Ich liebe diese handgedrechselten Umlaute 💖
Ah yes, the re-frigid-air-inator
Read it in his voice!
I suspect every language does this to some extent. Some good examples from Japanese:
靴 = shoes 下 = under 靴下 = socks
手 = hand 紙 = paper 手紙 = letter
歯 = teeth 車 = wheel 歯車 = cog / gear
火 = fire 山 = mountain 火山 = volcano
Sadly (?) the Japanese compounds are often only compounds of the symbols, not the spoken words.
well every language except English I guess.
Well 🇩🇪
Zahn = Tooth
Rad = Wheel
Zahnrad = cog 🎉
Even more than the compound words I really like the kanji that have basically pure pictograph meanings, like mountain pass being “mountain up down” 峠.
Side note my favorite mnemonic is for the word (hospital) patient, where a person (者) ate too much meat on a stick, and now the problem is in their heart 串 + 心 --> 患者
Sorry for the you tube link, but it’s too relevant: When people speak English but with German grammar.
Mandarin-Chinese:
冰 = ice
箱 = box
冰箱 = ice box (refrigerator/freezer)or in Cantonese:
雪 = snow
櫃 = cabinet
雪櫃 = snow cabinet (refrigerator/freezer)usually 上層 “upper level” is used to indicate the freezing part (急凍/雪藏), like where you out ice cream, for example; 下層 “lower level” is used to refer to the non-freezing part, like where you put fruits, for example. Because every fridge we had was designed like that.
Also fun fact: 電腦 means “electric” + " brain" (aka: computer)
飛機 = “flying” + “machine” (aka: airplane)
Feel free to ask questions. I’m bored and wanna see how much I know.
Ok, so I heard anywhere that there is a Chinese language, where the signs for young and women does not say girl, but chimney. Can you confirm?
The fuck?
Lol no idk what the hell you got that from.
but a cold cupboard is the the technology that predates the refrigerator, so how would you know which one people are talking about in German? (j/k)
Just in case there’s someone here who’d like to know: that “cold cupboard” technology that preceded the refrigerator in people’s homes is called Eisschrank in German.
Now do Gloves = Handschuhe — Hand Shoes!
Seehund always cracks me up. It’s the perfect name.
Slug = Nacktschnecke – naked snail.
So like “icebox”?
Eiskasten, Oida!
English is the funny north German dialect that moved to an island and went mental.
Lol, It’s all the French influence
German syntax, with the “I don’t want to pronounce that letter” of French. A wonderful combination.
Don’t forget the Celtic influence that gave English the meaningless do.
If you like this you’ll love Chinese! A language where books were printed with literal blocks of wood!
Yes, and the language works this way too:
电 (diàn) : lightning
脑 (nǎo) : brain
电脑 : computer
Japanese is also similar
Every language is. German not having a word for fridge is fine. Compound words are a product of lack of a dedicated wird in a lot of languages.
Mehrfamilienhaus = more families house / apartment
Why new words when old words good?
I like new words, like Rucksackriemenquerverbindungsträger (the horizontal connection between the straps of your backpack that makes the backpack magically less heavy when closed)
English really is the weird one in this. Constructing new words with old ones makes a lot more sense than just stealing the words from other languages and mashing them in without changing much
All languages borrow, including German. English is not at all weird in this way.
Borrowing itself is normal, yeah, but english tends to go to the extremes with that. Even yoinking words like smörgåsbord as they are
English does have an above-average percentage of loanwords, but not the highest. Armenian and Romani are over 90% borrowings, for example.
Also, note that “smorgasbord” has undergone significant phonological adaptation in its borrowing to fit English’s phonotactics - it’s definitely not borrowed as-is.
Fair enough
German must have its own share of disappointing terms.
Pferd comes to mind as an example. I really expected something more metal like horzdraken or comical like hoofenstreider. But no, just a boring Roman loan word.
That’s a common misconception! “Pferd” is called that, because it lives on the ground (“Erde”). If it would live in the air (“Luft”), it would be called “Pfluft”.
/j
The latin word, for those who are curious, being paraverēdus (additional postal horse, postal horse for special occasions), according to https://www.dwds.de/wb/Pferd
English is so pathetic. A Cupboard is not a board and it’s not just for cups. Then they add insult to injury by just failing to coin the word chillgrill.
Though, to be fair, following the logic of the word cupboard, a fridge should be a cheesegrill. That’s not something anyone could want. Goddammit English.
