Cunning Linguists?

[Guest Doll]

I'm not sure if this will fly but since we have peeps from all over world in 3dx and many who speak lots of languages I thought this was kinda nice...

 

 

I'm hoping there's more little phrases or sayings that have these lovely little turns of meaning in different languages...or anything like this really. My grasp of anything but English is awful I'm ashamed to say so I'm gonna need you all to help me out lol.

 

Not just fun but edu...muh...bloody...cational too right!?

[SteveM]

Great Idea, I feel exactly the same way. I have learned English some times ago, but have no idea how to handle it...  LOL

 

"Come over when you have got nothing on" leads to the german invitation "Komm mal rüber, wenn du nichts an hast", which means "Come over to me, when you are wearing no clothes" LOL, I, for myself, would prefer this translation but the correct translation in german is: "Lass uns mal quatschen, wenn du Zeit hast"

 

 

"Two ice balls, please"       who is thinking of something else?

 

 

 

 

 

I think it can be very funny here

[Leeloo]

Well another one english<-->french 

 

In french you dont say "how are you" (translation:comment es tu) , but "comment vas tu" (translation:How do you go)

[Epi]

I've always loved the french term, "L'esprit de l'escalier" - the direct translation is The Wit of The Staircase, which is pretty meaningless in English, but it means the clever retort you thought of after it was too late to say it. So beautiful and needed in English.

[Epi]

Also on the subject of linguisitics.... I absolutely love the word sesquipedalian. Why? Because of the lovely paradox that the word to describe a lover of long obscure words, is in itself, a long, obscure word.

[cavalier]

Tu me manques Doll  

Pomme de la terre = Apple of the earth =potato 

[cavalier]

J'ai le cafard=i've cockroach=i'm depressed  

[cavalier]

J'ai Papillons dans le ventre=I've Butterflies in my Stomach= I'm in love.

[rooney]

Here are a couple of interesting ones I've found :

 

1)  Shemomedjamo (Georgian) :  To eat past the point of being full just because the food tastes good.

 

2)     Kummerspeck (German) :  Excess weight gained from emotional overeating.

 

3)  Hikikomori (Japanese) :  A teenager or 20-something who has withdrawn from social life, often obsessed with TV and video games.

 

4)  Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu (Tibetan) :  Giving an answer that is unrelated to the question.

 

5)   Iktsuarpok (Inuit):  To go outside to check if an expected visitor has arrived, over and over again.

 

6)  Kaelling (Danish) :  An ugly, miserable woman who yells obscenities at her kids.

 

7)  Pochemuchka (Russian): A person who asks too many questions.

 

8)  Pilkunnussija (Finnish):  A person who believes it is their destiny to stamp out all spelling and punctuation mistakes at the cost of popularity, self-esteem and mental well-being.

9)  "Farpotshket" (Yiddish) :  Something that was a little bit broken ... until you tried to fix it. Now it's totally screwed.

 

10 )   Yaourt" (French) :  To sing along in nonsensical noises that vaguely resemble the lyrics of a song.

 

11)  "Attaccabottoni" (Italian) :  A person who corners you to tell you long, meaningless stories, usually about his oh-so-miserable life.

 

12)  "Epibreren" (Dutch) :  Pretending that you're doing something super important, while in reality you're being super lazy.

 

13)  "Soare cu Dinti" (Romanian:  Weather that looks great until you actually step out in it. Specifically, a beautiful sunny but frigid day.

 

14)    "Utepils" (Norwegian)" That first beer you drink outside when the weather finally turns warm.

 

15)  "Drachenfutter" (German) :  A gift a man gives to his wife to apologize when he's done something stupid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DannyP]

My English sucks....but its good enough 4 this small gay community in here

 

[Callista]

Heh.. one of the fun things on learning english for me is how it inverts adjectives and substantives. In portuguese you normally put the adjective after the substantive. You say car red in portuguese, instead of red car. There are other invertions I found to be amusing, like the verb and noun inversion in questioning. How are you? in portuguese would be How you are? I wrapped my head so much around this...

 

Now a bit unrelated but I thought I would add some curious words / expressions from my own language (brazillian portuguese):

 

Cara de pau (Wood/stick face): A shaneless person. That guy who infiltrates a party and then starts making loud complaints about the music, the guests and the booze.

 

Puxa saco (Sack/Bag puller): An ass kisser. Someone who is constantly sucking up to a perceived superior hoping to elevate their own status.

 

Dedo duro(Hard finger): A snitch. Don't need much elaboration after that. The slang comes from the hard pointed fingers they have when accusing.

 

Cabeça de melância (Watermelon head): Someone who likes to show off. There was this dude who actually did it during last year's World Cup xD. I will edit the post later to include the pic.

 

Saudades - I believe spanish has it too, or other latin languages for that matter. Anyway, noticed this one talking with my wife who is on a trip, saudades is that void and mixed feeling of missing someone (it is NOT nostalgia). You feel saudades of someone when you are missing them, just as I feel saudades of Makii while she is travelling :'( I didn't put a translation because there isn't any that is accurate.

[Epi]

The German word Schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others) is now in pretty common usage, but I prefer the non English word Muditā which is pleasure derived from the well being of others.

[Tiptoe]

One I remember from when I was little is 'a la mode'. In the U.S., or at least in Texas, that typically (I think) refers to 'drowned in ice cream'. For example, 'apple pie a la mode' means a slice of warm from the oven apple pie with quickly melting vanila ice cream on top. One of my childhood besties growing up was French and her dad was kind of baffled by us ordering anything 'a la mode' because what it really means is, 'in the style'. He was like 'Huh? Pie in the style?' Hehehe.

[Callista]

One I remember from when I was little is 'a la mode'. In the U.S., or at least in Texas, that typically (I think) refers to 'drowned in ice cream'. For example, 'apple pie a la mode' means a slice of warm from the oven apple pie with quickly melting vanila ice cream on top. One of my childhood besties growing up was French and her dad was kind of baffled by us ordering anything 'a la mode' because what it really means is, 'in the style'. He was like 'Huh? Pie in the style?' Hehehe.

 

It's also a common expression in portuguese, it translates as "à moda". The meaning is pretty much that, in the style, it's normally a term used in restaurants when you desire to ask for a certain dish on the individual style of the restaurant in question.

[Baishun]

Perhaps my favorite is from the Haitian: a bouch ouverte, which translates to "with an open mouth" but actually means "eagerly, anxiously". Kinda like how I do everything...and usually with an open mouth too! hahaha

 

(edit: I always thought it was French, but just looked it up and realized it's Haitian. Who knew?! Well, I guess Haitians, and probably French people too.)

[Lyam]

 

Marketing blunders due to inappropriate and usually hysterical translation errors.

 

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-ke-ken-la.  Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le,"  which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."