Your favourite foreign words with literal meanings

[Brefugee]

We were chatting about this on The Archers thread and i wondered if anyone else would like to join the convo.

I can't remember how it came about but anyway, two of my favourites are

• The Russian for machine-gun translates literally to bullet thrower
• The German for gloves translates literally to hand shoes

The word for hello in the Irish language is 'Dia dhuit' literally meaning 'God be with you' and the appropriate way of saying hello in reply is 'Dia is Mhuire dhuit' literally meaning 'God and Mary be with you'. The language is so tied up not just with religion but with Catholicism it's impossible to separate the two.

German - faultier - lazy animal - sloth

Also

Køleskab- cold cupboard (refrigerator)

Dovendyr -lazy animal (Sloth)

Græsslåmaskine- Grass slay machine (lawn mower)

Kattekilling - cat kitten (kitten)

Udestue - out lounge (conservatory)

Welsh.

Restaurant - Eating House
Jellyfish - Fish that wibbles and wobbles

this isnt quite right. Tomatoes are called "west(western) red persimmon" not "thing", there are other ways to call tomatoes too in Chinese

I like the French word for dandelion.....pissenlit = wet the bed. It is a well known diuretic.

Poppetty ping - microwave in Welsh.

Russian for ladybird - bozh’ya korovka, God’s little cow.
But then also ‘ladybird’, when you think about it 😄

Ladybird in Welsh is similar- buwch goch gota- little red cow.

Smugairle Róin the Irish for jellyfish means seal snot

Looking out of the window, I am annoyed to discvoer that we've had a visit from a mouth throw.

Maulwurf = mole.

(Not entirely sure of the etymology here - I'm assuming the Wurf is the noun of throw, it would make sense given the way moles operate with soil, but Wurf technically also refers to the litters of some animals. And Maul is the word for animal mouths, more like muzzle than mouth.

Chinese has some great ones. My favourite is:

Panda = large bear cat.

Malaysian:

Rumah sakit korban lelaki = hospital for victims of men = maternity hospital
Gubuk gila = crazy shack = mental hospital
Pusing kiri, pusing kanan = dizzy left, dizzy right = turn left, turn right

In Thai- hiu nam means thirsty, literally means hungry for water

German again - apparently a mincer is a Fleischwolf

Hedgehog in Japanese translates as needlemouse.

I also like the Japanese expression for people who have no sense of direction.... direction tone-deaf. Yep, that's me!

kummerspeck literally means ‘grief bacon’ in German. Refers to the weight gained when you emotionally over eat! 😂

Also ordblinde - word blind. Dyslexic.

Although I would point out that Kummerspeck is one of the words that ALWAYS turns up on lists of '10 weird German words' - but it is, unsurprisingly, little used in practice apart from that.

I like Nijlpaard - Dutch for hippopotamus, literally Nile horse.

And Saudade in Portuguese from when I lived in a Portuguese speaking country - sort of longing or homesickness.

If you don’t already, follow Susie Dent on Twitter. She often comes up with gems like this - pretty much describes most MNers (inc me!)

French for bat: chauve-souris (shaved mouse)

I like German „Lebensabschnittsgefährte” - companion for a section of your life 🤣🤣🤣 not very romantic, it’s like it’s completely fine to say this is my partner ”for now”, it suggests that nobody thinks it’s forever and it’s a completely normal way to speak about other half.

Cool thread. These come to mind:

Avoir la guele de bois - French for to have a hangover - literally to have a mouth of wood.

Hippopotamus from the Greek words ίππος - ippos meaning horse - and πόταμος - potamos meaning river - so literally river horse.

The Swedish word for gums is Tandkött - literally tooth meat.

The Icelandic word for pelvis is lífbein - literally lifebone.

The Finnish word for Earth is Maapallo - literally ground ball.

potato, pomme de terre (French) apple of the ground

giraffe, chang jing lu (Chinese) long neck deer