In English, “to be” means to be in a state of existence (“I am a teacher”) or in a location (“I am at the beach”). But in Spanish, ser means the former (“Yo soy un ensenador”), and estar means the latter (“Yo estoy en la playa”).
What are some words in other languages that have two or more equivalent words in English?
Reported for forum change.
Querer in Spanish can mean either “to want” or “to love (nonromantic)” in English.
There are many such words. In Spanish, esperar means both “to wait” and “to hope.”
One of my favorites is papa. With the feminine article, la papa is “the potato.” With the masculine article, el papa means “the Pope.”
I think generic action verbs tend to have the most mappings, because they’ll generally cover for anything the target language has a verb for that the original doesn’t.
For instance, in Japanese there’s the verb する (suru which means “to do”. It’s probably one of the very first words you’d learn in Japanese class. It also maps to a ton of verbs in English.
For instance, while the Japanese have a word for “play” (遊ぶ asobu), it’s intransitive and just means a sort of general “playing” like kids playing something non-specific. If you want to play video games or tennis or something specific you use する – “tennis する”, “video game する” etc.
This actually provides a multi-word mapping in both directions. In English “to play” maps both to asobu and suru, while in Japanese “suru” maps to “play” and “to do” (among a ton of other things we have specific verbs for that they don’t).
Each language has thousands upon thousands of examples. I don’t mean to sound snarky, but if this interests you, you might want to check out a dictionary.
There are lots of words in a dictionary, and ones for foreign languages require at least some understanding of how that language works. Consulting a book of hundreds of thousands of words in a language you don’t already have knowledge of would be an exercise in frustration.
But, yes, as Švejk notes, this is extremely common. So, examples are hardly to be marveled at unless particularly interesting. I’ll give an example of one that is interesting enough to note:
The Greek word ἄπειρον has a sense like our word ‘unbounded’ which can in one context be understand as meaning ‘infinite’ and in others simply meaning lacking boundaries. So when you hear it battered about that the soul is infinite, this comes from one reading of pre-Socratic philosophers that one of my professors assure me is mistaken. Instead, the soul was meant to be understood as having no particular boundaries – shapeless, in other words.
Somewhat more quotidian, Latin has words like the verb facere whose array of meanings can often be translated into English using one of two English verbs that themselves have extremely versatile applications: ‘to make’ or ‘to do’. The passive form of facere implies what we mean by ‘to become’. This is not even to go into how the Latin word itself went on to become a suite of English words whose meanings are diverse and not generally thought of as cognate if you’re not into etymology in general. And then of course there are many Latin words that similar pluralities of significations could be explicated even outside the big ones - agere, dūcere, ferre, etc.
There are huge amounts of such words, especially when you get into nouns. For example in Swedish “bläckfisk” (literally “ink fish”) covers octopus, squid and cuttlefish. On the other hand they have two words for herring, depending on what sea it comes from, so it all evens out. Kind of.
Another one: Many languages use the same word for “a”, the indefinite article, and “one”, the number. I think English is fairly unusual in separating them.
First one that leaps to mind is the German word gluecklich, which can mean “lucky” or “fortunate,” but can also mean “happy.” Of course, these are related meanings, but in American English, it would be unusual to replace “happy” with “lucky.”
Interestingly, “an” is derived from “one.”
Heck, there a plenty of English words that have more than one meaning.
It is arguable that there are words in English that have two meanings which are the opposites of one another.
An odd one from Japanese I encountered a while back:
Haka (破瓜), written with the characters for ‘rip’ and ‘melon’ has 4 meanings given:
16 years old (girl)
64 years old (man)
Puberty
Deflower
French faire can be translated as “to do” or “to make” depending on the circumstances.
More specifically, estar generally refers to temporary or transitory conditions, while ser is generally used for more permanent features of existence. E.g. while people sometimes change their name, they don’t typically change it on a regular basis. You would use ser to indicate your name rather than estar. Native Spanish speakers: If you are teaching on a transitory basis (e.g. you were hired for a two week contract) or expect to be fired shortly, could you use estar to describe your job? Would using it imply an unusual transience in your situation, or would it just be ungrammatical and awkward?
Interestingly enough, “estar” is a cognate to the English word “stand”, so you could argue that you could translate “Estoy listo.” as “I stand ready.”
Spanish hacer as well, which I believe is from the same Latin source as faire.
In Spanish, a pez is a living fish you might find swimming around. A pescado is what you get when you catch it, cook it, and serve it.
Is “enseñador” even a word? I know maestro, profesor, catedrático and even enseñante, but I’d never encountered “enseñador”.
It can also imply our hopes about the situation: we tend to use estar for bad things that we hope are temporary, ser for good ones that we hope will last.
And in that particular case, if you are working as a teacher but don’t want to make it your profession you could use expressions which are similar to the English one, even one that’s its direct translation: trabajo como maestro pero no quiero dedicarme a la enseñanza (I work as a teacher but don’t want to make teaching my profession). Ahora mismo doy clases, pero no es lo mío (right now I teach but it’s not “my line”). Estoy trabajando en un colegio, pero preparo oposiciones para el juzgado (I am working in a school [with the implication of, as a teacher] but I’m preparing the exams to get a job at the local court of justice).
Prepositions can be a lot of fun. I refuse to translate RAE’s entry for de again, but it can be “of” or “from” or “pertaining to” or… Spanish en can most commonly be translated as either “on” or “in”, and it can take a lifetime to figure out which to use when.
Thank you, whomever built the Search function. Another post with a correction to part of the translation.
