# Easiest to translate foreign words. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 6, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676 "2011-03-06T13:31:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/1 "2011-03-06T13:31:19Z")
I speak no Swedish but when I was reading a biography of Ingrid Bergman I saw she was buried at _Norra Begravningsplatsen, Stockholm, Sweden._ I don’t think you need to learn Swedish to work out that Begravningsplatsen = place where people are begravened or in other words a cemetery Hopefully you got it. Any other examples? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/2 "2011-03-06T16:45:49Z")
But “begravened” isn’t an English word as far as I could get Google to confirm. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/3 "2011-03-06T16:59:36Z")
It’s where you be put in a grave. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/4 "2011-03-06T17:11:36Z")
I’d say _le garage_ is pretty easy. 😃 You might not know _le chat_ right off the bat, but what if I tell you it’s a common pet? Of course, using French is kind of cheating, since we’ve borrowed (and lent) so many words from and to their language with very minimal changes. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/5 "2011-03-06T17:31:54Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > But “begravened” isn’t an English word as far as I could get Google to confirm. Good example of how Google fails the Turing test.. I think there are lots of examples - the trick will be to find ones that aren’t completely obvious, but still are recognizable. -D/a ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/6 "2011-03-07T12:00:48Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > But “begravened” isn’t an English word as far as I could get Google to confirm. It’s _begravd_ or _begraven_. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/7 "2011-03-07T19:18:43Z")
You don’t have to be a genius to translate the chorus for the Austrian version of Magical Mister Mistoffelees Abrakadabra Welsch ein Kater Der Wunderbare und Magische Mister Mistoffelees ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/8 "2011-03-07T19:46:10Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Any other examples? No. (That was in Spanish.) ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/9 "2011-03-07T20:40:03Z")
No examples - but I found Dutch to be somewhat accessible in reading, just knock off the double vowels and some of it makes sense. But, I have been told that Dutch is the closest to English of any language? However, I have found spoken Dutch to be totally incomprehensible. Welcome to my home, please have a seat. Would you like some tea? welkom heten in mijn huis, hebt u toch een zetel. Zou u graag enige thee? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/10 "2011-03-08T01:30:37Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > No examples - but I found Dutch to be somewhat accessible in reading, just knock off the double vowels and some of it makes sense. But, I have been told that Dutch is the closest to English of any language? However, I have found spoken Dutch to be totally incomprehensible. You know how in a restaurant, you can hear people at other tables speak? Not nearly enough to hear their conversation, but you hear them speaking. And you can usually tell that it’s English, or Spanish, or some Slavic language. Although I don’t understand a word of Dutch, hearing the other tables speaking Dutch (Flemish) in the manner above is indistinguishable from English to me. ---
**Author:** ![footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/11 "2011-03-08T10:16:52Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > No examples - but I found Dutch to be somewhat accessible in reading, just knock off the double vowels and some of it makes sense. But, I have been told that Dutch is the closest to English of any language? However, I have found spoken Dutch to be totally incomprehensible. > > Welcome to my home, please have a seat. Would you like some tea? > > welkom heten in mijn huis, hebt u toch een zetel. Zou u graag enige thee? Google translate? The proper translation would be: Welkom in mijn huis (which no one would actually say), neemt U plaats. Wilt U thee? or more likely: Kan ik u een kopje thee aanbieden? There are a lot of these between German and Dutch but they actually cause a lot of problems as well. A lot of dutch people get between 3 and 6 years of german in high school and often the ‘false friends’ are the biggest obstacle in becoming fluent. These are words taht are almost identical, but have a different meaning. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/12 "2011-03-08T17:30:56Z")
When I was taking a semester of German in college, my brother asked me to translate a particular phrase. I could never convince him that “Mein Auto is blau” was really German. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/13 "2011-03-08T17:34:46Z")
_Auspuffen_: German for muffler. _Doodlesac_ (wrong spelling, I’m sure): German for bagpipes. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/14 "2011-03-08T18:42:17Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Of course, using French is kind of cheating, since we’ve borrowed (and lent) so many words from and to their language with very minimal changes. In a previous life (all of 4 years ago), I used to be a chemist. I worked with several Chinese people who were fluent in English. Chemistry actually takes a lot of its terminology from German. One day, my supervisor asked me to translate an HPLC method that had arrived from France; they usually get them professionally translated for legal reasons, but they wanted to get a head start on some aspect of the project. One of my Chinese coworkers commented that I was lucky that I could read and understand French, to which I answered that Chinese was way more impressive, and besides, she could probably translate this herself. She didn’t believe me until I made her read the method line-by-line. About 80% of the words are either pretty much the same word/easily recognized in English, maybe 10% were filler words (et, avec, un(e), le, la etc) and the rest were chemistry terms that were easily recognized via sharing the same German root. She was amazed, and had fun trying to translate the rest of it! She did a pretty good job, considering! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/15 "2011-03-08T18:56:04Z")
My favorite is German: _handschuh_ Hint: it’s an article of clothing. It means glove (hand-shoe). ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/16 "2011-03-08T19:04:31Z")
Reminds me of a Mary Tyler Moore episode, where Phyllis was complaining to Mary that her husband Lars’ Swedish in-laws are always complaining about her. Mary: But you don’t speak Swedish, how do you know what they’re saying? Phyllis: Mary, you don’t have to speak Swedish to understand “Gott hilfen Lars!” Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/17 "2011-03-08T19:14:20Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > _Auspuffen_: German for muffler. > _Doodlesac_ (wrong spelling, I’m sure): German for bagpipes. Minor nitpick: It’s _Auspuff_. Also, the bagpipes (awesome word in its own right - bag-pipes) are spelled _Dudelsack_. I just went on vacation to Denmark and Sweden, and it’s amazing how much you can make out from signs and ads when you speak German. It’s surely wouldn’t be enough to read a book or to even follow a conversation, but when you have short fragments, you can usually guess what it’s supposed to mean. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/18 "2011-03-08T21:31:28Z")
In German, I always liked the word “Anhänger.” It’s only vaguely easy to figure out. Mostly the transliteration into English amuses me. ---
**Author:** ![A.Gwilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@A.Gwilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.Gwilliam)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/19 "2011-03-08T21:32:10Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > When I was taking a semester of German in college, my brother asked me to translate a particular phrase. I could never convince him that “Mein Auto is blau” was really German. He was right, though! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676/20 "2011-03-09T12:06:29Z")
Laptop in Russian? Laptop. Flag? Flag. Hamburger? Gamburger. University? Universitet. (Easy, as long as one can read Cyrillic) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-to-translate-foreign-words/573676.md?page=2)