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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 89 of 109 17 June 2015 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||
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tarvos, you may be right about the Slavic origin of maşină, I didn't think of that.
iguanamon, I know that in Latin American Spanish carro is more usual than coche, I limited my observations to European Spanish. Now in Spain you can also say carro in the meaning of a car, but then it is in a humorous sense or with a slightly pejorative meaning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5057 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 90 of 109 17 June 2015 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
I've been to Spain a few times. Once, I rented a car there and drove it for a few weeks. Of course, my exposure to Spanish, word choice, grammar and accent place me as an American who learned Spanish on this side of the Atlantic. In what sense would saying "carro" instead of "coche" in Spain be slightly pejorative? Just curious. I know you have a Spanish wife and have spent more time in Spain than I, so I'm curious. Nobody ever blinked an eye at me when I would say "carro" over there. Just curious. I used to also freak the Spanish out by referring to the bus as "la guagua". Some people would ask me if I'd spent time in the Canaries, but I picked up the word in Puerto Rico. I used to ride the bus a lot in PR. Funny, I went to Spain when I was living in England. I spoke American English in England, so I was a colonial there- walking on the sidewalk instead of the pavement. I spoke LA Spanish in Spain- a colonial there. I spoke Brazilian Portuguese in Portugal, so I was a colonial there too. If I went to France and spoke Creole, I could be a colonial in four countries :), or better yet, maybe I should learn Quebec French and go rent a "char" in Bordeaux. Good to see you back posting again, Ogrim. I always enjoy your log and have missed your insights. Edited by iguanamon on 17 June 2015 at 2:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 91 of 109 17 June 2015 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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One more weird and unexpected name for cars: in Denmark such a thing has been called a "bil" since around 1902. This is of course the end of the word "automobil", but is a rare case as most abbreviations retain the beginning of the words and throw the end away. But "auto" for a car is barely used here - we always say "bil". On other hand "auto" is common in compounds like "autoværksted", "autoophugger", "automekaniker" ("repair shop", "scrapyard", "auto mechanic").
As far as I remember the explanation is that a newspaper asked for a good name for this new and intriguing apparatus, and "bil" won the competition. Edited by Iversen on 17 June 2015 at 3:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 92 of 109 17 June 2015 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the nice words, iguanamon.
Pejorative might be too strong a word, but if someone from Spain says ¿Vamos en mi carro? he or she normally implies that it is an old, rusty car which is not worth much, or it is meant in a humoristic way. However, there are many Latin American immigrants in Spain, and Latin American soap operas used to be very popular, so people are quite used to hearing LA words and expressions. I am not surprised no one reacted to you saying carro, especially if in general you speak with an LA accent. We say bil in Norway as well, and we are more consistent than the Danes then, because we normally also say "bilverksted", "bilopphugger" and "bilmekaniker". The only time you see "auto" in Norwegian in the meaning of "car" is as part of a company name, e.g. "Larsens Auto", which would be the shop of a car dealer called Larsen. I have no idea whether we adopted the word bil from Danish, but it might well be the case. Edit: Auto exists of course as part of words of Greek origin, such as automat, autograf etc. Edited by Ogrim on 17 June 2015 at 4:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4316 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 93 of 109 17 June 2015 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
The German word "Kutsche" has the same origin, and kocsi used to mean just that (well, with some differences in details). And in Spanish this seems to have been this kind of vehicle too before the advent of mechanical cars. It's interesting how many of these words go back to horse-driven vehicles. Well, cars used to look almost exactly like those in the beginning. You can by the way also say "Wagen" instead of "Auto" in German, without any kind of implications. edit: speaking of Kutsche: Do you distinguish between the two forms of horse-driven wagons in Norwegian? The one the king uses in the fairy tale (or Lucky Luke protects in the Wild West) and the one used by poor peasants to transport their hay? Edited by daegga on 17 June 2015 at 5:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 94 of 109 18 June 2015 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||
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We Danes are actually so inconsistent that we also can say bilværksted etc. as in Norwegian. But we would never say that we were driving an 'auto' - there it is only 'bil'. We wouldn't say 'vogn' about a car (=the equivalent of German "Wagen"), except in one case: a taxi may in formal language be called a 'hyrevogn'. 'Hyre' here is obviously the same word as 'hire' in English, but a hired care is an 'udlejningsbil'. A 'hyrevogn' can only be a taxi. Edited by Iversen on 18 June 2015 at 7:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4085 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 95 of 109 18 June 2015 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||
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It is sometihng like that, «Aquí está mi carro» and someone might respond, «¡Vaya que
mierdón!». I am a bit odd in that I now I have a split Spanish mind because I like both Spain and Argentina so I use both of their slangs and accents depending on interloctutor. But if with Spaniards, the image I get of "carro" is something like my family's old 1986 2-door Honda Accord that is out of commission for a few years and basically just lies around doing nothing. Not only is part of the back bumper beat up, the paint all over is full of scrapes and bird droppings, and the air must be emptying because it has two half-flat tyres. That is usually what pops up in my mind when I think about Peninsular Spanish "carro". In Rioplatense (ARG/URU dialect around Buenos Aires/Montevideo region) I usually hear "el auto" instead of either "el coche" or "el carro". Also to be noted that "el carrito" is a real word but refers to that shopping cart that you use in stores like Tesco, Morrison's, Aldi, Spar, Walmart, Target, Sears, etc. And of course El Corte Inglés. Regarding "bil", was it not something about being a shortened version of "automobil"? "vogn" is probably the purer word for car. With one of my old friends from primary school I still use the English cognate for our cars. "Want to go to the restaurant in my wagon?", but probably not very many people do this. Edited by 1e4e6 on 18 June 2015 at 8:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4502 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 96 of 109 18 June 2015 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
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If you talk about a "koets" in Dutch then you are talking about a horse-drawn carriage in
which the royal family rides in order to present the new financial year. We say auto (most common) or wagen (less common and more used to indicate train wagons and so on), although you could diminutize it to refer to a car. A truck can be either vrachtauto or vrachtwagen (no difference there). Also note that some people don't say auto with the diphthong but instead pronounce it with a monophthong o. Which is nonstandard but common nonetheless. Edited by tarvos on 18 June 2015 at 10:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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