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What words do you always mix up? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sotong Newbie Australia Joined 5828 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Indonesian, Mandarin, Polish | Message 9 of 18 21 December 2008 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese is probably the worst offender in my case, but I regularly disgrace myself in Indonesian by mixing up the terms kelapa, "coconut", and kepala, "head". On many occasions I have complained of a severe coconut-ache, or of having a meeting with the School Coconut (kepala sekolah translates to "head-of-school".)
Most of my confused words in Chinese are due to tonal mistakes - I'm sure I've confused many a Chinese gentleman by mispronouncing wen4 "to ask", as wen3 "to kiss", or even worse, wen2 "to smell." The uncle of a friend, whom I visited in Taiwan, seemed genuinely appalled when at the last gaffe in particular. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6539 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 18 21 December 2008 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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These days in Korean my number one screwup is 방치하다(to leave alone) and 방지하다 (to prevent).
Everytime I encounter words like tis I have a bad habit of just using another variation of one word (which I imagine must have different uses) So instead of 방지하다 I always use 예방하다 When I want to say 'to prevent'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 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 11 of 18 27 September 2009 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I still mix up the German "alt" (old) with the Spanish/Portuguese/Italian "alto" (tall). So when I see Er ist sehr alt (He is very old), I still think it means "He is very tall." Maddening!
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| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 12 of 18 27 September 2009 at 4:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I've tried to turn the French word "combien" (how many) into a Spanish word, "combién",
to puzzled looks. Fortunately the embarrassment drilled the correct word, "cuánto", into my memory. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Choscura Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5548 days ago 61 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Thai | Message 13 of 18 27 September 2009 at 11:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I've made a few mistakes in thai like this. two that stand out are mixing up the words 'kaya' (garbage) and 'kasan' (an unusual word that means 'king'). the other that I messed up was 'sa-euk' (hiccup) and 'saduak' (convenient).
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 18 27 September 2009 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I constantly mix up 'arriba' and 'abajo' as well as 'subir' and 'bajar'.
I don't have the slightest idea why, expect that it might follow a strange logic I am trying to find in the Spanish system of 'ir' and 'venir' in relation to speaker/listener and transfer this to words for moving upwards/downwards as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mareike Senior Member Germany Joined 6224 days ago 267 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German* Studies: English, Swedish | Message 15 of 18 27 September 2009 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I always mixed up farther and further.
A typical thing is also: for vs. since. (But I've done many excercises to this topic, so I don't mixed it up anymore.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6665 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 16 of 18 27 September 2009 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
The classic bumper sticker: "Seid gut zu Vögeln!" ("Be nice to birds!" ... or "Be good to f**k!") 1 person has voted this message useful |
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