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Nuances in Word Usage in Languages | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5872 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 1 of 10 12 March 2011 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Something I hadn't noticed during my language learning process at any of the other languages I've studied before and that now, when I became fairly "fluent" in German, it occurs to me and it seems to be one of the most difficult aspects of language learning, and I'd say even more than grammar, and that is the nuances in languages and word usage.
Well, at least when I started to learn German I'd more often than not pick the wrong word in the dictionary, simply because for ONE word, they would give me at least EIGHT different translations to it, that used to make me crazy, and it still does sometimes. But this is one of the things that I just don't notice at other languages. For instance, Portuguese doesn't have like 12 different (and unmatchable) words for "to agree", and well, in German it's very complicated to say that, because it depends a lot on the context. You have to think to yourself "What's agreeing with what? Are these people? Things? Is it a grammatical agreement? Two parties are agreeing with each other?" Well, German has certain nuances to such verbs and nouns that it can be really hard to tell them apart, at least in the beginning, looking for a word in a dictionary is like shooting in the dark. That one word you picked is probably NOT the correct one to use in this context. So, this is something that has bothered me lately, if it's something that also happens in other languages and how difficult is it? Of course there are languages with a rich vocabulary and with a variety of different words, but in languages like English, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, etc these words are to a certain extent synonyms, while in German it's more specific for certain contexts. Now, I don't know much about this "phenomenon" in other languages, is it something characteriscally from Germanic Languages, to have an extensive and hard-to-master vocabulary? I've heard Dutch is pretty much the same in that way. I'd like to hear some opinions and personal experiences about this, and about difficulty, because on my mind Grammar can be mastered easier through time, but this is different, it doesn't just rely on learning rules, but on riddling the nuances behind words, which can be very exhaustive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5324 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 10 12 March 2011 at 6:31am | IP Logged | ||
I believe that you overestimate the difficulty of German and underestimate the complexity of other languages. For example, if you look up agree in a thesaurus, you might find the following definitions: acknowledge, admit, concede, concur, consent, correspond, suit (to name only a few). The many different German translations that you encountered might have simply been near-synonyms. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5531 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 3 of 10 13 March 2011 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I can relate to that (not in the case of German though since I'm a native speaker). Whenever I come across a situation when I'm not sure which word to use, I do a Google Search with several alternatives. Then I can check which word is used in which context. In the course of time, you'll develop a feeling for the correct answer.
Make sure that you use quotation marks when you google expressions (e.g. "answering the phone": "ein telefon beantworten": only 6 hits; "ans telefon gehen" approx. 351,000 hits). 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5872 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 4 of 10 13 March 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, what I mean in the case of German is that the meaning of words go even deeper and sometimes, even when you have a context it can still cause confusion, because it's very specific. Maybe for a native this is not so noticeable, but i'm gonna mention a few examples:
For instance, the verb in English "to keep". That in German is very complex, you have bewahren which means "to keep st. in a safe place", there's aufbewahren which means also "to keep in a safe place", but only for a short period of time and the item is to be called on later (i.e. "I can keep your passport for you" or "Keep this in a cold place"), there's wahren which is mostly used in standard expressions like "keep up appearances", "keep face", etc. There is aufheben which is similar to aufbewahren, with the emphasis on not losing/not throwing away something (i.e. "Keep the receipt!", there is behalten which means "to keep in one's possession" (i.e. "You can keep the umbrella" or "I can't keep all that in my head"), now, halten can mean "to keep st. in one position" (i.e. "Keep your finger there" or fig. "He keeps in touch with his students") and is also used in some other standard expressions (i.e. "Keep your word!"). No, it's not over, there's also other words to render "to keep", like erhalten, which is used in the sense of "to keep from deteriorating, dying or decaying, where the emphasis is on the result", there's aufrechterhalten which is "to keep/maintain" at a certain level or standard (i.e. "To keep the peace" or "to keep good relations with s.o"), there's einhalten which means "to keep" in the sense of "to stick to" of obligations between two or more parties and I could mention even more, but I think I made my point. What i'm saying is, such nuances are not noticeable at first, and I myself had to consult a German vocabulary book now to be more precise about this. I don't think i'm overestimating the difficulty of German, but I'm rather trying to show that the extensive vocabulary that German has, which other languages also do, is somehow more explored and used in German. While in English you could express yourself well in all the above situations using simply the word "to keep", in German you would have to be more mindful to the contexts and the meaning behind words in order to explain to the speaker exactly what you want to say. The accuracy is a very important criterion here. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 10 13 March 2011 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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You need to use your dictionaries both ways.
A bilingual dictionary was designed first and foremost for translators translating to their native language, so tries to show you the meaning of a foreign word. It gives you a muddy "cloud" of meaning by saying "it's this and this and this; or it's this and this". You then know the meaning, and you can select the appropriate word from the context (and the word you decide on may not even be in the dictionary). If you're looking up a word in your own language to discover a foreign equivalent, you often need to use the other half of the dictionary. Look up your Portuguese (or other native language) word in the Portuguese->German half. Pick a likely translation to German (or other target language). Look that up in the German->Portuguese section. Is it what you wanted? So if I was to look up "to agree" and I wanted agree to mean "both think the same thing was acceptable" and one of the entries had "to be of one mind, to come to an agreement" then I would know I had the right meaning of "agree". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5872 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 7 of 10 13 March 2011 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cainntear, the dictionary helps, indeed, specially those from Langenscheidt which usually give you some contexts to make it more comprehensive, but it still goes beyond just knowing the meaning of a word.
Sometimes verbs can only refer to people, sometimes just to things, sometimes they can only be used when there's a "dass" clause, sometimes you can't use the verb derivative as a noun, sometimes only when the meaning is "abstract", etc and sometimes there are even meanings behind the words like in anklagen which means "to accuse and lay charges on so." while there's beschuldigen "to accuse sb. (without the connotation of laying charges) and there's also vorwerfen which is also accusing, but by means of reproaching, blaming. These are some of the troublesome words that we find out later in the learning. Differently from English, Portuguese and some other languages where a native can probably guide you, like "stick to this word and it will be correct in 99% of the situations", that's not something you hear so often in German, you will probably hear "Well, that depends, what's the context?". I just wonder if this phenomenon also happens in other languages, words that are very specific to certain situations and that usually have an extra meaning behind them. For instance, I've come across a verb in Swedish, which in English is simply "to think", but that in Swedish it corresponds to three different verbs which usually aren't interchangeable. That is: Tycka, which means "to hold an opinion about sth./so." or when it's a matter of taste (i.e. "I think he sang alright" or "I think that car suits you") Tänka, which means "to ponder", "to use one's brain" (i.e. "Think before you act.") Tro, at last, means "to believe", you cannot be sure, but you believe something (i.e. "[I cannot be sure but] I think it will happen tomorrow night") Now, this is just one example, i'm not really familiar with Swedish so I can't tell if there are more like this and if this happens often, but this one thing that has fascinated me lately, languages that have such details, nuances that are hard to master. Does anyone notice it in other languages? Perhaps some polyglots here could talk about it? Edited by koba on 13 March 2011 at 4:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 10 14 March 2011 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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The reason that precisely German and Russian have been singled out in this thread could be that these two languages use affixes to modify the words, where languages like English and Portuguese indicate nuances and special meanings through the context. So in a German or Russian dictionary you see a lot of derivations with slightly different meanings, where you ought to see a lot of more or less fixed expressions with 2-3 words in for instance an English dictionary - or maybe just plain advice about the use of the words.
And true, some languages seem to be obsessed with precision in certain areas (like Russian with its very specialized movement verbs), but there will normally also be areas where they are less fuzzy. And those affixes will normally have some kind of recognizable effect on the words they modify. Edited by Iversen on 14 March 2011 at 12:17am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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