Tuesday, October 16, 2007

My favorite foreign words

There's been some talk of words in other blogs, and I've been thinking about this for a while actually. Below are my favorite words in various languages. Oops, except English. I'll have to think about that one.

Doch - German - negates a negative. So, if you said 'she's ugly' and I said 'doch' then I'm disagreeing and saying she's pretty. It's such a useful word and can be said with such force, as can most German words I suppose.

Ahorita - Spanish - hmm.. I always thought it meant 'in a little bit' but it means 'right now' according to freetranslation.com. I learned it in Mexico - perhaps there's a different meaning there? In any event, I love it because it's so fun to say, and because it's a play on 'now' (ahora).

Japanese - deska - has no literal translation I don't think (I'm moving into languages I know less about). It is a word that makes a statement a question. For you Heroes fans, listen to Hiro or one of the other Japanese characters speaking and when they ask a question, that word is on the end. I like it because it's a peculiarity of Japanese (I don't know of other languages that do that though I am SURE there's one) and because it's one of the few Japanese words I know. I was on a work trip in Vietnam and happened across a TV show that was teaching Japanese, and I learned how to say 'how much does this cost [question]' and used it when I went to Japan the next week! In a thrift store in Japan! It was great. Of course I couldn't understand the answer, but hey, that's why there's pen and paper.

Alor - French - I think it means something like 'ok' - sort of one of those filler words. It's just so French, and when you say it you have to be French or have a French attitude. I could be wrong about this one - spelling and meaning - I know so little French.

Magwanani - Shona - Good morning. Again, I like how it sounds, and I used it quite a bit in Zimbabwe. It's nice to be able to connect, even simply, with people in their language.

Babci - Polish - grandmother. How can you not like grandmothers?

American Sign Language - Thank you. It's easy to learn, and so important.

That's it for now...your trip around the world.

3 comments:

Susan said...

When I was in Italy I love learning "welcome" which is pronounced "prego"..yep..like the sauce. I caught it quickly and fell in love with it right away.

since I was little and raised on looney toons I loved "je t'adore" because pepe l'pew always said it.

Tera said...

Of COURSE you know I love this post NoR!

NoRegrets said...

Ah, Prego! I think I'll use that if anyone new visits the site.

I'm so glad Tera...

Brain dead. Long meeting.