Learning a new language is challenging. However, it's just as rewarding. I mean, having the ability to interact with someone who grew up in a a completely different environment? Juk tai nuostabu. And the lessons aren't just a painstaking grind. They're full of fun things as well. One of them is literal translations, the "word-for-word" translations that tend to drift away from the sense of the original word on sentence. One of the members of the Facebook group Monolinguals are the worst has urged others to share the funniest literal translations they know, and, believe me, they delivered. Scroll down to check out these linguistic gems and upvote your favorites!
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Interestingly, the United States is largely monolingual. In fact, only about 15-20 percent of Americans call themselves bilingual, compared to 56 percent of Europeans surveyed in 2006 by the European Commission.
According to Arabic professor Mahmoud Al-Batal, the inability to speak a foreign language makes it difficult for Americans to compete globally on a linguistic and cultural level. Others who criticized the United States’ monolingual nature have highlighted problems in university-level language courses that result in students failing to reach higher levels of proficiency in a foreign language.
The term 'whisky' derives originally from the Gaelic 'uisge beatha', or 'usquebaugh', meaning 'water of life'. Gaelic is the branch of Celtic spoken in the Highlands of Scotland.
Same in Dutch (sinaasappel or appelsien) and from Dutch (as far as I know) it was borrowed into many languages, including Russian.
I've never in my Hispanic life heard someone showering with an artichoke.. this is maybe from a very specific country or region, and not part of the common Spanish language, I think.
English: dragon Japanese: dragon English: dinosaur Japanese: fear dragon
Same in Portuguese. Funny thing is rollercoaster in Russian is American slides.
"butterfly" itself sounds rather weird to non-native English spreakers
Oxygen translated from Greek means acid-producer so Germans just translated the name. Same with Finnish, happihappo.
Persian: same word for leg and foot. Also same word for hand and arm.
In Danish the mare rides you. You literally say "I've had the mare riding me". The mare being a being that takes you sexually against your will - and giving you evil dreams as a result.
Well, that's the actual translation from greek. Hippos: horse, potamos: river
False! In Spanish is F****t (mariquita). Saint Anthony's cow is other bug!
The Chinese word in Japanese: oh, you mean like those from Ghost in the Shell.
That is just a literal translation, though, and not the meaning of the word. 'I morgen' means tomorrow, 'morgen' means morning. As in English, really, as 'morrow' is the same word (ie same origin) as 'morning' and 'morgen'.
And my personal favorite from: - English: terrible idea - Polish: poroniony pomysł (your idea was a miscarriage )
Tibetan has its share. Motorcycles are "magic horses" or "machine horses" (eastern dialect). Computers are also electric brains, or even more literally lightning brains. Turtles are bony frogs. Gloves are hand covers, socks are foot covers and condoms are penis covers. Libraries are book treasury houses. Hospitals are medicine houses. Planes are air-boats, and elephants are literally bix oxen.
Missing some italian pearls, like English : "what's your name?" - italian : "how you call you ?" - English : "How old are you ?" - Italian : "how many hears you have ?" :D oh and "how are you doing" becomes "how goes" in italian 😂
Tibetan has its share. Motorcycles are "magic horses" or "machine horses" (eastern dialect). Computers are also electric brains, or even more literally lightning brains. Turtles are bony frogs. Gloves are hand covers, socks are foot covers and condoms are penis covers. Libraries are book treasury houses. Hospitals are medicine houses. Planes are air-boats, and elephants are literally bix oxen.
Missing some italian pearls, like English : "what's your name?" - italian : "how you call you ?" - English : "How old are you ?" - Italian : "how many hears you have ?" :D oh and "how are you doing" becomes "how goes" in italian 😂
