|
 |
Words that only exist in some languages | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Vocabulary learning | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5381 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 9 of 97 30 April 2010 at 4:12am | IP Logged | ||
|
I like that in Spanish you can differentiate between two forms of "to be" - ser y estar. I also find the different words for things that are close, further away, or way over yonder. Saves a lot of "that one?" "no, THAT one over there!".
While I don't know the actual words, I also like languages that can distinguish between "we" in terms of "you and me", "that guy over there and me but not you", "all of us but not them", etc. My favorite word right now is Schadenfreude (sorry, probably bad spelling - I don't speak German!). It's a great word to encapsulate how I feel about my manager being demoted after years of incompetence and being a generally obnoxious personality....ah but I digress.... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tally Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Israel Joined 5609 days ago 135 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English*, Modern Hebrew* Studies: French | Message 10 of 97 03 May 2010 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
|
There is also the famous Danish word 'hygge', which is something like the warm fuzzy
feeling that you get when you are with your loved ones, or a cozy comforting feeling. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6080 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 97 03 May 2010 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Yeah, Norwegian has the same with "hygge"/"hyggelig". It's very hard to define, could be
used when you're having a cosy, genuinely nice time with someone etc. Another one that as far as I know doesn't exist in English is "døgn", which describes night+day. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5482 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 12 of 97 03 May 2010 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Moe has been in English geek/otaku slang for awhile now. It generally just means absurdly cute (i know the exact meaning is near indefinable in English but thats how most people percieve it). Even kawaii is in otaku slang. A lot of those anime words are. Those words however are really restricted in terms of who knows them. And often, if you do know them, youre generally an otaku/massive geek. --- As for words that don't exist in other languages, I know the Inuit language has actually very few words for snow, but it acts agglutitively with affixes/prefixes to describe a wide array of snow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kounotori Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5345 days ago 136 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 97 03 May 2010 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Finnish has the word sisu, which, according to Wikipedia, is "a Finnish term loosely translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. However, the word is widely considered to lack a proper translation into any language. [...] The literal meaning is equivalent in English to "having guts", and the word derives from sisus, which means something inner or interior. However sisu is defined by a long-term element in it; it is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain an action against the odds."
Finnish also has an equivalent to døgn (or dygn in Swedish): vuorokausi, or a period of 24 hours. As for English, I've found that there is really no direct equivalent to the word fortnight in most languages. It's usually translated as "two weeks" (zwei Wochen; kaksi viikkoa; 两周; 二週間; две недели; två veckor; dwa tygodnie, etc.) in many other languages. Romance languages have the word variously known as quinzaine/quindicina/quinzena/quincena, but that term actually denotes a period of 15 days, not 14 (which would neatly make up two weeks). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MegatronFilm Triglot Senior Member United States peligrosa.tumblr.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5939 days ago 130 posts - 275 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 14 of 97 03 May 2010 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I really like Portuguese word Desenrascanco which is on the list in this article:
">10 coolest foreign words that English needs Edited by MegatronFilm on 03 May 2010 at 5:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 15 of 97 03 May 2010 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
|
예닐곱 means "six or seven" in Korean.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5678 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 16 of 97 03 May 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
With the word being so long, I wonder whether it's a compound word. If it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there are cognates in other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
