# What amuses you about different languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692 "2009-05-17T00:37:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/21 "2009-05-18T18:36:30Z")
When my grandmother died I inherited some of her German table linens. I am still amused by the tag on one tablecloth, which says the fabric is baumwolle, which taken literally means ‘tree wool.’ In English we’d call that cotton. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/22 "2009-05-18T19:25:36Z")
Do you know how to say [“twelve months” in Estonian](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T41ZRw45obs)? (YouTube Link) ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/23 "2009-05-18T20:20:48Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Do you know how to say [“twelve months” in Estonian](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T41ZRw45obs)? (YouTube Link) Can you just tell us how it sounds for those of us at work? ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/24 "2009-05-18T20:40:46Z")
In that I’m married to a Quebecoise, I’ve been studying French the last few years in an effort to score points with my mother in law and also to know what the family members are saying when they talk amongst themselves when we go up to visit. What gets me about French speakers is the fact that they’re telepathic. That’s the only way I can really rationalize the fact that they mentally project most of the letters in any given word at each other rather than actually, you know, pronounce them. I’m a native English speaker with a neutral accent. The only other foreign language I’ve studied is Spanish. Particularly in Spanish, every letter is enunciated. In French, it seems to be about one in three. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/25 "2009-05-18T20:51:42Z")
Macro. Tee hee! > [@Martha\_Medea](#): > > And if you have to call a girl, you say “boy”. 🙂 In English we sometimes refer to a group of girls as “You guys.” I love that in Japanese, the word for yes is a midwestern state. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/26 "2009-05-18T20:55:27Z")
> [@FallenAngel](#): > > … Particularly in Spanish, every letter is enunciated. In French, it seems to be about one in three. French is the only language that is capable of reducing a nice three-syllable Latin word “Augustus” (the name of the month) to one vowel “août”, pronounced “u”. The Spanish keep all the Latin syllables with “agosto”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/27 "2009-05-18T20:57:48Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I love that in Japanese, the word for yes is a midwestern state. “Hai”? (That’s a common word for yes – others sound even less like names of states). Are you thinking of “Ohayo”, which means “Good morning”? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/28 "2009-05-18T23:25:51Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Do you know how to say [“twelve months” in Estonian](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T41ZRw45obs)? (YouTube Link) Odd. _My_ Estonian friend never mentioned this. Of course, I was only 12 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/29 "2009-05-18T23:46:45Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > I am still amused by the tag on one tablecloth, which says the fabric is baumwolle, which taken literally means ‘tree wool.’ In English we’d call that cotton. I can’t frakking believe someone beat me to my favorite German word. All righty then. In German, you do not have _a headache_. You have _kopfschmerzen_, “head pains.” Plural. For years after taking German, I would say that I had “multiple head pains.” ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/30 "2009-05-19T00:30:14Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Do you know how to say [“twelve months” in Estonian](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T41ZRw45obs)? (YouTube Link) From memory: Januaar Vebruaar Martz Aprili … Aw crap, I forgot the rest, it’s been quite a few years since I took it and I don’t have much call to use it here in the US. I never thought they were that funny to listen to, maybe I ought to check the video out. What is definitely funny is the word you say when someone has sneezed is: “terveseks”, the last half of which sounds a lot like “sex”. Actually, a number of words end in “seks”, this is because a most nouns in the genitive case end in “-se” and the the case that indicates a state of transition or becoming is “-ks” so when you put them together you get “-seks”. Terveseks literally means (as near as I can figure) “may you become healthy/whole”. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/31 "2009-05-19T00:57:20Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Can you just tell us how it sounds for those of us at work? Sorry. “Kaksteist kuud.” ---
**Author:** ![Sonnenstrahl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Sonnenstrahl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonnenstrahl)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/32 "2009-05-19T01:06:18Z")
In German, an outlet (die Steckdose) is feminine while a plug (der Stecker) is masculine. I remember that the teacher just sat back and let the class giggle at that for a second. But while I’ve forgotten an awful lot of the German I’ve learned, I’ve never forgotten those words. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/33 "2009-05-19T01:42:26Z")
In, I think, all Slavic languages, you don’t say “I miss my mom” or whatever, you say “my mom misses me.” I still don’t understand why this would be, and I tried to avoid telling anyone what I missed for about a year and a half in Bulgaria for fear of screwing this up. “America misses me! Burritos and pad thai miss me! Cheddar cheese misses me!” My favorite word of Hebrew is: scharchoret. (Both of those "ch"s indicate that lovely guttural sound Hebrew has.) Means “dizzy” (feminine). ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/34 "2009-05-19T02:07:52Z")
Ohhhhhhh… not “how do you say the 12 months in Estonian”, but “how do you say ‘twelve months’ in Estonian”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/35 "2009-05-19T09:21:26Z")
> [@Sonnenstrahl](#): > > In German, an outlet (die Steckdose) is feminine while a plug (der Stecker) is masculine. I remember that the teacher just sat back and let the class giggle at that for a second. But while I’ve forgotten an awful lot of the German I’ve learned, I’ve never forgotten those words. They’re called a Jack and a Jill in English… or used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/36 "2009-05-19T16:24:06Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > In, I think, all Slavic languages, you don’t say “I miss my mom” or whatever, you say “my mom misses me.” In French, I’d say “ma mère me manque”, which literally translates as “my mother misses [is missing] to me”. That’s because the verb “to miss” is defined in different ways in different languages; there’s no obvious reason why the entity that is lacked should be object rather than subject. Also note that in my previous French sentence fragment I would be the _indirect_ object of the verb, despite the fragment containing no preposition. That’s a particularity of French: “ma mère me manque” could (clumsily, but not incorrectly) be rewritten as “ma mère manque à moi”, with the preposition, so the pronoun is an indirect object. Your example reminds me of an error (it’s considered as such) I hear a lot of people make, that may have to do with the grammatical differences between French and English. In English you can say “I own a car”, and possibly due to the influence of English, I hear people say “j’appartiens une voiture” in French. But the problem is that “appartenir” means “to belong” in French, while “to own” is “posséder”. In essence, they’re saying they belong [to] a car. That’s why I’m not entirely sure this error is due to English influence, since it’s more of a case of using the wrong verb. But I can’t tell how it originated. ---
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/37 "2009-05-19T16:44:14Z")
My German students love the fact that if you say “good night” without the requisite throat-clearing, you’re commenting on being “good naked”. And the word for school classes is Fache or Facher. Pronounced as you might think, to the glee of junior highers everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/38 "2009-05-19T16:46:14Z")
According to my German professor, if you translate _I am cold_ literally as _Ich bin kalt_, what you have said is that you are frigid (sexually). The correct idiomatic translation is _Es macht mir kalt_, literally _It makes me cold_. ---
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/39 "2009-05-19T16:50:56Z")
And if you say “I am hot” _Ich bin heiss_, you are saying you are hot and horny. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692/40 "2009-05-19T17:16:52Z")
> [@schnuckiputzi](#): > > And if you say “I am hot” _Ich bin heiss_, you are saying you are hot and horny. Well, that certainly fits. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-amuses-you-about-different-languages/496692.md?page=3)