5 ms·

Russians like taking plurals of English words, add a Russian ending that denotes plural and attach a specific meaning to the newly minted word. For example, бут

Russians like taking plurals of English words, add a Russian ending that denotes plural and attach a specific meaning to the newly minted word. For example, бутсы. It's pronounced "boots-y" where 'y' denotes plural. The word referes to these things https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8B&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipiITPot7PAhVBez4KHaEUDt0Q_AUICCgB&biw=1202&bih=644 https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%82%D1%81%D1%.... Also, "le week-end" comes to mind although it's not different from its English original. "Naan bread" is also interesting.

memracom 10y ago
My personal favourite is sportsmenki which means female athletes. The corresponding word for male athletes is sportsmeny and the singular for a male athlete is sportsmen.
- dotancohen 10y ago
  Don't forget businesswoman: "Businessmenka"
  - vbezhenar 10y ago
    It could be used as a joke, but don't use that word seriously, it could offend. It's either businesswoman (with Russian pronunciation "бизнес-вумэн") or something like "предпренимательница" (enterpreneur-woman).
    - dotancohen 10y ago
      Thanks, I did not know that. My Russian is not very good, and this is a word that I've heard in a serious setting. I've never had opportunity or need to use it, though.
  - type0 10y ago
    That sounds as something ppl would only use in the early 90s
villedespommes 10y ago
what we really like to do is to append a bunch of affectionate diminutive suffixes to English common and proper nouns. It's just soooo entertaining. You can do it all day. Here's a few examples: Mr. Obama (Обама) -> Obamushka (Обамушка) Mr. Trump (Трамп) -> Trumpuoshechka (Трампушечка) My personal favorite: Okay (Окэй) -> Okaayshki (Океюшки) If you curious you can fire up Google Translate and make it say all these words :-)
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  Do you use them to make fun of them or just to make the words sound nice? I think Russian makes heavy use of diminutives, doesn't it? I worked somewhere where two women were called Natalia and Natasha and I am still confused what their actual name were, because Natasha seems to be the diminutive form of Natalia and sometimes Natasha called Natalia "Natasha". I do not think that there are any German names which are the diminutive of other names.
  - pluma 10y ago
    I can't think of any German diminutive names but there are cases where the "short form" is distinctly different from the long form as in English "Bob" vs "Robert" or "Dick" vs "Richard". E.g. "Jupp" is short for "Joseph" and "Kalle" is short for "Karl" (or variants like "Karl-Heinz").
    - xg15 10y ago
      In theory there is -chen or -lein - e.g. Katze -> Kätzchen, Obama -> Obamalein. But I don't think it's used very much practically.
    - taejo 10y ago
      The name Gretchen is a fairly ordinary English name, but it looks like it was originally a German diminutive of Greta/Grete? Which are themselves nicknames for Margarete.
      - 10y ago
allendoerfer 10y ago
In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it. So for example "community, communities" becomes "die Community, die Communitys". I personally struggle with this rule, because I think the number of German people knowing the English plural "communities" is actually higher than those knowing the inflection rules for foreign words, making you look stupid when using the correct form. Another one is that people do not get how to form compound nouns with English words. If you use it in German, "social media manager" becomes "(der) Social-Media-Manager". The rule is so simple: Write everything together, foreign words get a dash. As these words are very common in programming related fields, almost all of the agency websites get them wrong. The gender of the word is derived from words of similar meaning or just similar sounding words, which sometimes creates conflicts about which gender a word has. For example we are divided on whether a blog is male or neuter (der Blog/das Blog), we are only sure it is not female.
- pluma 10y ago
  Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before. I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as far as I know it's still considered non-standard).
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere. > I'm not sure how this distinction is made. The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that. What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.

memracom 10y ago

My personal favourite is sportsmenki which means female athletes. The corresponding word for male athletes is sportsmeny and the singular for a male athlete is sportsmen.

dotancohen 10y ago
Don't forget businesswoman: "Businessmenka"
- vbezhenar 10y ago
  It could be used as a joke, but don't use that word seriously, it could offend. It's either businesswoman (with Russian pronunciation "бизнес-вумэн") or something like "предпренимательница" (enterpreneur-woman).
  - dotancohen 10y ago
    Thanks, I did not know that. My Russian is not very good, and this is a word that I've heard in a serious setting. I've never had opportunity or need to use it, though.
- type0 10y ago
  That sounds as something ppl would only use in the early 90s

villedespommes 10y ago

what we really like to do is to append a bunch of affectionate diminutive suffixes to English common and proper nouns. It's just soooo entertaining. You can do it all day. Here's a few examples: Mr. Obama (Обама) -> Obamushka (Обамушка) Mr. Trump (Трамп) -> Trumpuoshechka (Трампушечка) My personal favorite: Okay (Окэй) -> Okaayshki (Океюшки) If you curious you can fire up Google Translate and make it say all these words :-)

allendoerfer 10y ago
Do you use them to make fun of them or just to make the words sound nice? I think Russian makes heavy use of diminutives, doesn't it? I worked somewhere where two women were called Natalia and Natasha and I am still confused what their actual name were, because Natasha seems to be the diminutive form of Natalia and sometimes Natasha called Natalia "Natasha". I do not think that there are any German names which are the diminutive of other names.
- pluma 10y ago
  I can't think of any German diminutive names but there are cases where the "short form" is distinctly different from the long form as in English "Bob" vs "Robert" or "Dick" vs "Richard". E.g. "Jupp" is short for "Joseph" and "Kalle" is short for "Karl" (or variants like "Karl-Heinz").
  - xg15 10y ago
    In theory there is -chen or -lein - e.g. Katze -> Kätzchen, Obama -> Obamalein. But I don't think it's used very much practically.
  - taejo 10y ago
    The name Gretchen is a fairly ordinary English name, but it looks like it was originally a German diminutive of Greta/Grete? Which are themselves nicknames for Margarete.
    - 10y ago

allendoerfer 10y ago

In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it. So for example "community, communities" becomes "die Community, die Communitys". I personally struggle with this rule, because I think the number of German people knowing the English plural "communities" is actually higher than those knowing the inflection rules for foreign words, making you look stupid when using the correct form. Another one is that people do not get how to form compound nouns with English words. If you use it in German, "social media manager" becomes "(der) Social-Media-Manager". The rule is so simple: Write everything together, foreign words get a dash. As these words are very common in programming related fields, almost all of the agency websites get them wrong. The gender of the word is derived from words of similar meaning or just similar sounding words, which sometimes creates conflicts about which gender a word has. For example we are divided on whether a blog is male or neuter (der Blog/das Blog), we are only sure it is not female.

pluma 10y ago
Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before. I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as far as I know it's still considered non-standard).
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere. > I'm not sure how this distinction is made. The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that. What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.