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

German has so many examples of this that I'd struggle to choose my top ten, let alone favourite, because it varies from week to week. It's one of the reasons I love that language so much.

My favourite from those books was Fuzzypeg.

I love the old names for animals, Todd for fox and Brock for badger etc. I have always wondered whether they are used in other Germanic languages.

Sorry I quoted the wrong poster in my message above!

In French, trainers are "baskets" or "tennis". Most sports in French have the English names: le football, le tennis, le golf etc, or indeed "babyfoot" as somebody mentioned for table football. Basketball is "le basketball", or possibly "le basket". And as for a wicker basket, that's a completely different word: panier.

Guinea pig is a good one.
French: Cochon d'Inde (pig from India)
German: Meerschweinchen (little pig of the sea)

In German, the translations for the various kinds of meat are very literal: pig flesh (Schweinefleisch), cow flesh, and so on. I expect German children are much less surprised than English children about where meat comes from.

The French for the railways: SNCF. In full, Societé Nationale de Chemin de Fer: National Society of the Iron Pathway.

Blindfold: in many languages, the translation is "eye bandage". In English, it's from "blindfellen", as in "strike blind".

I think other cultures are amused by our animal kingdom of pedestrian crossings: pelican crossings, puffin crossings, toucan crossings, pegasus crossings, zebra crossings. Two others that nobody knows about: panda crossing (a forerunner to the pelican crossing in the 1950s that was so confusing that drivers couldn't understand it, and pedestrians didn't feel safe using it, so it went extinct), and an unofficial one: phoenix crossing, outside fire stations, when there are special signals to stop the traffic for the fire engines to come out.

Some French slang for "boring" or "tedious" refers to the tedium of shaving one's beard every day.
"Quelle barbe!" What a beard!
"Rasant!" Boring.

And dustman (who says that now?) is "boueur", or "mud man".

Popty.

Antibabypille - is German for contraceptive pill.

The Welsh for a microwave oven is a 'ping oven', popty microdon

I bought a brush for my cat that came from china. The package said suitable for dogs, cats, rabbits and pandas. Made me smile

In German, the translations for the various kinds of meat are very literal: pig flesh (Schweinefleisch), cow flesh, and so on. I expect German children are much less surprised than English children about where meat comes from.

I think it is common in most languages, but England was invaded by the French so the people who raised the animals still used the name of the animal, but the people eating it were speaking French so instead of pig, sheep, cow it was porc, mutton, boeuf.

@scalt maybe maybe not

As a teacher I once had the following conversation

Me: Did you say pheasant?
Student: No miss, what is a pheasant?
Me: It's a bird you can eat it
Student: Uhg who'd eat a bird?
Me: Do you eat chicken.

She was about 17 when she found out that the chicken you eat is

I read an interesting article once about an 'Anglish' society that had rewritten modern English to remove Latin and French influences. I think their word for television was 'screencast'. I also remember reading something about people back in the day objecting to the word 'television' because it was a hybrid of Greek and Latin.

Italian has some good ones. My favourite is "Sono un po' rintronata oggi" (I'm a bit dozy today") but literally "I am like one who has been deafened by a thunderclap".

Also to someone who refuses to see the obvious "ha il prosciutto sugli occhi", "his eyes are lined with ham".

Oispa · Yesterday 22:04

Finnish night-butterfly (moth),

Russian is the same - noch babuchka.

My sisters and I insult each other by saying du Arschbacke (you arse cheek) or Schweinebacke (you pig cheek) - German

@CherryRipe1 my favourite Welsh word ever! 😆

Portuguese "chuva molha-tolos" = rain that wets the crazy people (aka drizzle)

Apparently no-one yet has found an origin for the word 'bigot'. Maybe someone here can suggest one, while we're looking at these super imaginative words?

I love the old names for animals, Todd for fox and Brock for badger etc. I have always wondered whether they are used in other Germanic languages.

Broc is Irish, I think? The German for badger is Dachs, hence dachshund.

'Badger' is apparently from the badge-like markings on the head.

In the Netherlands, they don’t ask about your kid’s mucous, they ask “Heeft hij slijm?” (Has he got slime?)

*Tbf, a lot of Dutch is as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Looking at the discussion on possible etymology, apparently the medieval French called the English 'goddamns' .😂

www.etymonline.com/word/bigot

@GameofPhones - Possibly a contraction of Big and Idiot?

There's an AMAZING book from 1884, "English As She Is Spoke", which is a Portuguese to English phrase-book. It was written by two Portuguese authors who didn't know a word of English but instead used a Portuguese-French phrase book, and then a French-English dictionary, resulting in the most surreal and hilarious translations.

"Of the hand to mouth, one lose often the soup."

www.dictionary.com/e/bigot/

Religious hypocrite, possibly. Apparently the Normans used to say "bi God" a lot.

@sashh My kids went to school with a little boy whose parents owned a hotel. When the teacher asked where milk came from, he put up his hand and answered “Room Service.” He had a lot to catch up on too.

The Welsh 'popty ping' for microwave is adorable. I hope it will catch on in English. Any more Welsh candidates?

I happen to know two:😊

• French:
• Butterfly (papillon) — literally means "flapping flying insect"
• Telephone (téléphone) — literally means "distant sound"