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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 |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 25 of 97 04 May 2010 at 7:02am | IP Logged | |||||
To my knowledge Japanese doesn't make this distinction either: それを知りませんでした。sore-o shirimasen deshita. (I didn't know that.) 彼女を知っています。 kanojo-o shitteimasu. (I know her.) (Please correct my Japanese if it's wrong.) Greek doesn't have a very big distinction either. You can use ξέρω (ksero) in both circumstances, but you could also use γνωρίζω (ghnorizo; literally 'to recognize') as the equivalent of kennen/conocer/conhecer/connaître in certain cases. Does anyone know if the Slavic languages make this distinction? Edited by ellasevia on 04 May 2010 at 7:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sik0fewl Newbie Canada Joined 5495 days ago 31 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 26 of 97 04 May 2010 at 8:10am | IP Logged | |||||
English has that, too, and you just used it: "yonder" :). Ok, so it's not completely the same thing... Japanese has something like this, too: kore - "this", something close to me sore - "that", something close to you are - "that over there", "that over yonder", something close to neither you or me Edited by sik0fewl on 04 May 2010 at 8:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gamauyun Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5649 days ago 26 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Romanian, German | Message 27 of 97 04 May 2010 at 10:55am | IP Logged | |||||
Russian doesn't. They're both expressed using знать. Upon looking it up quickly though, it looks like Polish and Czech might make such a distinction. According to Wiktionary, Polish uses znać and 'wiedzieć' (compare Rus. видеть - to see) respectively. Could any Polish or Czech speaker confirm or deny this? Edited by Gamauyun on 04 May 2010 at 10:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 28 of 97 04 May 2010 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've always been frustrated by the fact that English doesn't have a word for Dutch "alstublieft". It normally means please but it can also be used when handing something to someone. In English you can say "here you are" or "there you go" but these are quite informal while alstublieft can be said to anyone in any situation (in informal situations you would use "alsjeblieft".) Other words I miss in English are "hoor", "maar" and "toch" which all add nuance to a sentence that I find very hard to translate into English. There's also the verb "zwijgen" for which English only has to be or to keep silent. I often encounter it when I'm translating Dutch songs into English and "to keep silent" seems to never fully translate what it means in Dutch.
On the other hand, I've always loved the English phrase "face it" which in Dutch would be "Zie het onder ogen". It's just not as catchy. Edited by ReneeMona on 13 May 2010 at 9:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 29 of 97 04 May 2010 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've seen Japanese 'moe' translated as 'endearing' - it means a girl is adorable because of some sort of flaw, and it makes you go 'awww' and feel intensely attracted to her. . When Japanese people hear 'moe' they think of creepy pedophile salarymen in relation to a cartoon drawing of a bashful young girl who is blushing because she tripped or did something ditzy like that (probably 'accidentally' flipping her skirt up to reveal her underwear iin the process). Nobody uses the word seriously, only to make fun of anime geeks - kind of like how white people doing impersonations are probably the only people who say 'bling bling' anymore. Anyway, it's an extremely seldom-heard word more popular among foreigners than the Japanese themselves, and carries strong negative connotations, so please be careful about using it if you don't want to look ike a fool. :)
Some real Japanese words (in everyday use) with no equivalents in English would be: 偉い erai - said of an important, powerful person ('He's an erai person in his company') , and also means 'admirable' ('You study for 5 hours every day? Erai!!') I'd translate it loosely as 'one who should be looked up to'. 気遣う kizukau (literally 'to use one's chi') - to skillfully take others' feelings into account and act accordingly. For example, noticing quickly when someone's glass is empty and offering to refill it, or not bringing up a sensitive topic. KY - a trendy abbreviation of 空気が読めない (lit. 'one who can't read the air'), it refers to pretty much the opposite of the person described above - a clueless, self-centered person who does things without taking to account subtle social cues around him. For example, someone talking loudly in a room where everyone else is being silent, or rambling on and on without noticing that the other person is completely uninterested and just humoring him to be polite. 悔しい kuyashii - when you made a mistake and feel really frustrated/disappointed with yourself (like 'dammit, how could I have made such a stupid mistake?! I'll never amount to anything!''). Most of my students (Japanese adults learning English) tell me they have trouble with conversation because making a mistake is too kuyashii. 我慢 gaman - to bear one's cross silently and patiently, taking pains to appear to others as if nothing is wrong in order to avoid burdening them. In Japanese society, an extremely admirable quality, and the mark of a true adult. 面倒 mendou, or it's casual version mendokusai - Translated in dictionaries as 'bothersome', although we never really use that word in English. More like 'too much trouble, can't be buggered'. A very useful word for lazy people like myself. :) For example, Japanese people often tell me that they've always wanted to learn English, but studying is mendokusai. 引く hiku (lit. 'to pull' - I imagine someone pulling back in disgust) - to be turned off by something someone said or did, so that you lose a bit of respect for them or don't want so much to do with them anymore. ('I always got along with that guy, but when he got drunk and started saying those inappropriate things last night, I totally hiku'd.') Of course, there are set phrases used in certain situations, such as 'itadakimasu' (bon appetit), gochisosama deshita (Thanks for the meal), yoroshiku onegaishimasu (I ask this favor of you; I'm at your mercy; please don't f--- it up) and my favorite, 'otsukaresama desu' (something said after someone's hard work; feels to me kind of like acknowledgement/appreciation along with a dose of 'aren't you relieved? It's over; you/we can relax now!') whose absence in English are keenly felt by Japanese speakers including myself! There are many more that I've come across, especially in my work as a language teacher and translator, so I'll update this post if any others come to mind! Edited by Lucky Charms on 06 May 2010 at 5:29am 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5536 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 30 of 97 04 May 2010 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
...nor does Korean from what I've seen. Edited by Warp3 on 04 May 2010 at 5:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 31 of 97 04 May 2010 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, in Czech and Polish there is an actively-used distinction between knowing (or recognizing) a defined fact and knowing something that's less defined (usually in a clause) as expressed by different verbs. Czech znat vs. vedět Polish: znać vs. wiedzieć There's more discussion about Slavonic ways of expressing "to know" here: forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1144017 According to a Russian poster in this thread on WordReference there is an archaic verb in Russian: ведать whose functions have now been largely assumed by знать. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 32 of 97 04 May 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess it formed when 여섯 일곱 "six seven" became contradicted and it came up. There are some other interesting words in Korean formed that have to do with numbers. 닷새 means "5 days". Another interesting word is 즈믄둥이, which refers to the baby who was born in January 1st, 2000. 즈믄 is a native Korean word meaning thousand, these days replaced by the Sino-Korean 천 (千). I hope that number makes a comeback one day. I wonder if there are specific words in other languages that specifically mean "to understand by hearing". The word in Korean for it is 알아듣다. Edited by chucknorrisman on 04 May 2010 at 6:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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