Learning
a new language brings many funny instances. You never know it meant
something else in some other languages. And if they have an entirely
unrelated meaning, it becomes a bigger source of pleasure. Let me
tell you some words I came across:
I
used to watch Shinchan, the cartoon series with a Japanese kid, with
my nephew. The name of Shinchan’s dog is Shiro. I thought its just
another meaningless words for pets like tommy and all. Whereas, to my
amusement, Shiro in Japanese means white in English. And it struck me
that yes! the dog was white. Quite justifiable, but amusing.
Mandarin,
as we know, is a language used in China, is also a word used for
citrus fruits in English. I mean what would the following sentence
imply “Mandarin has a flavour of bitterness.”
‘Shove’
(pronounced as shuv) is a word in Hindi that means corpse. I wonder
how would we take this sentence - “That shove was necessary to make
things possible.“
Hell
in German means Light. So next time, if you yell at someone saying
“Go to hell”, be sure that you specify which ‘hell’ you mean.
Hose
means trouser in German. So next time you see a fire, grab a ‘hose’
and... wear it! You will need to run.
See,
what fun you can have while learning languages! I opened the
word-stock I had. What about you?
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