mytravellanguages

[mytravellanguages]

Japanese or Turkish

Here, I start collecting those words which look similar in Turkish and Japanese.

First of all, the words for 'good' sound alike: 'いい' in Japanese and 'iyi' in Turkish.

The words for young (genç) in Turkish and healthy, cheerful (genki - げんき) in Japanese seem to have something in common as well.

[mytravellanguages]

This is how Catalan looks!

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Creativity in Tarragona

[mytravellanguages]

Discovering word senses

In Spanish, the word 'el piso' means both 'the floor' and 'the flat'. My first impression was that this came from observing those buildings where each apartment occupied one story. However, another option could be related to the meaning of 'flat' as something situated on the same level, plane. So, a flat could be a type of apartment placed on one level, one floor.

[mytravellanguages]

Dresses or skirts?

The photo shows how wedding dresses are called in Polish.

However, there is much inconsistency in European languages with regard to how women’s clothes are denoted.

A dress can be called ‘suknia’ or ‘sukienka’ in both Polish and Ukrainian.  Interestingly, a similar ‘suknelė’ is found in the Lithuanian language.

However, the same word does not mean ‘a dress’ but ‘a skirt’ in Bosnian and Croatian (suknja), Serbian (сукња), and Slovak (sukne).

Furthermore, another word showing that there is no clear distinction between dresses and skirts is ‘rock’.

Both German ‘Rock’ and Dutch ‘rok’ usually mean ‘a skirt’. However, Romanian ‘rochie’ and Bulgarian ‘рокля’ is a dress. Moreover, in Swedish, 'rock' is a 'coat'

On the other hand, Romanian ‘fustă’ is a skirt, while Macedonian ‘фустан’ is a dress.

[mytravellanguages]

Is your food really fresh?

While most Slavic languages have a lot in common and usually 30-70% of words are understandable, at least in a written form, surprises are numerous as well.

In my recent glance into Slovak language, one of such surprises was caused by the word 'občerstvenie' which stands for 'snack'. First I thought that maybe Slovaks prefer pieces of dry bread as snacks. However, this hypothesis did not persist long. I found that 'čerstvý' means 'fresh' in Slovak while in Russian this word means 'stale'.

[mytravellanguages]

Would you like a rubber schnitzel?

A schnitzel in Slovak language is 'rezeň' which sounds very similar to 'resina' meaning 'rubber' in some other Slavic languages, for instance Russian.

[mytravellanguages]

Should meat be always with salt?

When hearing a Russian word 'solonina' I had a feeling that it is somehow related to salt which is 'sol' in Russian. Probably, I was not alone in this understanding. All the online texts containing this word mentioned salt for preparing 'solonina' of meat.

However, in Slovak language, 'slanina' exists as well and means 'bacon'. Thus, salt might be unrelated here.

[mytravellanguages]

Who likes travelling by means of being pulled over the ground?

A Slovak word 'vlakom' sounds very similar to Russian 'волоком' which is used to denote that something heavy is being pulled over the ground. For example, before canals were built, ships could be pulled this way from one river to another.

Fortunately, travelling 'vlakom' is not that awful at all. It implies using wheels and is used for going 'by train'.

[mytravellanguages]

Would you mind eating some 'jam'?

Probably you would if you limit sugar in your diet. However, if you are a vegetarian visiting Spain, you will have to avoid it as well. This is because 'jam' might be seen in a supermarket as an abbreviation for 'jamón' which is ham.

[mytravellanguages]

Is laundering easy to recognize?

A Ukrainian word 'прати' seemed strange to me. However, Slovak language uses a similar 'prať'. Furthermore, 'práčovňa' used by Slovak for 'laundry room' reminded of Russian words 'прачка' and 'прачечная' putting the realm of Slavic words together.

[mytravellanguages]

Do you prefer putting shoes on your hands or gloves on your legs?

I admire observing where words come from.

In my excursion into Slovak language this week, beside a word 'rukavice' used for 'gloves' in several Slavic languages (ruka=hand), I found a word 'nohavice' used for pants (with noha=leg).

This is sort of opposite to German 'handschuh' which sounds as a shoe put on a hand.

[mytravellanguages]

[mytravellanguages]

~ ‘the outer side street’ as read based on my modest knowledge of Dutch

[mytravellanguages]

Amber words

Another example of words loaned in Ukrainian from German is related to Amber which is 'Bernstein' in German and 'бурштин' (burshtyn) in Ukrainian.

[mytravellanguages]

Look, how ‘high school’ is spelled in Afrikaans.

[mytravellanguages]

S or Z?

One of the crucial differences between Portuguese and Spanish is about s and z. In Portuguese, written 's' in many cases is read as 'z'. In Spanish, vice versa, quite often written 'z' is read as 's'.

Examples: azúcar