What really makes languages hard sometimes, is how some similar words can have totally different meanings in different languages.
Today I came across the English word "sensible" which is spelled a lot like the German or the Danish word "sensibel", but…
A sensible person in English means someone who "makes sense", whereas
A sensibel person in German and Danish means someone who is overly sensitive.
French "sensible" also translates as "sensitive" in English (though not overly so).
The change of meaning in English was somewhat recent - see Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility'.
@randahl English all by itself has many confusing words, including ones that look and sound the same but aren't.
I've argued that there may be as many as FOUR different words 'gay' in English, with different but inter-twined histories, creating a lot of confusion today.
English 'sanction' can mean either "allow" or "forbid", depending on context.
There are MANY examples like these.
@randahl Just because we sent some boat to England a 1000 years ago, doesn't mean we still own the English language 🙂
@randahl same for French only even worse, it's spelled exactly the same: sensible
@randahl half nine is definetely not the same as “halv ni”
(Although I will not pretend to understand Danish counting. Norwegian is more like Dutch in that regard 🤭)
My Norwegian class at the U of MN required us to have mock interviews with a classmate where we answered questions på norsk in realtime.
My classmate asked told me to describe my family. I responded "Jeg har to nisser", which made the prof laugh. At the end she said, "Brian, you have to *nieser*. Not two gnomes."
@randahl sensible (say it with French accent) means sensitive
@randahl Oh, German and English have so many false friends which are a source of many jokes.
https://www.englishradar.com/english-vocabulary/embarrassing-english-german-false-friends/
@randahl my favorite remains “Gift”.
A kind and generous thing in English. A fearful thing in German.
@randahl Hee. In Spanish (for Spain) to be “constipado” is to have a cold. In English to be “constipated”… is not.
@randahl 🤣 yes, there are some obstacles for us multi lingual ppl. But fortunately we usually are sensible enough not to become sensitive about it and most native speakers are understanding enough to help us out.😝
@randahl ditto French (maybe not *overly* sensitive).
@randahl I think I'm both. 🤔
@randahl it was once used in that form in English too.
In my dictionary it is listed as the 8th definition of 8 and flagged as obsolete.
@MatthewNewell interesting. Thanks
@randahl the best false friends are between Czech and Polish. Like „szukać“ means to search in Polish and to fuck in Czech.
It’s lovely especially that in general people tend to speak their own language when visiting the neighbouring country because we can more or less understand each other in basic conversations.
@randahl "False friends", as in politics these days... #trump #greenland
@randahl You do not find it sensible to be sensibel?
