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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

{English: A tricky language indeed...}

Just like to share this story with you, from the Jakarta Post from the time that we lived and worked in Indonesia. March 1997. My friend Orchid from Japan will appreciate this. She wrote recently about loanwords in the Japanese language Tea Cup and (Sweet) Loanword in Japan♪. Just click on the photo to enlarge so you can read it clearly and enjoy!




8 comments:

  1. Very interesting, I lake it!
    Have a nice day, kisses:)

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  2. In the Arabic language, there is no "P" sound so Pespi becomes "Bebsi" -- my kids like to make my husband say words with "p" because it sounds kinda funny. :) Have a terrific day. Tammy

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  3. As I read the article I could not but smile... as different words I have heard family and friends say, now makes a bit of sense. My mother bless her heart still says open and close the light after all these years in Canada...Mr. G. though born in Canada, his first language was Italian and he also says open and close the light ... to which I often respond "hmm... can you show me how that is done?"

    This article, brought back some memories of studies in marketing and the challenges of entering a global market ... like the Nova car .. that in Mexico ..translated to "doesn't go" .... wishing you a fabulous day my friend!! xo HHL

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  4. Oh, I enjoyed this article very much and I will print out!!! The writer sure is an observant person. Thank you SO much for sharing♪♪♪

    Well, first of all; I must say one thing, which he mentioned the other way around. Our language doesn't have 'r' sound not 'l'. So, when teaching direction,"Please turn right" can be "please turn light." I always have hard time with this and hesitate to be too persistent to let the students roll their tongue haha. Other than that what he explained about our funny pronunciation for English is SO correct. As he gave an example, I always think why our language has vowels in each sound, not syllables.
    I love the story of the girl's answer "pink" and his use of word "waterloo" was interesting for me.
    Oh, I never heard of Indonesian, I wonder how it sounds to me. I wish foreigners (or English-speaking people) are tolerate for Japanese when we speak English wrongly (^^;)

    Hugs and Love, xoxo Orchid.

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  5. That was interesting and funny too! I used to watch the Indian channel and it always puzzled me as to why they would randomly throw in some English words. I asked an Indian I knew and she said it was because they had no word for it in their language so they 'adopted' certain English words. Language is a funny thing!

    Have a wonderful day Mariette:)

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  6. Liebe Mariette,
    danke für den Hinweis. Es war schön auf dem Blog.

    Liebe Abendgrüße sendet Dir
    Irmi

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  7. Dear Mariette,

    thanks for sharing the interesting post and they say that English is one of the hardest languages to learn.
    I hope that you are having a wonderful week and many thanks for visiting me.

    Hugs
    Carolyn

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  8. Hi Mariette,
    Oh this was so interesting and thank you for sharing. English is the most difficult to learn, expecially when we have the same sounds, spelled differently and meaning something different.
    My grandma from Italy always said, open and close the light.

    Thank you for stopping by and your kind comment. So nice to have you to tea. I will have to make sugar free just for you.

    Love from Texas,
    Celestina Marie

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Thanks for your visit and comment.

Mariette...