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How important is the cognate discount? | ||
Tags: False friends | Language Interference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 49 of 64 16 January 2015 at 10:53am | IP Logged | |||||
Sometimes you get a cognate discount even when one doesn't really exist. If I told you there there was a Goldrausch in California in the 1850s, you'd be correct in thinking that the word "Goldrausch" in German was the same as "Goldrush" in English. However, "rausch" means intoxication, and presumably is related to rauchen (smoking) and is not connected to the "rush" in Goldrush. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 50 of 64 16 January 2015 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The problem with cognates is not with recognizing them, it's with using them. As everyone has pointed
out, cognates facilitate reading and, maybe to a lesser extent, listening. That is helpful. The problem is with writing and speaking where the risk is the interference of the two languages. For example, when reading the Spanish el concepto the English-speaker sees the word concept and possibly some related meaning. Fine so far. The real problem is how does our English-speaker properly use concepto in Spanish where there are uses that are very far from the English word. I argue that the same resemblance that makes initial recognition and understanding seemingly easy can now make using the L2 form properly sometimes difficult. I emphasize the word "sometimes" because I don't want anybody to believe that I'm saying that there is no cognate discount when speaking. If I take an example givenabove, the problem isn't reading the word face in French, it's how to use it properly when speaking. For example, there is no single verb in French for to face. The closest equivalent is probably faire face but, when a house is facing a park, one would more likely use donner sur. What I observe is that English-speakers tend to use French face as if they were using the English word. Yes, there are uses where both languages intersect and others where they diverge. The real issue is how to keep them separate. Edited by s_allard on 17 January 2015 at 11:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 51 of 64 16 January 2015 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, it's probably connected as in that the German word is a loan from English, or vice versa, right? I would guess that the word was loaned and then adapted slightly to a word that sounded more German and made sense. There are many examples of this, and they are some of my favorite words. * Swedish "följetong" is a loan from French "feuilleton", even though "följa" means "to follow" and "feuille" means "leaf" or "page". * Mandarin 迷你裙 ("mi2ni3qun2") is a loan from English "miniskirt", even though 迷你 literally means "confuse you". It sometimes even happens within the same language, like "chomp at the bit" or "hiccough" (though that one has only changed the spelling, not the pronunciation). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 52 of 64 16 January 2015 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
What's so interesting about that example is it tells us even more about the word Goldrush. Not only was it a "rush" to get to California for the gold, one can infer there was a zeitgeist of intoxication over the matter. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 53 of 64 16 January 2015 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah sure. I guess I was thinking that for a cognate discount the words have to have the same etymological root. I am not sure what you call these sorts of adapted loan words. Would you just say that there is a (pseudo-)loan word discount in many languages on top of the cognate discount?
Yeah, it cool isn't it? I only learnt it in the last few days. I much prefer the German version over the English. Edited by patrickwilken on 16 January 2015 at 6:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3710 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 54 of 64 17 January 2015 at 10:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the opacity of the cognate relation is also quite important. There are more cognates between French
and Italian than between Italian and Spanish, but most Italians think it’s the other way around because French cognates are less recognisable. Not everyone realises that ‘beaucoup’ is cognate of ‘bel colpo’, that ‘sauf’ is cognate of ‘salvo’, that ‘sceau’ is cognate of ‘sigillo’ and that ‘chez’ is cognate of ‘casa’. I also find that cognates make it easier to understand the language but harder to produce it correctly, as one often commits the mistake of making up new cognates by applying all the relevant sound change rules only to find out that the resulting word makes no sense to native speakers, for example Italians speaking English might use the word ‘grandinate /grandɪneɪt/’ to mean ‘hailstorm’, but the word wouldn’t make any sense to English speakers. Similarly I know an English person who uses the word ‘amusare’ when he speaks Italian, but the right word would be ‘divertire’. Edited by chiara-sai on 17 January 2015 at 10:03am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 55 of 64 17 January 2015 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Are you actually saying that cognates makes it harder to produce correct language, or are you merely saying it gives less of a benefit to production than to comprehension? I readily agree with the second, but thoroughly doubt the first. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5228 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 56 of 64 17 January 2015 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that's pretty much the definition of L1 interference. Don't you think it's much more likely to happen if the elements at play are more similar in both languages? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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