25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language, in fact it's the 3rd most commonly spoken language in the world (after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). Interestingly enough it's the number 1 second language used worldwide - which is why the total number of people who speak English, outnumber those of any other. But whilst it's the most widely spoken language, there's still a few areas it falls down on (strange and bizarre punctuation rules aside). We look at 25 words that simply don't exist in the English language (and yet after reading this list, you'll wish they did!) 1 Age-otori (Japanese): To look worse after a haircut 2 Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude Source
10 Untranslatable Words (And When You'll Want to Use Them) English is one of the harder languages to learn, especially if you consider certain key aspects of it. One is pronunciation and spelling, whereas in languages like Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, and German the words are pronounced exactly or almost exactly as to what they are spelled, in English this is not as common of an occurrence, or at least spelling/pronunciation continuity is not as intuitive as it could be. Consider the letter sequence "ough," it is pronounced as "off" in cough, as "uf" in rough and tough, as "uu" in through, as "ahh" in thought, and as "oh" in thorough, however some people will pronounce thorough with an "uh" sound for the "ough" in the word. Another is lacking some of the verb conjugations that other languages have and having a bias against the passive voice.
WordBrewery. Améliorer son vocabulaire dans une langue étrangère Mise à jour avril 2019 : Malheureusement WordBrewery n’accepte plus de nouveaux comptes. WordBrewery est une plateforme en ligne qui va vous aider à développer votre vocabulaire de base dans une langue étrangère. Elle s’appuie sur des phrases extraites chaque jour d’articles de presse. Comment pratiquer une langue avec des phrases de tous les jours quand on n’est pas immergé dans la réalité d’un pays ? WordBrewerry a calculé que les 2 500 mots les plus courants dans n’importe quelle langue représentent 95 % du vocabulaire quotidien. Vous allez pouvoir choisir un niveau pour démarrer : débutant, intermédiaire ou expert. Quand vous cliquez sur un mot dans une phrase, vous obtenez sa définition, vous pouvez afficher d’autres phrases dans lesquelles il est utilisé, vous pouvez aussi l’ajouter à une de vos listes de mots. Ces listes vont ensuite vous permettre de demander à WordBrewerry des séquences de révision et d’exercices centrés sur une ou plusieurs d’entre elles. Lien : WordBrewery
How to Find Cheap Accommodation in Italy If you’re trying to save money while you travel in Italy, finding budget accommodation is the key. Since hotels in Italy, especially cities like Florence, Rome and Venice, can easily cost €150 a night, that can be tough! But, of course, we’re here to help. This is our second post in our series on how to travel to Italy… on a budget! Want to stay somewhere beautiful in Italy… without breaking the bank? It is possible Scour the best hotel sites… but call the hotels directly One of the best ways to get a feel for average hotel prices in your destination in Italy is, of course, to do some research. If you see something fantastic, then don’t automatically book it through the site you’re on. Don’t automatically think “hotel” One of the easiest ways to save on staying in a hotel in Italy? An agriturismo Farm-stays can be a great way to save on both accommodation and food Since we’ve sung the praises of Italy’s agriturismi earlier, we won’t go into too much detail now. A convent or monastery stay
The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English | Marriage 3.0 Here are my top ten words, compiled from online collections, to describe love, desire and relationships that have no real English translation, but that capture subtle realities that even we English speakers have felt once or twice. As I came across these words I’d have the occasional epiphany: “Oh yeah! That’s what I was feeling...” Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start. Oh yes, this is an exquisite word, compressing a thrilling and scary relationship moment. Yuanfen (Chinese): A relationship by fate or destiny. From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the "binding force" that links two people together in any relationship. But interestingly, “fate” isn’t the same thing as “destiny.” Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair. Ya’aburnee (Arabic): “You bury me.”
Translating the Untranslatable 100 Mostly Small But Expressive Interjections David Bier Thanks for this – what a fun post considering there’s no actual narrative in it! Cecily Some of these interjections are quite culturally and age specific, so if people need to be told what they mean, they should probably not be using them.For example, to many Brits, va-va-voom is not old-fashioned at all, but instead is firmly linked to the long-running ads that footballer Thierry Henry made for the Renault Clio. Himanshu Chanda Whoa ! What a biiiig list. And yes this ones really great.
POSTER: English Is A Crazy Language Do you think English is easy to learn? Well, here's a short example of how complicated it in fact is! Check out this high quality print-friendly poster below - you're most welcome to print it out and place either in your classroom or Teacher's Room for everyone to see. Don't forget to 'LIKE' it or tweet about it (see the buttons above), or email it to your fellow teachers! Enjoyed this poster and learned something? Please share it! Want more teaching tips like this? Get the Entire BusyTeacher Library Instant download. Show me sample pages → Rate this article: was this poster helpful? 4 out of 5, rated by 142 teachers
Listen and Write - Dictation Psychogeography evoL PsychogeogrAphix 2003 evoL PsychogeogrAphix 2004 evoL PsychogeogrAphix 2005 Psychogeography is an approach to geography that emphasizes playfulness and "drifting" around urban environments. It has links to the Situationist International. Development[edit] Psychogeography was originally developed by the avant-garde movement Lettrist International in the journal Potlach. In "Formulary for a New Urbanism", Chtcheglov had written "Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams".[5] Similarly, the Situationists found contemporary architecture both physically and ideologically restrictive, combining with outside cultural influence, effectively creating an undertow, and forcing oneself into a certain system of interaction with their environment: "[C]ities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones". Dérive[edit] See also[edit]
100 Exquisite Adjectives By Mark Nichol Adjectives — descriptive words that modify nouns — often come under fire for their cluttering quality, but often it’s quality, not quantity, that is the issue. Plenty of tired adjectives are available to spoil a good sentence, but when you find just the right word for the job, enrichment ensues. Practice precision when you select words. Here’s a list of adjectives: Subscribe to Receive our Articles and Exercises via Email You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! 21 Responses to “100 Exquisite Adjectives” Rebecca Fantastic list!
Write Your Name in Elvish Write Your Name in Elvish in Ten Minutes You want to write your name in Elvish, but every place you go seems to make it harder than it ought to be. Elvish writing looks beautiful and mysterious, but does it really have to be impossible to understand? Here's the alphabet. That's it. Generally the vowels go above the consonants, but sometimes, in the case of Y and silent E, they go below. The straight line underneath is just one way to make one character do the work of two. The line above a consonant means that a nasal N or M precedes the consonant in question. Here's one last example with two different letter combinations. I am often asked how to handle double vowel situations. That's all you need to get started. Please be aware that there are many ways to write English words in Elvish. Good luck! Ned Gulley Want an Elvish tattoo? Want an Elvish t-shirt? Return to the Star Chamber
The Meanings Behind Words for Emotions Aren't Universal, Study Finds | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine In May 1993, Trinidadian-German Eurodance artist Haddaway posed a crucial query to the world: “What is love?” Haddaway asked his question in English, but he received a range of responses—in part, perhaps, because there were so many other languages listeners could use to answer. By analyzing words from nearly 2,500 languages, researchers have found that terms describing emotions—like anger and happiness—can have very different meanings depending on the cultures and geographies where they originate. The study, published this week in the journal Science, reveals that while some common themes exist across the linguistics family tree, seemingly equivalent ideas have evolved away from each other, shaped in part by the different ways in which people around the world express their feelings. To identify universal themes across languages—or lack thereof—Lindquist and her colleagues compiled a database of 100,000 words from 2,474 spoken languages spanning 20 major language families.