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Idioms, expletives, funny stuff

  Tags: Swearing | Idiom
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
BiaHuda
Triglot
Groupie
Vietnam
Joined 5123 days ago

97 posts - 127 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese
Studies: Cantonese

 
 Message 1 of 20
03 October 2010 at 3:18am | IP Logged 
I come across these all the time and the English language is full of them, I thought i would share a couple here:

Chết Mẹ- This ones in Vietnamese and it literally means Mom's dead, figuratively holy s&%t. When you see something unexpected like your house being struck by lightning you would say "Chết Mẹ, did you see that?".

Hay Bà Cố – (literal: Good as Great Grandma; figurative: F$%&ing awesome). Also Vietnamese, in this case your mate who was standing next to you when your house was destoyed turns around and says, " Yeah, hay Bà Cố!"

Spanish has some good ones. One that comes to mind is Puta Madre-lit the whores mother. This could have some really negative connotations but usually means something along the lines of it's UK equivilent The "dogs bollocks", perhaps in U.S. slang "the bomb". It has more gravity than say, "The bees knees". So you could say to your friend, "Have you seen the new George Forman grill? That thing is the Puta Madre!".

You aren't likely to find these expressions in textbooks, but they are used all the time. They can also be frustrating to the language learner translating with a bi-lingual dictionary I might add.

Edited by BiaHuda on 03 October 2010 at 3:21am

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BiaHuda
Triglot
Groupie
Vietnam
Joined 5123 days ago

97 posts - 127 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese
Studies: Cantonese

 
 Message 2 of 20
03 October 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged 
I don't know how I did it but I quoted myself trying to correct a spelling mistake?

Edited by BiaHuda on 03 October 2010 at 3:32am

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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 4941 days ago

172 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 3 of 20
03 October 2010 at 3:44am | IP Logged 
I heard 'es de puta madre' means terrific. I would be afraid to use that expression..out of fear of it being stronger than I had guessed.
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global_gizzy
Senior Member
United States
maxcollege.blogspot.
Joined 5463 days ago

275 posts - 310 votes 
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 20
03 October 2010 at 8:02am | IP Logged 
Always nice to know some slang, lol. I need to spend more time working on my SPN Slang,
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Old Chemist
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4933 days ago

227 posts - 285 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 5 of 20
03 October 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged 
fireflies wrote:
I heard 'es de puta madre' means terrific. I would be afraid to use that expression..out of fear of it being stronger than I had guessed.

I don't speak much Spanish, but can understand a fair amount. I agree with you - I would be very wary of using puta + madre. Mothers tend to be sacrosanct to most people and it could be fighting talk if you didn't use it correctly. I thought using "Arschloch" to a German I knew reasonably well was ok, but I was corrected, I was wrong in my assumption that it was like calling someone "an old bastard" in dialect B.E., which is pretty harmless, if said with a smile. Similarly, bloedig is a lot worse than bloody and you could end up with a few teeth less for saying it to the wrong person. Can anyone tell me about the Spanish word "bendigo?" I have heard it in a lot of films - if I have spelt it correctly - but I have not been able to find out exactly what the English equivalent is.
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 4941 days ago

172 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 6 of 20
03 October 2010 at 4:29pm | IP Logged 
Maybe it was mendigo which means beggar. Bendigo is 1st person present tense of bendecir (to bless)
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Old Chemist
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4933 days ago

227 posts - 285 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 7 of 20
03 October 2010 at 4:39pm | IP Logged 
fireflies wrote:
Maybe it was mendigo which means beggar. Bendigo is 1st person present tense of bendecir (to bless)

Perhaps. I used to be quite an afficionada of Spanish films and whatever the word was it features a lot in them and seems to be at least mildly offensive - does that fit mendigo? I did know bendigo meant "I bless," but I thought it might have a meaning like in B.E. e.g. "I can't get this blessed thing to work," where blessed is a euphemism. Thanks for your post, anyway!
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 4941 days ago

172 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 8 of 20
03 October 2010 at 4:51pm | IP Logged 
Was it used in a sentence or just an exclamation with few words?


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