Among the statistics I receive about this blog are the search words used to find it. One recent one was "tundra lingon och chili"; "och" is Swedish for "and". Whoever used it must have gone through many search items; I couldn't find this blog in the first fifty entries when I used the search terms in quotes. I tried just the words without the quotes and found it - "You really are good at foreign languages".
It's interesting that the searcher used a Russian word, a Swedish word, and a Spanish word.
Showing posts with label Spanish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spanish. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
You really are good at foreign languages
How often have you heard people say, "I never was any good with foreign languages!" But any of us who read a lot or listen a lot, know lots of foreign words and phrases as part of our own language.
Consider the following:
Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français
Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa
Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst
Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra
Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped
Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami
Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino
I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.
Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd. TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed. Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.
See, you're also smarter than a computer. You could recognize all the words.
Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.
Ciao, amici miei!
Consider the following:
Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français
Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa
Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst
Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra
Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped
Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami
Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino
I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.
Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd. TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed. Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.
See, you're also smarter than a computer. You could recognize all the words.
Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.
Ciao, amici miei!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Plural humor
I've long mused that the only languages that I know that add an 's' to indicate a plural noun are English, French, and Spanish. Other languages that I've encountered use other final sounds or inflection. Inflection is the changing of a vowel sound, like one alumnus or many alumni.
English however uses inflection also. Is this a holdover from its Germanic origin?
For example, we have goose and geese, mouse and mice. Does this last mean that the plural of spouse is spice? When I mentioned this to my wife, I added I really think the plural of spouse is trouble.
English however uses inflection also. Is this a holdover from its Germanic origin?
For example, we have goose and geese, mouse and mice. Does this last mean that the plural of spouse is spice? When I mentioned this to my wife, I added I really think the plural of spouse is trouble.
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