Words that only exist in some languages (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Words that only exist in some languages
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Doitsujin
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Message 57 of 97

22 May 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged

Tally wrote:

In Hebrew there is a word called 'fraier', which means someone who lets other people
get ahead of him, or he waits patiently while other people go etc. :)

That would be a sucker in English. I.e. a person easily cheated, deceived, or imposed upon.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sucker
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/thou-shalt-not- be-a-freier-1.211247

Being afraid of being taken for a freier might be unique Israeli idea, but the word itself is not that unique.

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JanKG
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Message 58 of 97

23 May 2010 at 3:26pm | IP Logged

Tally wrote:

chucknorrisman wrote:

예닐곱 means "six or seven" in Korean.

There is a word for that? why? :)

Could it just mean 'about' ? Was the counting system based on 5-folds ? Just guessing...

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Felidae
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Message 59 of 97

23 May 2010 at 5:54pm | IP Logged

i think "saudade" is much stronger than "miss". I would say "I miss..." as "Sinto falta...", while "Sinto/Tenho saudade..." would be something extremely painful, continuous, which never gets out of my head.
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irrationale
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Message 60 of 97

23 May 2010 at 9:28pm | IP Logged

I read somewhere that the word "fair" in English is unique to English. For example "a fair deal", "a fair price", "a fair matchup", etc.
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Moogiechan
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Message 61 of 97

24 May 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged

ellasevia wrote:

To my knowledge Japanese doesn't make this distinction either:

それを知りませんでした。sore-o shirimasen deshita. (I didn't know that.)
彼女を知っています。 kanojo-o shitteimasu. (I know her.)

(Please correct my Japanese if it's wrong.)

Japanese has 知る(shiru) and 分かる (wakaru) , which are "know" and "understand". But 分かる is used in some places where an English speaker would use "know", e.g.:　木曜までには結果が分かるはずだ。　( We should know the results by Thursday.)

It's also interesting that you don't use 知ります(shirimasu) for "I know" as you would expect, but　知っていま (shitte imasu), which is literally "I am knowing".

Edited by Moogiechan on 24 May 2010 at 12:58am
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ellasevia
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Message 62 of 97

24 May 2010 at 2:08am | IP Logged

Moogiechan wrote:

[QUOTE=ellasevia]It's also interesting that you don't use 知ります(shirimasu) for "I know" as you would expect, but　知っていま (shitte imasu), which is literally "I am knowing".

Yes, in the affirmative you use the -ている form, but in the negative you use the normal form:
知っています。I know.
知りません。I don't know.
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Enki
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Message 63 of 97

24 May 2010 at 8:37am | IP Logged

답답하다
It's that feeling of oppressive, claustrophobic frustration when someone/something is being veeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooooooooow or beating around the bush. I've been using that word a lot :)

Another interesting thing is that Korean is the only language I've studied so far that has a separate word for "not knowing". 알다-> to know 모르다-> to not know. All other languages I know (admittedly not many) just use the negative form of "knowing".
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Warp3
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Message 64 of 97

24 May 2010 at 9:09pm | IP Logged

Enki wrote:

That just helped me with some Korean words I was having trouble looking up from a song (as I didn't realize the first syllable block was doubled like that)...thanks. :)

Quote:

Another interesting thing is that Korean is the only language I've studied so far that has a separate word for "not knowing". 알다-> to know 모르다-> to not know. All other languages I know (admittedly not many) just use the negative form of "knowing".

Good point, I hadn't really thought of that. Korean also has separate verbs for "to not be" (아니다) and "to not have / to not exist" (없다). (Granted, the verb for "to not be" is *almost* spelled like the negative form of "to be" (이다), but not quite. Plus, it conjugates very differently compared to the positive form.)

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