, even though I use that word for screws I imagine bolts and nuts and fastening them with a wrench rather than using a screwdriver and a small screw.) You draw people towards you, a magnet draws iron towards it. Horses start pulling a carriage, and the jolting movement of that motions made people also use the word for cars and for people starting to put in their full weight when working. Remember, native speakers can't remember completely unrelated meanings per word for too many words either, so try to find a way to make them look more related. It helps. Edited by Bao on 19 July 2014 at 12:07pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4435 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 4 of 14 19 July 2014 at 3:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Every language has its own set of rules that are not the same. Like in English we would say: "it's a nice
day", "it's far from here", "it's a good restaurant". In all 3 cases we say "It is" in English. In French you'd say something like "il fait beau" / "il fait du soleil", "c'est loin d'ici", "il est un bon restaurant". In all 3 versions you use "it is" in English to start the sentence. In French the first case "it's a nice day" you're referring to the weather so you start with "il fait". The second case in front of an adjective you use "c'est". The 3rd case you use "il est" in front of an article "un". If you go by the English you may be tempted to say "il est loin d'ici" instead of "c'est loin d'ici" for "it is far from here". In Chinese you use classifiers in front of nouns. In English we have a pair of shoes & a pair of pants. in Chinese you use 2 different classifiers: 一对鞋 & 一条裤. For shoes you use the equivalent of "a pair" but for pants the classifier is the same for long objects such as a river 一条河. Again if you say 一对裤 you'd be wrong... Even between close languages you can't always translate directly... Edited by shk00design on 19 July 2014 at 3:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5590 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 5 of 14 19 July 2014 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||
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If you learn that "to dress" means to put on clothes", it is funny, that you can dress food, seeds, stones, game animals, leather, textiles, skin, timber, troops and fish, too...
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5421 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 6 of 14 19 July 2014 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Without wanting to start another debate, my take on the discussion here is that the word is not a unit of meaning .
Therefore counting words is a rather useless exercise. Learning the different uses of a word can be just as important as learning more words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4835 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 7 of 14 19 July 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
In order to understand a language, you need to stop translating in your head and start seeing the world through the eyes of the language. In English translation, all these meanings seem to be unrelated, but for a German they aren't. As Bao pointed out, all these words have to do with "drawing" or "pulling" from a German point of view. Many of the meanings have to do with "pulling" in a metaphorical sense, like "den Preis anziehen" (not: "anziehen der Preis"!!!). Imagine that you're pulling the price until it has risen. This way you'll get a much better understanding of how a language works instead of trying to translate word by word in your head. Edited by Josquin on 19 July 2014 at 3:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3898 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 8 of 14 19 July 2014 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for all the replies. The dictionary I used says "anziehen der Preis", here
(not arguing about it, I'll take a natives word over an online dictionary) I see what you all are saying, I just wish it was better represented in dictionaries for better understanding. You all make very good points and it is something I've always known, but kind of turned a blind eye to since it adds a whole new dimension to vocab. I guess the only real way to study all the different uses of a word is in context (reading/listening, usw.) Edited by soclydeza85 on 19 July 2014 at 4:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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