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Did you know that...? (language trivia) | ||
Tags: Language Trivia | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 81 of 90 12 January 2011 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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In French, the word for love (amour) is masculine in the singular, but feminine in the plural. A few other words also share this weird feature.
(To be confirmed) In Mandarin, no syllable begins and ends with the same semi-vowel, making the word "wow" phonologically impossible. 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 82 of 90 14 January 2011 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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"Socorram me subi no onibus em Marrocos"
Just read it from right to left and you have the same phrase in Brazilian Portuguese. Translation - "Help me, I've got a bus in Marrocos". I like this funny phrase. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 83 of 90 21 February 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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The longest palindrome in Dutch is nepkoortsmeetsysteemstrookpen.
I also found potstalmelkkoortspilstaalplaatslipstrookklemlatstop but I don't think it should count because it makes no sense. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JaKorChi Newbie Australia Joined 5060 days ago 18 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, Afrikaans, Mandarin | Message 84 of 90 06 March 2011 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Korean has two separate verbs for "I know" and "I don't know": "알다" and "모르다", respectively. There are also many different polite sentence endings in Korea which you need to know. Off the top of my head, there must be more than five or six... and their use depends on the listener and the situation.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 85 of 90 07 March 2011 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
Dang it. I was hoping that translated to "Naomi sex at noon taxes I moan". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5035 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 86 of 90 07 March 2011 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Finnish is supposed to be excellent for palindromes, words/phrases that read the same backwards or forwards.
One of the best is: SAIPPUAKAUPPIAS (soap vendor) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kounotori Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5345 days ago 136 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 87 of 90 07 March 2011 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Yep. Two Finnish humorists have even written two palindrome poem books (Retki – Dikter (1991) and Aito idiotiA (2002)). Someone posted some excerpts here from Aito idiotiA, a couple of my favorites: - Olemassaolo: loassa melo. (Existence: row in mud.) - Toka projekti: käsilläsi, kisälli, sä kitke jorpakot. (Second project: with your hands, apprentice, uproot the ditches.) - Atte diat otti. Hitto, taidetta! (Atte took the slides. Damn, art!) - Nosta kaunis naamasi, pisamaan sinua katson. (Raise your beautiful face, at your freckle I look.) - Nätin äänesi, sen äänitän. (Your pretty voice, that I record) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cymrotom Tetraglot Groupie United States cymrympls.blogspot.c Joined 5038 days ago 56 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English*, German, Mandarin, Welsh | Message 88 of 90 10 March 2011 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Welsh, the word benthyg means both "borrow" and "lend"
The word dysgu means both "learn" and "teach" 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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