# One of the most frustrating things about learning another language . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 1, 2008, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039 "2008-10-01T18:59:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/61 "2008-10-04T19:41:54Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Maybe I’m getting in over my head here, but I don’t think you would say El perro se baña, because there is no infinitive there. I think it would be El perro bañarse. There is at least one native Spanish speaker here who can correct me if I’m wrong. That makes more sense. I thought se baña looked wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/62 "2008-10-04T22:16:53Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Maybe I’m getting in over my head here, but I don’t think you would say El perro se baña, because there is no infinitive there. I think it would be El perro bañarse. There is at least one native Spanish speaker here who can correct me if I’m wrong. I’m here to correct you. 😛 (Although I’m not a native speaker.) “Bañarse” means “to bathe one’s self.” “El perro se baña” does mean “the dog bathes itself.” “El perro bañarse” does not make sense, it would mean something like “the dog to bathe itself.” “Se” is a reflexive word, meaning it is only used when the action is performed on the actor. Somebody bathing a dog would be, “Ella **le** baña al perro,” le being the word reflecting the dog as the recipient of the action. And now somebody will come in and correct my grammar on that last sentence…_ducks head and looks around_ ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/63 "2008-10-05T05:44:14Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > I’m here to correct you. 😛 (Although I’m not a native speaker.) > > “Bañarse” means “to bathe one’s self.” “El perro se baña” does mean “the dog bathes itself.” “El perro bañarse” does not make sense, it would mean something like “the dog to bathe itself.” > > “Se” is a reflexive word, meaning it is only used when the action is performed on the actor. Somebody bathing a dog would be, “Ella **le** baña al perro,” le being the word reflecting the dog as the recipient of the action. > > And now somebody will come in and correct my grammar on that last sentence…_ducks head and looks around_ _Ella le baña al perro_ would only be correct if you are talking about an action she is performing for someone else, _she washes his dog for him_ is a close transation for that, more accurately, in the context that it’s her duty or work to do so. You use “le” for indicating that kind of action on behalf or against someone else. -“El le cortó el pelo a Susana” He cut Susana´s hair (for her) -“Le dió una golpiza a José” He beated José up (against him) You get the idea. To simply say that she is washing the dog get rid of the “le” and just say “Ella baña al perro” as an idefinite pharase, or “Ella está bañando al perro” to describe something that is heppening right now. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/64 "2008-10-05T06:52:57Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > People started using “bad” that way in the 60s, when MJ was just a kid. Agreed. Although, I would say that it made a hard come back in slang around the time Run DMC used it in “Peter Piper”, which was out at least a year or two before Michael Jackson’s “Bad”. But who’s counting, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/65 "2008-10-06T09:03:58Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > How is that reflexive? I would write, “The dog is bathed.” as “El perro esta bañado.” As far as I know, se is a reflexive pronoun and you could say, “El perro se baña.” which would translate as “The dog bathes itself.” You might be right. I never learned it all proper. I just remember seeing “se” and wondering what it meant and finding out that it made the verb reflexive somehow. I could probably properly translate a sentence that had it, but also would probably fail to construct a good sentence using it. > [@Lamia](#): > > That’s not transliteration. Transliteration is just writing a word from one language using the writing system of another language. “Yama” is the transliteration of “山” from Japanese, but the translation is “mountain”. Maybe…? When I took Latin the teacher had a copy of Vergil’s Aenied that did the thing I described, with the original sentence in Latin, followed by a literal word for word translation, followed by a more conventional English sentence, rinse and repeat. I’m pretty sure it had “transliteration” in the title, but it was some years ago. Definitely it was a term that was similar sounding, and definitely it wasn’t just “translation”. Is there another word that fits those criteria? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/66 "2008-10-06T09:20:25Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Maybe…? When I took Latin the teacher had a copy of Vergil’s Aenied that did the thing I described, with the original sentence in Latin, followed by a literal word for word translation, followed by a more conventional English sentence, rinse and repeat. I’m pretty sure it had “transliteration” in the title, but it was some years ago. Definitely it was a term that was similar sounding, and definitely it wasn’t just “translation”. Is there another word that fits those criteria? I don’t know the word, but I will concur that “transliteration” can’t be it. Transliteration doesn’t even make sense in this context since Vergil used the same alphabet we do. Transliterating Plato makes sense, but not Vergil. Are the terms ‘calque’ or ‘_verbum pro verbo_’ familiar to you? Because those are the terms that best fit what you were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/67 "2008-10-06T10:13:01Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Maybe I’m getting in over my head here, but I don’t think you would say El perro se baña, because there is no infinitive there. I think it would be El perro bañarse. There is at least one native Spanish speaker here who can correct me if I’m wrong. “El perro bañarse”? What is that supposed to mean? “The dog to bath”? It makee no sensee! El perro se baña: the dog is having a bath, the dog is bathing himself. He’s gotten into the water himself. Baño al perro: I’m bathing the dog. He’s gotten wet because I’m his alpha human, not because he wants to. There’s probably shampoo involved. The people who didn’t know that specific “se” is reflexive either didn’t have formal instruction in Spanish grammar or weren’t paying attention. I know my brothers had as much formal instruction as I did, but just a few weeks back one of them, who’d been preparing some ESL exams, was asking “ok, so what is the ‘se’, eh?” and we answered “eeeh… reflexive verb? You studied it in fifth grade!” “¡Ay joder! _smacks himself with the dictionary_” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/68 "2008-10-06T13:56:45Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Maybe…? When I took Latin the teacher had a copy of Vergil’s Aenied that did the thing I described, with the original sentence in Latin, followed by a literal word for word translation, followed by a more conventional English sentence, rinse and repeat. I’m pretty sure it had “transliteration” in the title, but it was some years ago. Definitely it was a term that was similar sounding, and definitely it wasn’t just “translation”. Is there another word that fits those criteria? A moment ago I’d have said no, there’s no single word that means that, but I’m a librarian and I don’t like to give answers like that unless I’ve tried to look it up first. It turns out that there is a word, “metaphrase” (as opposed to “paraphrase”), that does mean a literal translation. However, I think it’s far more likely that the title of your book contained the phrase “literal translation” and you’ve switched it around in your memory to “transliteration”. Looking in WorldCat right now, I can’t find any record of any English version of the Aeneid with either “metaphrase” or “transliteration” in the title. There are a few different versions that include the term “literal translation” in the title, so you may have had one of those. ---
**Author:** ![emulsified](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emulsified/32/2915_2.png) [@emulsified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emulsified)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/69 "2008-10-06T18:47:00Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s not that the meaning of “chikan” is difficult to explain. It’s a noun that refers to men who grope women on the train or other crowded spaces. I’ve seen it translated as “molester”, but that makes people think “child molester”. “Molester” also fails to convey the idea that the person in question is one who acts in a public space. The closest word I know is the very old-fashioned “masher”, but even that isn’t quite right. An American woman would be likely to call a chikan a creep, jerk, or asshole, but none of those words alone make the nature of his offensive behavior clear. Lamia, you might want to introduce them to the word [frotteur](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/frotteur). Sounds French, but is a real English word! Not very common, though, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/70 "2008-10-06T22:50:35Z")
> [@emulsified](#): > > Lamia, you might want to introduce them to the word [frotteur](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/frotteur). Sounds French, but is a real English word! Not very common, though, I suppose. That’s fairly close, but not exactly the same meaning. A chikan might grab a woman’s breasts or put a hand up her skirt rather than rub himself against her. But it’s not being a common term that would have been the real issue; I was teaching conversational English, and my students were generally concerned with learning how to speak in a way that wouldn’t seem awkward or overly formal to native English speakers. After explaining that there wasn’t a perfect English translation of “chikan”, I taught them how to describe the _behavior_, which I feel would be the more natural way for a native speaker to phrase things (“A man assaulted/groped me on the train”). ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039/71 "2008-10-06T23:03:55Z")
> [@Usram](#): > > But how to you translate those little “helper” words like “que” and “même” and “schon”? There just is no one-to-one translation into English for words like that. It depends on the context. I explain it as being analogous to something like “just.” As in how “Just do it” is different from “Do it.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-most-frustrating-things-about-learning-another-language/466039.md?page=3)