Multilingual True Friends

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Levike
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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-02-07, 15:51

Dr. House wrote:[flag=]hu[/flag] munka - work
[flag=]ro[/flag] muncă - work
But don't they both come from the same Slavic word?

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-02-07, 19:32

Maybe, but then a lot of the other true friends in this thread are related, too. :P

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-02-07, 19:56

vijayjohn wrote:Maybe, but then a lot of the other true friends in this thread are related, too. :P
This thread always confuses me.

So the point is to find words from two very different languages that mean the same?

Couldn't we put real true friends.
Like in the beginning of the thread
where someone gave the Chinese and the Spanish "de" as example.

Otherwise we could put every international word here, like "internet" or "history".
Last edited by Levike on 2015-02-07, 19:58, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-02-07, 19:58

Levike wrote:'Cause in that case we could put every international word here, like "internet" or "history".

"History" is not an international word.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-02-07, 20:00

vijayjohn wrote:
Levike wrote:'Cause in that case we could put every international word here, like "internet" or "history".

"History" is not an international word.

Anyway, my point was that someone could say:

[flag=]ro[/flag] istorie
[flag=]pl[/flag] historia

And wow, two different languages with a common friend.

Could someone please define what a "true friend" is supposed to be?

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-02-08, 0:16

Levike wrote:Could someone please define what a "true friend" is supposed to be?

This may not be what you were looking for, but Aleco did define it as follows in the very first post of this thread:
Aleco wrote:How about words across languages that aren't too closely related, yet have the same, or close to the same meaning? (Or languages where words have evolved differently, but ended up as the same?) These would often be onomatopoeia probably, but not necessarily.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-02-08, 0:24

Yeah, I read that.

But did he mean that the languages shouldn't be related or the words?

I think the meaning of this thread should be finding words
that look similar, have the same meaning,
but etymologically they don't have anything to do with each other.

Otherwise you could throw in any common word
from any 2 languages that are from different families.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-02-08, 1:08

Levike wrote:Yeah, I read that.

But did he mean that the languages shouldn't be related or the words?

I'm sure he just meant the languages. I mean, after all, if he was willing to include even onomatopeias...

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby IpseDixit » 2015-02-08, 15:36

I've always interpreted true friends as pairs that you would've never expected to find. So basically this exclude all the major Greek/Latin loanwords that have been basically adopted by a lot of languages.

But of course this is just my own interpretation.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby ling » 2015-02-22, 13:59

[flag=]th[/flag] ริม rim - edge, rim
[flag=]en[/flag] rim
Native: [flag=]en[/flag] Advanced: [flag=]zh[/flag] Actively studying: [flag=]th[/flag][flag=]id[/flag] Passively dabbling: [flag=]lkt[/flag]

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby ling » 2015-03-17, 9:08

[flag=]th[/flag] โม่ mo - to grind
[flag=]zh[/flag] 磨 mo - to grind

And in Latin it's molere.
Native: [flag=]en[/flag] Advanced: [flag=]zh[/flag] Actively studying: [flag=]th[/flag][flag=]id[/flag] Passively dabbling: [flag=]lkt[/flag]

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby ling » 2015-04-10, 5:04

[flag=]zh-hk[/flag] 蛤乸 (gap naa): frog
[flag=]th[/flag] กบนา (gop naa): frog
Native: [flag=]en[/flag] Advanced: [flag=]zh[/flag] Actively studying: [flag=]th[/flag][flag=]id[/flag] Passively dabbling: [flag=]lkt[/flag]

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-21, 15:51

[flag=]ca[/flag] net clean
[flag=]en[/flag] neat

It never occurred to me that these might actually be related, but both descend from Latin nitidus "clean" (although the form and use of the English term were apparently influenced by a descendent of PGmc *nautiz "useful").
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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby IpseDixit » 2015-04-21, 17:06

linguoboy wrote:[flag=]ca[/flag] net clean
[flag=]en[/flag] neat

It never occurred to me that these might actually be related, but both descend from Latin nitidus "clean" (although the form and use of the English term were apparently influenced by a descendent of PGmc *nautiz "useful").

[flag=]it[/flag] netto

Also the adjective [flag=]en[/flag] net comes from there.

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby PEMbl » 2015-04-25, 0:20

Surprising, and not, at the same time.

I'm posting this, but I'm realizing now there are many similarities in some ways between the two languages, especially some expressions are said the same.

[flag=]ru[/flag] Ты, Вы (Ty, Vy)
[flag=]fr[/flag] Tu, Vous

First one is informal "you", second one is formal "you". I'm using russian but it would be valid for Ukrainian(Ти, Ви) and probably other slavic languages of course. The similarity between the two helped me SO MUCH when it came to using the correct pronouns at first!

Also some less obvious ones, but which are still similar enough to call them friends, similar enough to help remember the word:

[flag=]ru[/flag]Пароль - Parol' (password)
[flag=]us[/flag]Password
Fluent : [flag=]fr-QC[/flag][flag=]us[/flag]
Intermediate&Actively learning : [flag=]ru[/flag]
Slowly begginning in : [flag=]es[/flag][flag=]uk[/flag]
Interested in :[flag=]sv[/flag][flag=]de[/flag]

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-04-25, 5:06

PEMbl wrote:Also some less obvious ones, but which are still similar enough to call them friends, similar enough to help remember the word:

[flag=]ru[/flag]Пароль - Parol' (password)
[flag=]us[/flag]Password

I don't see anything particularly similar about these two words; it's just that they both happen to begin with the same two letters (provided they're written in the same script, of course).

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-04-25, 13:03

vijayjohn wrote:
PEMbl wrote:[flag=]ru[/flag]Пароль - Parol' (password)
[flag=]us[/flag]Password

I don't see anything particularly similar about these two words; it's just that they both happen to begin with the same two letters (provided they're written in the same script, of course).

That's more than enough.

A long time ago I also thought that the English "password" might have something to do with the Romanian "parola".

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-25, 13:21

Levike wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
PEMbl wrote:[flag=]ru[/flag]Пароль - Parol' (password)
[flag=]us[/flag]Password

I don't see anything particularly similar about these two words; it's just that they both happen to begin with the same two letters (provided they're written in the same script, of course).

That's more than enough.

Eh, that's enough for a mnemonic maybe, but not for being a "true friend". The real English cognate of пароль is parole, which doesn't have the same meaning at all.
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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby Levike » 2015-04-25, 13:29

Well, that was enough for 9-10 year old me to think they are related. :mrgreen:

Another pair I sometime thought to be related.

[flag=]hu[/flag] megy (he goes)
[flag=]ro[/flag] merge (he goes)

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Re: Multilingual True Friends

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-04-25, 21:00

Levike wrote:Well, that was enough for 9-10 year old me to think they are related. :mrgreen:

A lot of things used to be enough for me to think they were related, too, even if they resembled each other about as closely as these two words did. But in principle, it would make about as much sense to believe that пароль meant 'passport', 'pack animal', 'parliament'...:silly:


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