Tag: language
latin words for oak forests
aesculetum, a forest of winter or Italian oaks, and poet., in gen., an oak-forest
ilicetum,
a grove of holmoaks, forest of oaks
quercetum, an oak-wood, oak-forest
querquetulanus, -a, -um,
of or belonging to an oak-forest, named from an oakwood
In Italian we don’t say “it costs an arm and a leg”, we say “costa l’ira di Dio” which means “it costs the wrath of God” and I think it’s beautiful
ancient greek word of the day: θαλασσόπλαγκτος, made to wander o’er the sea, sea-tost, Aesch., Eur.
Hot take: English does have a vocative case and it’s indicated by the prefix @
In Italian, one of the many (vulgar) ways to say “Good luck !” is “In culo alla balena ! (Een kooloh ahllah bahlehnah)” which literally translates into “In the ass of the whale”.
Bonus: the response must be “Speriamo non caghi !” which simply is “Hope she doesn’t shit !”, otherwise luck won’t come to you. Makes me laugh every time.
Submitted by @myworldoflanguages
In Italian we don’t say “You don’t say” or “Captain Obvious”, we say “Grazie al cazzo” which literally means “Thank the dick” and I think it isn’t particularly beautiful but it says a lot about who we are as people.
Submitted by @team-mom-wannabe
An Ancient Greek word I read on the dictionary: μελίπνοος (melipnoos), he who breaths honey, he who smells of honey, he who has a sweet scent.
im going to have a stroke
Instead try…
Person A: You know… the thing
Person B: The “thing”?
Person A: Yeah, the thing with the little-! *mutters under their breath* Como es que se llama esa mierda… THE FISHING RODAs someone with multiple bilingual friends where English is not the first language, may I present to you a list of actual incidents I have witnessed:
- Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.
- Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”
- Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.
- Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.
- Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.
- Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.
- Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”
Bilingual characters are great but if you’re going to use a linguistic blunder, you have to really understand what they actually blunder over. And it’s usually 10x funnier than “Ooops it’s hard to switch back.”
Ways to say “yes” in Italian
colloquial, informal
ah sì? – oh yeah? (genuine, sarcastic)
ah sì/già – oh, yeah, I remember
effettivamente / in effetti – you’re right / that’s true (agreeing; resigned if used with suspension points)
eh/eh.. – yeah (annoyed; sad or worried if used with suspension points)
eh sì – guess so (resigned)
e vabbè.. – alright then.. (resigned if used with the suspesion points)
già – yah (not very enthusiastic), yeah (when you want to express approval or agreement to what someone else said, as in già, hai ragione “yeah, you’re right”, but it can also be used to reinforce what you’ve just said, as in già, avrei dovuto dire qualcosa “yeah, I should’ve said something”). Careful: English “so yeah” doesn’t translate to *perciò già or something like that with già.
ma certo! – of course!
ma sì! – of course!
proprio così – that’s right
sì – yes
sì, sì (also written sisì, sisi) – yes, of course (less formal than what it might be in English)
sicuro! – sure!
vabbè (also spelt: va be’ and va beh) – alright (extremely annoyed or sad depending on the intonation/context)agreeing
d’accordo – all right, it’s a deal
ok – okay
va bene – okay, all right
già – yeah (see above)formal
assolutamente (sì) – absolutely
certamente – certainly
senz’altro – certainly, definitely
volentieri – with pleasureinspired by @language2go‘s post
persephone's corner 