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Just a clarification about Chinese. For centuries, we have had a universal set of writing in "traditional Chinese". Depending on the region you come from, these words are pronounced differently. Mandarin speakers pronounce them differently than Cantonese speakers and from Harka speakers... We have hundres of dialects.

It is incorrect to say that we pronounce the same word in different ways to mean different things. These are distinct words that just sound similar to the foreign ear. Similarly it would be incorrect to say English speakers pronounce a word the same way to mean different things as in "fair" and "fare"...

#17

That or chance...there are other words like itchy that in Japanese can also have an impatient connotation (muzumuzu).

Then again, Japanese is a very flexible language given the character sets and is adding words all the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if that got added as a meaning after hearing people say run the engine.

If "coca-cola" when read transliterated means: biting the wax tadpole . . .

what about cherry coke?

What about ASL?

QUESTION:
"Run" in English can mean to walk fast, or to "run an engine". The Japanese word for run, "hashiru", can also have both meanings. How can this be possible since these languages are unrelated?　Perhaps, Japanese speakers may hear english and backtranslate into Japanese?

In Spanish, "seguro" means "sure." A Pilipino (as they would pronounce it) friend in college told me that in Tagalog, "seguro" means "maybe." Considering the Spanish colonial history in the Philippines, I'm sure the irony was not lost on the indigenous population!

I think everybody should have at least a second language because you automatically know there is an alternate view of everything you think of

Greetings! My boyfriend attempted to wish a Mexican friend Happy New Year a few weeks ago. His delivery in a thick Irish accent of Feliz Ano Neuvo instead of Feliz Año Nuevo got a great laugh!

'busy' translates in my language (Slovakian) 'zaneprazdneny', which takes forever to say:)
I think it shows that we appreciate every moment a bit longer.
We also have words for five meals of a day (of course these meals are much smaller in portions than here.) It makes our days longer also.

i learned hebrew as an adult (after having acquired four other languages), and i was so surprised to discover how its root system works. a two or three letter root has a meaning, and all words using the same root are therefore linked, making speech very poetic and metaphorical. so for example 'dam', meaning blood, is linked to 'adam', meaning man and human, to 'adamah', meaning earth and soil.

Tangible and intangible...Japanese has two different versions of the linking verb to be. Iru is for things that are/were animate. Aru is for inanimate objects.

in yoruba (a west african language) the language actually uses tones like mandarin and the same word can be pronounced many different ways to mean different things..also some sentences can be incorrectly translated from yoruba to english like "i wore a car" instead of "i entered a car" or "my heart fell" instead of "i am scared"

Most asian languages especially Korean and Japanese have diffulty pronouncing the distinction between L and R's. And in Korean, letter Z is always a challenge for myself included. I've also come across some of my friends from Cambodia and India with difficulty with letter V as W, and come across some comical situations when they ask for veggie pizzas as "wedge pizza".

Dear Brian:

I speak four languages well + two so-so. I am a recent immigrant from Italy.

I learned the hard way that when in Italian you say " I'm not going to eat you" it means that you are not going to hurt it but in US English it has a very different meaning.

These are the pitfalls of translating.

Harry Potter books in Italian are also terrible. The picked the wrong translator!

Regards,

Manrico

One of the BEST parts of learning languages--as you touched on--is finding all these fascinating differences!I love the richness of it all I'm bilingual in Spanish--and there are some great words that can't be translated into English--

Can't help but think of the adjective, "friolenta" which is an adjective (in this case for a woman) which means, "chills easily".

Also fun are expressions--in English we say, "pulling your leg," while in Spanish we say "pulling your hair!"

THere are so many more!!

My french teacher told a story about when she was studying in France. She was having dinner with the whole family and when she was finished, she said what she translated from English "I'm Full." But, to this French family said "I'm Pregnant."

Something that I have brought back with me after living in Argentina was the phrase "dream with" as opposed to "dream of" they will say "I dreamt with my mother last night" ... i find it a much more intimate and pleasing image.

I speak French and German fluently in addition to English. Both languages have a word that are used to contradict negative questions? i.e. "You're not going to the store" In English you have to say if you say "Yes" it's not really clear if you are saying "Yes you're right, I'm not going" or "Yes, I am going." In German this word is "doch" in French you say "Si".

Cultural differences.
In West Indian (particularly Jamaican patois) to say bloodclot can get you into a physical altercation.

France has a two mile widee facility that they use to recycle their nuclear waste. they actually sell their green energy to other countries. We should look to them for a solution.