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Words that don’t exist in English... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4295 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 26 15 September 2012 at 12:21am | IP Logged | |||||
You are trying to make a semantic distinction that does not seem exist (to me). Good/Bad anything exists in degrees on a continuum unless you can show that the culture believes differently. While languages often reflect a culture's beliefs, you have yet to offer evidence that German culture does believe them to be distinct concepts apart from your own semantic interpretation. Do you have such cultural references to offer? As to the definition of unglücklich, my popup dictionary (concise Oxford) gives for an a German translation of the English "unlucky" the following: unglücklich; (not successful) glücklos; Pech haben. Wictionary gives a definition of unfortunate. As I have only studied a small amount of German I can't speak to this matter authoritatively and rely on such dictionaries. I would welcome the perspective of other native German speakers on these issues. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4324 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 18 of 26 15 September 2012 at 1:58am | IP Logged | |||||
"glücklich" can have both meanings at least in attributive position, doesn't matter for the illustration though. What I wanted to illustrate is that English has the same opposition. I don't see two different concepts of luck in the English noun and adjective, just two ways of expressing the same. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4647 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 19 of 26 15 September 2012 at 11:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Peregrinus:
You can believe me that I know my native language! Other than that, I can only repeat myself: "Pech" is the opposite of "Glück", but both words can be modified by adjectives, so there is a continuum in German as well. I only said - and I'm asking myself if you'll understand it this time - that English uses one word (i.e. "luck") while German has two different words. I never said German culture had a different concept of "good luck" and "bad luck" than English, but only the German language! As to "(un)glücklich": The primary meaning is "(un)happy". But you're right, in some contexts it can be translated as "(un)lucky", e.g. "Es war eine glückliche Fügung". Edited by Josquin on 15 September 2012 at 12:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4336 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 20 of 26 15 September 2012 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting discussion! I am learning German so I am definitely not an expert here.
One thing I have always found odd in English that the meaning of 'luck' itself seems to have two separate meanings: 1. It is mostly used in the positive sense (e.g., "Lots of luck with your exams"), which can be negated like other positive terms (e.g., "he was unlucky"). 2. But if it is always positive how can "He had bad luck or good luck" make sense? In this context it seems like a neutral term than be modified by the appropriate adjective. My (non-native) reading was German has separate words for the concepts "good luck" and "bad luck", but not this more neutral sense of luck in example 2. Edited by patrickwilken on 15 September 2012 at 3:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4752 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 21 of 26 15 September 2012 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just to spice it up a bit, Portuguese also has different words for good and bad luck:
sorte (good luck) azar (bad luck) French usually would use in standard usage "de la chance", but colloquially "avoir du pot". For bad luck however, colloquially many say "pas bol!"... so one could say it also has two separate expressions. I hear that much more than "N'avoir pas de chance". English or Spanish don't seem to have such distinctions. Spanish however has the famous "te aprecio vs te quiero vs te amo" nuance, which I have not been able to find such a nuance in English, or, thus far, in German or French. Portuguese has "quero-te" and "amo-te" (in Brazil "te" may go in front depending on speakers). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4295 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 22 of 26 15 September 2012 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Josquin, No offense was intended. But despite dictionary definitions and personal native language knowledge, there are often dialectal/regional variations, which may not be noted in dictionaries. This is why I asked for the perspective of other German native speakers. Thank you for the further explanations as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4468 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 26 16 September 2012 at 11:49am | IP Logged | |||||
It's Italian too. FWIW. Was it Morecambe and Wise who asked "What's the French for double entendre?" ? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4471 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 24 of 26 16 September 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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hepiend is a Croatian word ;)
Хэппи-энд is a Russian word ;) In English it's said as: happy ending LOL happy ending ---> hepiend ;) in English happy ending is not a word, just an expression which is not necessarily fixed, since a movie can have a happy ending or a sad ending. ;) Edited by Medulin on 16 September 2012 at 3:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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