strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 17 of 20 29 October 2010 at 11:21pm | IP Logged |
In Swahili, the response after a sneeze is 'Afya Nzuri', which means 'Good health'.
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jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5035 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 18 of 20 20 February 2011 at 3:33am | IP Logged |
In Finnish, the formalized/book expression when someone sneezes is "terveydeksi". I was in a study room at the university, and said that to someone's sneeze. She later became my friend, and she told me that a real Finn would never actually say that even if that's what the books teach.
She taught me a lot about Finnish, actually. We spoke mostly in English, but she trained me for comfort, especially in small talk.
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Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5673 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian
| Message 19 of 20 22 February 2011 at 11:43pm | IP Logged |
jdmoncada wrote:
In Finnish, the formalized/book expression when someone sneezes is "terveydeksi". I was in a study room at the university, and said that to someone's sneeze. She later became my friend, and she told me that a real Finn would never actually say that even if that's what the books teach.
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I actually said it a few days ago. People do say it. I do think it's somewhat uncommon and it sort of sounds "booky", but I definitely don't see any sarcastic, ironic or archaic undertones in using it.
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WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4889 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish
| Message 20 of 20 11 July 2011 at 10:49pm | IP Logged |
In the UK we say "bless you" and the sounds as said before is atchoo. I once worked with a lady from (I think) Nigeria and having hayfever I was sneezing a fair bit. Every time she would say "sorry". Took a couple of sneezes to realise it was her way of saying "bless you". Whether it's just her way or on a larger scale would be interesting to find out :o) x
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