Forreign langages lesson of the day

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Other languages have words for the weirdest stuff:

Words that don't exist in the English language

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20 comentarii:

Anonymous said...

l'esprit d'escalier in German: Treppenwitz

pena ajena: fremdschämen

:D

Anonymous said...

Dude, I'm German and I have never heard of "Waldeinsamkeit".
The word you are looking for is "mutterseelenallein" and describes the feeling of beeing forever alone.
Mutter=mother Seele=soul allein=alone

Now that's cool.

Calophi said...

My favorite is:

もっこり (mokkori) (Japanese): "tent" an erection makes against pants or bedsheets

Anonymous said...

I'm french and I've never heard about the "Esprit d'escalier" expression. mmh mmh!

matt said...

ok ok...it's a joke: I'm italian and we have a lot of weird stuff but...nobody says 'cualacino'

Anonymous said...

Considering the Portuguese (I don't know Galician), I think the translation of 'saudade' is imprecise. The thing (or person, whatever) once lost isn't necessarily irretrievable.

Anonymous said...

It's so stupid to say that "mexican spanish", that expression is SPANISH from Spain (Traditional sort), do you think Spanish is only Mexico?

Anonymous said...

Me da verguenza ajena que digan pena ajena.

Anonymous said...

Dear fellow Germans, 'Waldeinsamkeit' is an actual German term. However, it is really oldfashioned language. You can check, it has been used by several poets of the romatic movement (19th century). People who actually went in the woods to be alone (probably, for a lack of other amusements, lol).

Anonymous said...

Es verdad, es VERGÜENZA AJENA.. no pena ajenga.

Anonymous said...

en el norte de mexico si se dice pena ajena!

Anonymous said...

as said before, "saudade", it's not only for when someone is lost forever, it's closest translation to english would be "to miss". And it can be used when we are talking about a person, a place, anything. By representing such a great feeling for us(brazilians), strange is the fact that others languages dont have a similar word (:

Anonymous said...

"saudade" in Galician can be almost directly translated into "morriña", which broadly means nostalgia

Anonymous said...

Waldeinsamkeit might be a old term but basicly you can merge all german words together like that.

Wald = Forest/Woods
Einsamkeit = Lonelyness

Plane -> Flugzeug
+ Einsamkeit= Flugzeugeinsamkeit (The feeling of beeing alone in a Plane)

Schadenfreude is a much more interresting word merge.
Schaden = Damage
Freude = Joy (Like in Ode an die Freude/Ode to Joy)

Well, stuff like this makes german such a hard language to learn.

BTW:
Zeitgeist: Spirit/Ghost of time
Poltergeist: Rumble Ghost
Bratwurst: Fried Sausage
Sauerkreat: Sour Herb
Kitsch: Well no translation here :)

Anonymous said...

40 % of the Norwegian language derives directly from german. (Lended words from the Hanseatic period) we also have the expression "skadefryd" - joy you feel when your enemy is in pain. (Schadenfreude in German)

As for the word "forelsket", from this post it means "in love". English uses the word more widely, you love your girl/boy friend, but you also love your family and friends. But in a different way. You definately don't want to be "forelsket" in your brother or a sister. So, i guess this definition for Norwegian is correct... however, the english language is not in lack of a similar expression - to be "in love" means exactly the same as "forelsket".

So, post fail...

loverock said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
loverock said...

In italian language the word 'cualacino' doesn't exist, the correct word is 'culaccino' but no one used it.

Anonymous said...

I'm Norwegian, and i remember finding it strange to find only one word for the different levels of love. I feel that "to be in love" does not properly describe the meaning of "forelsket". The English word "infatuated" is much closer.

Anonymous said...

Cualacino is what? I'm Italian and I assure you that I never heard of that word once in my life, until I browsed a tumbler and found this statement...It sounds to me more like an italian dialect word.
Alessandra

Unknown said...

The correct spelling of the world in Italian is "Culaccino" and not "Cualacino". Cualacino doesn't mean shit

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