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Favorite Words in Different Languages
What is one of your guys' fav words? Mine is "Chleb" which is bread in Polish!
39 Comments
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Interesting how many languages use repetitive sounds to say butterfly. Just some examples besides pili-pala and farfalla:
Pilpintu (Aymara)
Papalotl (Nahuatl)
Nipwisipwis (Chuukese)
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I created this TinyCards deck in which you can find the some of the words are partially or totally duplicated in many many languages. https://tiny.cards/decks/7a994ebd-91f7-4e8e-b96f-e59826b25de2 Enjoy! :D
Cxehxujo
FYI only:
That is correctly written.
Cx and hx are the representations for that Esperanto characters Ĉ and ĥ (e.g. when using a keyboard without that characters keys)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
Similar like in Norwegian (aa, ae, ...) and German (oe, ue, ...).
troll - karl = troll - guy
(literal mapping to English. And a troll is in Norwegian one of that (small or big) bearded mythical wood people described in fairytales).
Fingerspitzengefühl (=finger tips feeling)
(in German)
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So many words in so many languages...
Polish - biedronka (ladybird), książka (book), pstrąg (trout) and królik (rabbit... somehow it's sort of the perfect denomination for the animal). Chleb also sounds great actually! =)
I don't know why but I love Nahuatl for "fire": tletl... it sounds to me like a playful, short but dynamic, ideal version of what fire is... stressing its fluidity without losing its basic features.
I could go on for hours.
Oh, I like "Chleb" too.
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English: Bittersweet, procrastinate, softspoken, solitude, sky, sea, snow, everything sounds so good in english!
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German: nacht, fernweh, sehnsucht, verschwunden, SCHMETTERLING!
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Norwegian: sommerfugl, forsvinner (I was so happy to find out that there was this word in norwegian too :D)
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Japanese: 木漏れ日 komorebi, 夢 yume, 雪 yuki...
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Spanish: Guadalajara, brújula...
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Portuguese: fofinh@, badalhoc@, bacalhau, Cascais, jorrar, desmaio, mar ... oh, and saudade!.
I think my two (three) favorite words are "bittersweet" and "verschwunden/forsvinner"
Dikzak mostly because it sounds dirty and it isn't. It's Dutch for "fatso." (literally fat bag or fat pockets)
FYI only:
Dikzak (diksak is not Dutch)
See e.g. http://www.vandale.nl then search for 'diksak' (does not exist), but 'dikzak' exists.
Also in Afrikaans it is called 'dikzak'.
I thought it might be similar to dutch. I learnt Afrikaans form a young age, and it is probably my favorite language although I like dutch too.
As I understand it, Afrikaans was considered a dialect of Dutch (called "Cape Dutch") until, I think, the mid-1950s when it was recognized as a daughter language of Dutch due (at least in part) to many African lang. words having been incorporated.
I've heard that, at least to a point, the languages are mutually understandable in that the Dutch can usually understand Afrikaans but that Afrikaaners have trouble understanding standard Dutch. Or maybe it's the other way around. I can't seem to find where I read that.
As I am learning Dutch here, I find that I can read a little Afrikaans (having also read where some of the changes are).
Yeah, I think you're right. For me, as I am half South African it is fairly difficult to learn Dutch. I tried it but, strangely enough, didn't do too well.
