Favorite Words in Different Languages
What is one of your guys' fav words? Mine is "Chleb" which is bread in Polish!
38 Comments
363
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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Not really but I know a bit of vocabulary and have general notions of its grammar.
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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.
