5 ms·
One thing that I've noticed over the years is that foreign words readily slide into English, yet English words look and sound very jarring in other languages.
by flyinghamster 7y ago
One thing that I've noticed over the years is that foreign words readily slide into English, yet English words look and sound very jarring in other languages.
My second language is Spanish, and seeing an English word in Spanish text just looks wrong to me, never mind that Spanish is full of Arabic loanwords.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoCan you give examples?
- mmm_grayons 7y agoMost of the examples are newer words like "internet" or "chat", which are the same or similar in both languages. Spanish does have "proper" equivalents ("la red" and "la charla", respectively), but the loan-words are used pretty often. Because Spanish has fewer loan-words, the examples I gave don't sound like "real Spanish". This is less obvious in English because we have already abandoned any pretense of uniformity.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThanks. I was really curious how "red" [es] came about for "internet" [en], but I see it's from Latin word for web/net. Also, I've not studied Spanish at all this just made me view "retina" in a new way, cool.
- Nasrudith 7y agoPerhaps it could also be because English is your first language (if I assumed correctly) and it stands out more as familiar as opposed to say Chinese words in Japanese? I won't deny that English is a Borg of a language though.