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Words that only exist in some languages | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 89 of 97 10 November 2010 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Many languages, such as Zulu, Vietnamese, and the Mayan languages, lack a distinction between green and blue. Linguists coined the portmanteau "grue" to refer to the color term which includes both green and blue (I would have preferred "bleen" but no one consulted me).
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| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 90 of 97 15 November 2010 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
Asian languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese and maybe Vietnamese) have it too you just put the word for number to unpecify it. 十数時間 数百円 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Pantherus Newbie Australia Joined 5103 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 91 of 97 15 December 2010 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there's no really cliched/popular way of saying "열심히 하세요"(Korean) and "頑張ってください"(Japanese). Both mean roughly "Please work as hard as possible", which is like "Try your best", but with more meaning.
"됐다" is also one to think about. I think (please correct me if you speak Korean), it means "It's happened", and you use it when someone pours you a drink and you want them to stop or if someone keeps on saying something and it bothers you. In both instances, you could translate it as "Stop", but I don't think that'd be accurate as an overall translation. I'm not too sure. Edited by Pantherus on 15 December 2010 at 2:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 92 of 97 11 January 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
"Afford" I don't know, but I can give some exemples of high, loud and tall. The man is tall - O homem é alto The sound is loud - O som está/é alto This mountain/mount is very high - Essa montanha é muito alta - Esse monte é muito alto. That's why most of us have problems while speaking in English. We tend to speak in translated Portuguese instead of English. I hope you guys know the difference. You have to think in your target language if you really want to be fluent.. It often troubles me. In Portuguese, we can say Carro pequeno (little car), or Carrinho (Little car), but the last exemple isn't formal, and it may be not correct, but we often use it. Just some exemples below; carro pequeno, carrinho, little car; carro grande, carrão, big car; homem pequeno, homenzinho, little man; casa pequena, casinha, little house; casa grande, casarão, big house; gordo grande, gordão, very fat gordo pequeno, gordinho, little fat; cabelo longo, cabelão, big/long hair As I said before, we use it all the time in Spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Edited by Matheus on 11 January 2011 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 5147 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 93 of 97 15 January 2011 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Portuguese and Spanish we have two verbs for "To Be", if the verb means a state, we
use "Estar', whether it is used meaning a existence, we use "Ser". It´s not like others european tongues, where only a word is used. Ex: "Esse" in Latin, "Être" in French, "Sein" in German, "Sere" in Italian, et cetera. We´ve in Portuguese the word "saudade", which means suffering for a thing or state lost. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5449 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 94 of 97 16 January 2011 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
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One word that I miss in English (I asked few natives and they didn't know any equivalent
word) is a simple, one-word verb for "keeping your eyes closed" or "to close your eyes". In Serbian this is expressed by verb pair žmuriti/zažmuriti. Instead of a whole sentence "Close your eyes.", one just says "Zažmuri." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 95 of 97 26 January 2011 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some words which exist in Portuguese and I miss a lot in English:
Vocês - It's the plural of "you"; Elas - They (used to female, but if there's a guy on the group, you must use Eles); Eles - They (used to male); Saudade - to miss someone or something (it was already written here) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bolkonsky Diglot Newbie France Joined 5205 days ago 25 posts - 27 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 96 of 97 26 January 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anyone has already mentionned the words "fika" and "lagom" in swedish ?
A friend in Sweden told me they are the most important words of Swedish language which only exist in this language. "fika" is both a noun and a verb reffering to a swedish traditon, a kind of coffee break. More about it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fika_%28coffee_break%29 "lagom" is an adverb meaning something like enough, adequate, just right which doesn't have translation in an other language. This word has also an article on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom Edited by Bolkonsky on 26 January 2011 at 5:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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