10: “klloshar” - Albanian for loser
9: “pochemuchka” - Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions
8: “selathirupavar” - Tamil for a certain type of truancy
7: “saudade” - Portuguese for a certain type of longing
6: “gezellig” - Dutch for cosy. I would have voted for the very common work “graag” here, an adverb that means to like doing something
5: “altahmam” - Arabic for a kind of deep sadness
4: “naa” - Japanese word only used in the Kansai area of Japan, to emphasise statements or agree with someone
3: “radioukacz” - Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain
2: “shlimazl” - Yiddish for a chonically unlucky person
1: “ilunga” - Tshiluba (spoken in south-eastern Congo) for a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time; to tolerate it a second time; but never a third time
As in: I chuffed and bumf my way through your whimsy spam which made me googly at your poppycock . This sent me into gobbledegook serendipity and I became a plenipotentiary ? Works for me!
Aw Fluffy, it isn’t the words that are the problem, it’s the CLIENTS!!
(And the “editors” in the government departments, each of which is absolutely convinced his English is far, far better than any native speaker’s could ever be…) :raspberry:
Are you a native American English speaker or a native British English speaker or what?
Plenipotentiary is pronounced just like it is spelled… duh??? OK… Ok… I’ll do my best to help you, with my limited knowledge of phonetic symbols and such… plen-ih-poh-ten-shee-airy.
I lived in Kansai for three years, and the dialect is know collectively as Kansai-Ben. The kansai plain is massive and hundreds of millions of people live there, including the Narans and Osakans. The use of NA is a bastardization of the word NE which is used commonly throughout Japan. The word has several meanings, but they have similar sentiments. I can say Atsui Na, to mean, “Its hot isnt it?” “It is hot” “You are correct, it is hot” “I agree with your statement.” But I never really had a problem understanding the sentiment because the Japanese can express feeling through tone of voice, something which cannot be done too well in Mandarin. I thought the word OMOSHIROI was a tougher one to translate, it means ‘interesting, but in a weird or curious kind of way’.
Bumpf is written material which is probably unnecessary.
Chuffed, means that you are happy about something. i.e. I was well chuffed this morning. It can also mean to have smoked a spliff. Have a chuff on that.
I think that FAFF is a great English word. Bet not too many Americans know how to use that one.
Ah, quit your faffin’ about! I wouldn’t be too sure about that being British use only. It is used in the US quite a bit - at least used with the meaning of wasting time/effort.
NERD ALERT: (FAFF was also an old Amiga file extension and seeing how it is used so extensively today, the file type naming was appropriate.)
Can anyone help me sail it here and get it registered?
Brings up a point Richard H. might be able to answer - how can one register a boat and at what size? I want to get a small boat (probably partially motorized) or even a little “fishing” boat. Is it adequate to just have the boat registered to a “legal fisherman”, even though nobody on board is?
I can’t speak for the rest of the English speaking world, but in the States (many parts of it at least) heaps of colorful yiddishisms including “shlimazl” have been abosorbed into the common language, and don’t need no translation.
Even “Laverne and Shirley” described themsleves as shlemil & shlimazl (shlemil meaning idot).
‘Cool’ is different to translate it into German, so we usually use that word itself.
‘Geil’ comes close; it can also be used in a sexual / vulgar context (‘horny’, ‘randy’ …).
BTW: the Dutch ‘gezellig’ translates perfectly into German: ‘gesellig’ (same meaning).
Ding! (Little lightbulb goes on) Is that what they were saying in the opening theme song? Well, there’s a 25-year-old mystery solved. Not that it was vitally important, but it was one of those things that puzzled me when I was a kid. I’m Australian - what do we know from Yiddish?
As far as slang goes, I like ‘lairy’ and ‘suss’ myself
Edited: LOL at BFM, that thought actually crossed my mind…
Um, show me something that Chinese people regard as tacky, and then we’ll start to translate…I don’t think we’ll have to, somehow! [/quote]
Duh, Ironlady. That is so easy. Tacky to a Taiwanese person would be driving anything less than a BMW or Mercedes (but they’d of course still be wearing flipflops).
tacky would be “song” or “tu” no? (someone else can type the characters)…altho they are usually used to describe someone or something lacking in sophistication but close enough…
OK… Ok… I’ll do my best to help you, with my limited knowledge of phonetic symbols and such… plen-ih-poh-ten-shee-airy.
