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It's sometimes interesting being bilingual. I occasionally collect concepts that are expressed differently in Norwegian and English, and by now I have a little list of them. For example, in English you have conscription and the draft; in Norwegian we have protection-duty, or perhaps guard-duty. (And Wehrmacht, of course, translates as 'guarding power'.) In English one party has a right of way; in Norwegian the same concept is first-drive-right, but we would more commonly express it as the other guy having yield-duty. In English there's a lion's share, as opposed presumably to what the jackals get; in Norwegian we have a brother's share, which used to be exactly twice what his sisters would inherit.
I don't think you can conclude anything in particular from this sort of thing, but I find it interesting. Any other speakers of two languages want to come up with more examples?
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Arabic is a much more religious language than English or French (Not surprising, given the origins of modern Arabic). "Hopefully" becomes "Inshallah", or "as God wills it". Standard introductory phrases (roughly meaning "Hello", or "Greetings") include "Y a'htikoun al 'hafie" (May God grant you peace/prosperity) and "Ahlah 'w sahlah fikoun"(God's grace and good health go with you). The most interesting thing is that these words are usually said without any type of religious connotation. They are simply part of the language. Cool, neh?
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I had to help my Japanese friend (who recently immigrated to the US) understand why they asked her to speak on "Peace on Earth" in church. The translation of "peace" as in the cessation of war has no connection with the generally accepted English connotations of peace of mind, etc., that appear in the rest of the New Testament. She couldn't figure out what politcs had to do with Christmas.
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Religious phrases abound in English too, though; consider 'goodbye', which is "God be with you" rather strongly elided. The Norwegian phrase is difficult to translate directly, 'have well-being' might be the closest; the literal 'have it good' is awkward in English. Or "bless you" for a sneeze. (In Norwegian, 'prosit', which I'm not sure of the meaning of. German 'Gesundheit', good health.)
There are similarities too. English 'queen' is roughly the same word as Norwegian 'kvinne', woman. With 'church' you can find four different combinations of soft and hard k-sounds; English, both soft; Scots 'kirk', both hard; Norwegian 'kirke', first soft, second hard; German 'Kirche', first hard, second soft. (Although the German and Norwegian soft dippthongs are different from the English 'ch'.)
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The Hebrew for rotten or all messed up is al ha-panim, which translates literally as "on the face". I've actually heard Israelis speaking English say it like that.
Abbreviations are fun, too. The Hebrew for Ben Gurion Airport is Namel Teufa Ben Gurion, which abbreviates to NTBG, and is pronounced, in Hebrew, Naht-bahg. There used to be a sign on the highway in Israel where the English said, "Natbag, ?? km" (I don't remember the distance). It might still be there, for all I know. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln Street in Jerusalem says "Avraham Lincoln". But that's a transliteration thing.
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In Mandarin it's facinating to look not only at what words create a concept but what radicals comprise the character. For example hao, meaning good is comprised of a woman and child radical side by side. An, or peace is a woman under a roof, and zhong or loyalty is the character for center with a heart below it.
Zai Jian or goodbye literally means see you again.
It's always interesting to see subtitled movies where the subtitles use English swears in the translation. The Chinese don't use English swears as they have their own way of cursing. For example a "bastard" is literally "turtle egg." Instead of Bull S*** they say, "trash words" and if goof something up they say, "messy cake."
Interestingly enough when the English say, "It's all sixes and sevens," meaning messed up. The Chinese say, "rotten messy eights and nines." Eights and nines being a phrase meaning everything.
If you want somebody to go away in a moderately rude manner you say, zou kai which literally means, "move away." If you want to be very rude you say gun kai, which literally means, "roll away" *GASP!* but it is often translated in movies as, F*** Off.
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posted
there are lots of things like this in english:
expressions such as:
so far: "how do you like your trip so far?"
inside-out / upside down -many languages have words for these things
there are a lot more, just drawing blanks after writing those two. i went over a bunch of these with brazilian friends when i went to visit them a couple of times.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Zai Jian or goodbye literally means see you again.
A lot of languages have that. French, 'a revoir'; German 'auf Wiedersehen', Norwegian 'på gjensyn'.
quote:Interestingly enough when the English say, "It's all sixes and sevens," meaning messed up. The Chinese say, "rotten messy eights and nines." Eights and nines being a phrase meaning everything.
Sixes and sevens has an interesting history; apparently there were two guilds in London that fought over the right to be sixth in some yearly procession. Eventually they compromised on every other year.
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Has anyone read "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson? I got it for Christmas and I'm about halfway through, but it's amazing, and pretty much all about this stuff.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: It's always interesting to see subtitled movies where the subtitles use English swears in the translation. The Chinese don't use English swears as they have their own way of cursing. For example a "bastard" is literally "turtle egg." Instead of Bull S*** they say, "trash words" and if goof something up they say, "messy cake."
My observations are in Cantonese rather than Mandarin but watching subtitles is indeed fun. Despite not being very fluent, I already know many more Cantonese swear words than in English, there is just not as much variety in English. Whole bunches of interesting insults get translated to either the more boring f*** or s*** in different variations. Although "eat s***, you" remains a reasonably popular swear phrase. I suppose feces based insults are somewhat universal
There is a Cantonese version of "asshole" (puhk-guai) which is "trip in the street." The bulls*** (fie-chai) stays the same.
I just heard "loud as a ghost" (ghai sai cum chou) which would be similar to "loud and pushy" in English.
quote:If you want to be very rude you say gun kai, which literally means, "roll away" *GASP!* but it is often translated in movies as, F*** Off.
I've heard this one in a movie as "Remember that you're rubbish. Don't walk back home, roll back home now!" Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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My friend Cyrus grew up speaking Mandarin with grandparents and extended family, but English was the everyday household language. He told me once of the struggles it was to have a conversation sometimes in Mandarin because his relatives would admonish him with some strange phrase about rice, or gold, or a duck, and not having the cultural background, all he could do was translate it literally, not know the meaning behind it. (And he wasn't ABOUT to ask and be lectured on neglecting his heritage and not listening closely enough when he was 3 years old and they explained it the first time.)
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: My friend Cyrus grew up speaking Mandarin with grandparents and extended family, but English was the everyday household language. He told me once of the struggles it was to have a conversation sometimes in Mandarin because his relatives would admonish him with some strange phrase about rice, or gold, or a duck, and not having the cultural background, all he could do was translate it literally, not know the meaning behind it. (And he wasn't ABOUT to ask and be lectured on neglecting his heritage and not listening closely enough when he was 3 years old and they explained it the first time.)
There are a billion Mandarin idioms that all make for facinating reading. Here's a few,
Pa Shu Qiu Yu, "To climb a tree in search of fish." Meaning to look in odd places for something.
Miao Shou Hui Chun, "An excelent hand brings back the spring." A reference to the almost miraculous power of a surgeon to restore health.
Sai Weng Shi Ma "Old Sai loses his horse." Things are not always what they seem, there is a very cool story that goes along with it.
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English is kind of strange, too. "You're pulling my leg" means something like "you're kidding me". Go figure...
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quote:Originally posted by Lissande: Yeah, and who put the cat in the bag in the first place?
The people trying to pass it off as a piglet. It's interesting that we get two idioms ("let the cat out of the bag" and "a pig in a poke") from that one scam.
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"Break a leg" in English means 'good luck'; Norwegian has the same idiom of not overtly wishing anyone luck lest the spirits overhear, but we say "shit fishing". And at least in my father's day, if you wanted to praise someone for a hard worker, you'd say "This place smells of sweat"; American deodorant culture appears to have destroyed that one.
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but it is often translated in movies as, F*** Off.
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