Words that just won't stick

This is our main forum. Here, anything related to languages and linguistics can be discussed.

Moderator:Forum Administrators

Ciarán12
Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Ciarán12 » 2018-03-11, 15:55

Cool, maybe I'll remember it now!

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-11, 15:56

Yay, I was hoping that might help! :)

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Car » 2018-03-11, 19:59

Or maybe you should write it on a wall to remember it. :P
Please correct my mistakes!

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-11, 20:56

Or you should write it on a wall illegally in Brazil. You'd never forget it then!

Ciarán12

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Ciarán12 » 2018-03-11, 22:36

I think that might be going a little to far just to remember the word, but I have no doubt it would work :P

User avatar
atalarikt
Posts:441
Joined:2014-10-02, 1:37
Real Name:Taufan Atalarik
Gender:male
Location:Malang Kota
Country:IDIndonesia (Indonesia)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby atalarikt » 2018-03-14, 0:56

Car wrote:Or maybe you should write it on a wall to remember it. :P

I remember writing el espejo (the mirror) on the wall nearby a mirror in my bedroom back in 2014, when I started using Duolingo to learn Spanish. The writing itself is still there. :lol:
وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ خَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافُ أَلْسِنَتِكُمْ وَأَلْوَانِكُمْ ۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِلْعَالِمِينَ۝
"And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge." (Ar-Rum: 22)

Jika saya salah, mohon diperbaiki. If I make some mistake(s), please correct me.
Forever indebted to Robert A. Blust for his contributions to Austronesian linguistics

Ciarán12

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Ciarán12 » 2018-09-22, 9:30

(pt-br) surto - outbreak, surge, erruption.

The semantics of the word don't overlap well with any one term in English, which is part of why I keep forgetting it. Also, my mind immediately associated it with the word sorte - luck, which has nothing to do with surto but I always remember that association first... :/

User avatar
voron
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4945
Joined:2007-07-15, 3:29
Real Name:Igor
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby voron » 2018-09-22, 9:56

(ku)
civak - society
civîn - meeting, convention

They keep popping up in my Memrise reviews and I get them wrong all the time.
Last edited by voron on 2018-09-23, 7:49, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Osias » 2018-09-23, 0:43

Ciarán12 wrote:(pt-br) surto - outbreak, surge, erruption.

The semantics of the word don't overlap well with any one term in English, which is part of why I keep forgetting it. Also, my mind immediately associated it with the word sorte - luck, which has nothing to do with surto but I always remember that association first... :/


1 Aprenda a musica da banda "O Surto", é aquele sucesso "que me pirou o cabeção". A palavra é bastante usada como "surto de loucura"

2 Quem criou essa palavra eu acho que era um cara meio surtado
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

ceid donn
Posts:2256
Joined:2008-02-15, 0:58
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby ceid donn » 2018-09-23, 4:04

(fr) All from my Memrise course as well. If the review offers them as multiple choice I can usually get them, but I can't just straight up recall them despite practicing them for months now. Maybe just posting them here and seeing them in a different context will help.

s'engueuler - to fight, to argue
s'arracher qqch - to fight over something
un pèlerinage - a pilgrimage

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby linguoboy » 2018-09-24, 17:05

I "know" all of these Welsh verbs, yet for some reason I still often confuse them in context or forget some of their meanings. (Dal in particular has a range which doesn't map well to any English verb.) Note that in the narrative tense, most of these lose their final ending and add -odd in the 3s, so they're even more similar than they appear in verb-noun form.

codi rise, raise, lift, stand up
dodi put, place
dechrau start, begin
deffro wake (up)
dal catch, hold, keep, continue [forms progressive]
digwydd happen, occur
disgyn fall, go down, dismount, disembark
ei heglu hi hoof it, kick the bucket
rheged run
rhegi curse
rhwyfo row
rhwydo net, ensnare
rhwyddau free, liberate
syllu gaze, stare
sylwi notice, note, observe
sylweddoli realise

And then there's this frustrating trio:
rhydd free
rhyfedd odd
pridd soil
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Osias » 2018-09-25, 0:40

(de)etwas
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby linguoboy » 2018-09-28, 17:28

(cy) gwasgu press
(cy) gwthio push
(cy) llethu crush
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Vlürch
Posts:943
Joined:2014-05-06, 8:42
Gender:male
Location:Roihuvuori, Helsinki
Country:FIFinland (Suomi)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Vlürch » 2018-10-22, 16:40

Well, very few words actually stick in my head, but these are some of the most frustrating ones:

Japanese (ja) 求める (motomeru) - to find; search for; want; demand
I've literally never even once remembered what it means correctly, so for me this is almost certainly the best example of a word that won't stick. There have been times when I've thought it meant everything from "help" to "punish", but not even once have I actually thought it means what it really means. I lock up completely and my brain stops registering whatever comes after whenever I encounter it, as if I was faced with some complex mathematical formula... :oops: Well, thankfully I'll probably never have to use Japanese in real life and am still at a newborn's level even after over a decade of trying to learn it...

Turkish (tr) rüya - dream
Turkish (tr) rüzgâr - wind
I don't think I could ever forget that the latter means "wind", but at least half of the time when I see the former, I think it means that as well. The reason it's so frustrating is that even though both are Persian loanwords, this same mix-up hasn't happened to me in Persian even once... and there's the Azerbaijani singer Röya; I could never forget that her name means "dream", so... I have absolutely no idea how I manage to keep mixing them up in Turkish.

English (en) magnolia
Although I always remember that it's a plant, I always forget what kind of a plant it is... the similarity to Mongolia doesn't help.

Russian (ru) даже - even
Russian (ru) тоже - also
No idea how I could ever memorise which is which. I just want to use даже everywhere, but obviously that's not going to work...

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby linguoboy » 2018-10-22, 16:46

(fr) dingue
(fr) tantôt looks like it should mean "as soon as" but, no, it's "sometimes", "earlier", or "later"(!)
(fr) pourtant however
(fr) partout everywhere
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-10-22, 17:00

Vlürch wrote:Russian (ru) даже - even
Russian (ru) тоже - also
No idea how I could ever memorise which is which. I just want to use даже everywhere, but obviously that's not going to work...

Тоже begins with the same two letters as too in English. (I think that might have helped me remember it).

User avatar
voron
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4945
Joined:2007-07-15, 3:29
Real Name:Igor
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby voron » 2018-10-22, 17:20

Vlürch wrote:Turkish (tr) rüya - dream
Turkish (tr) rüzgâr - wind
I don't think I could ever forget that the latter means "wind", but at least half of the time when I see the former, I think it means that as well. The reason it's so frustrating is that even though both are Persian loanwords, this same mix-up hasn't happened to me in Persian even once...

Rüya is actually originally Arabic, and comes from the same root as رَأَى 'to see'. It's the first word of one of the often recited surahs in Quran:
http://corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp? ... 07&verse=1

And rüzgar appears here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UsRJJ_ehqU&t=1m35s :)

User avatar
Vlürch
Posts:943
Joined:2014-05-06, 8:42
Gender:male
Location:Roihuvuori, Helsinki
Country:FIFinland (Suomi)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Vlürch » 2018-10-23, 5:29

vijayjohn wrote:Тоже begins with the same two letters as too in English. (I think that might have helped me remember it).

That could definitely be helpful, if I manage to remember that! Thanks.
voron wrote:Rüya is actually originally Arabic

Ohhh, welp. Goes to show once again that assuming etymologies is never a good idea. :P It probably entered Turkish through Persian, though, right? Not saying that makes it a loanword from Persian per se, but...
voron wrote:and comes from the same root as رَأَى 'to see'.

Interesting. Arabic roots are so cool.

Ciarán12

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby Ciarán12 » 2019-03-01, 14:23

(pt-br) cometer - to commit
I always keep saying "cometir" and conjugating it like an -ir verb because of the "i" in the English cognat.

(pt-br) travesseiro/travessura - pillow/trick, prank
I keep confusing one with the other.

(pt-br) rodovia/rodoviária - motorway/bus station
Same with this, and it really doesn't help that as an adjective rodoviário/rodoviária means "of or pertaining to traffic or roads" so that "Eu fui para a rodoviária por via rodoviária." means "I went to the bus station by road"! :/

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Words that just won't stick

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-20, 18:40

For some reason, I've had a hell of time remembering that it's (es)mapache "raccoon" and (es-MX)tambache "pile", not *mapuche and *tambuche. In the first instance, I can blame interference from Mapuche, but why should I have problems with tambache?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


Return to “General Language Forum”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests

cron