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Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 02 May 2020 20:10
by Salmoneus
I'm only aware of "belly-flop" in common parlance in England, and certainly as the only synonym that's also used more broadly in a metaphorical sense. It wouldn't surprise me in particular regions, or indeed subcultures, might have their own terms, though. [eg when I were a lad, what wiktionary calls a "cannonball" was just a "bomb" or "bomber"].

And if you're learning flop-related vocabulary in English, have you learned "Fosbury flop" yet?

EDIT: I don't recognise alynnidalar's terms. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if this was the sort of vocabulary that didn't get recorded online, at least in easily searchable places - if a group of teenagers in Omaha or wherever have a particular term for when their friends do this when they're swimming together, they aren't necessarily going and setting up websites where they can describe it to strangers...

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 02 May 2020 20:57
by Khemehekis
When I hear the term "belly flop", I think of the bags of defective (misshapen, etc.) jelly beans that Jelly Belly puts out called Belly Flops. It's a pun on the physical maneuver, with "belly" from Jelly Belly and "flop" in its sense of failure.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 02 May 2020 21:12
by shimobaatar
I don't think I've ever heard anything other than "belly flop" here around Philadelphia, or anywhere else, for that matter. Although, it's not a concept that I personally speak, hear, or think about very much.

For me:

:arab: وباء wabāʾ "epidemic"

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 03 May 2020 02:51
by qwed117
alynnidalar wrote: 02 May 2020 20:05 It's the only term I'm familiar with in Michigan, USA, but I can't speak for other regions.

Thesaurus.com suggests "belly buster", "belly flopper", "belly whop", and "belly whopper", but I've never heard any of these and am having a hard time finding any actual usages online--every link seems to just be another dictionary site. If they're regional they must be pretty niche.
Same from NJ. I can imagine someone saying "belly flopper", but I don't think I would personally say it. Bellywhop seems to me to be an eggcorn of bellyflop in a locale with /ʍ/

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 26 May 2020 23:55
by ThatAnalysisGuy
I learned the French noun "temps," meaning time or weather. I learned this in the French part of the Esperanto book Fundamento de Esperanto. In Esperanto, the corresponding word for time is "tempo."

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 04 Jun 2020 10:37
by Aevas
I learned the kanji 間, which forms the second part of the word 人間 ningen 'human, person'.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 17 Jun 2020 02:24
by qwed117
Sardinian, as always, deghile, meaning handsome or pretty (ie good looking), probably from Latin DECIBILIS

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 13 Aug 2020 21:35
by Esneirra973
I learned the Spanish word cafetal, which means “coffee plantation”. I found out what it meant because my great-grandmother was talking about the coffee plantation that her mother owned in Cuba.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 13 Aug 2020 23:02
by eldin raigmore
German gerade is awfully polysemous.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 05 Sep 2020 16:28
by Aevas
FINNISH
luodinkestävä bulletproof

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 24 Dec 2020 12:43
by Khemehekis
Japanese:

わな wana
trap

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 24 Dec 2020 19:16
by eldin raigmore
My most recent new word is “ygti”.
I don’t know what to call the language (dialect?) it’s from.
It means “und so weiter” or “et cetera”.

It’s from the same language in which Rhett Butler’s last remark to Scarlett O’Hara is
“tbh bae idgaf”.

I’ve been sprinkling words from that ... dialect? ... into my online remarks for about 14 years now, but I still don’t know its name, nor have I seen (let alone written) very many complete sentences in it.
My exposure to it is almost all in the written form; I don’t know how to pronounce most of the words I’ve written or read in it.

I strongly suspect it might not be “really” foreign.
Is it more of a jargon or cant or argot than a dialect?

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 24 Dec 2020 19:42
by LinguistCat
Mandarin shíjiān 時間, meaning time. I'm not actively learning Mandarin but I've considered picking it up, and I'm learning a bit of Classical Chinese for a project.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 27 Dec 2020 04:47
by DesEsseintes
ปรับปรุง bpràp bprung, meaning to improve, is the latest word I learnt in Thai. I’m still at the stage where I constantly discover awkward blanks in my vocabulary despite being able to say ‘jealous’ in at least three different ways.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 17 Feb 2021 02:20
by dendana
Llaeth neu llefrith?!!

Recently I learned about the llaeth vs llefrith debate in Welsh (Southern vs Northern words, as I understand it). They both mean milk.

Image

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 27 Mar 2021 00:20
by ThatAnalysisGuy
There is a phrase that I learned (orsaka) which means "Excuse me" in Faroese

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 27 Mar 2021 00:39
by Khemehekis
eldin raigmore wrote: 24 Dec 2020 19:16 My most recent new word is “ygti”.

. . .

It’s from the same language in which Rhett Butler’s last remark to Scarlett O’Hara is
“tbh bae idgaf”.

Is it more of a jargon or cant or argot than a dialect?
I'd call it an argot, like Lolcat or Leet. Or txtspeak (lk whn u lv mst of th vwls out whl txtng). I don't know the name of it either . . . maybe Netspeak? Or SMS?

My guess would be that "ygti" stands for "you get the idea", given your definition, although I've never come across "ygti" before.

I was completely unfamiliar with "bae" until a few years ago, when one of my friend Lamesha's Facebook friends used it in a conversation on Lamesha's wall. I asked, "What does 'bae' mean"? Someone replied, "@James Landau: lol". I replied, "I wasn't trying to be funny. I seriously don't know what the word 'bae' means". She wrote: "No disrespect, James, it's just what you call your sweetheart". I thanked that friend of Lamesha's for explaining it to me.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 27 Mar 2021 01:38
by eldin raigmore
“Bae” has two proposed folk-etymologies.
1. “Babe” with the second <b> omitted.
2. An acronym for “before anyone else”.
Both consistent with the definition your friend told you.

Khemehekis wrote: 24 Dec 2020 12:43 Japanese:
わな wana
trap
Which kind of trap?
Edit: Asked and answered. Sorry!

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 27 Mar 2021 01:42
by Khemehekis
eldin raigmore wrote: 27 Mar 2021 01:38
Khemehekis wrote: 24 Dec 2020 12:43 Japanese:
わな wana
trap
Which kind of trap?
Check your email box.

Seems you asked me that question via email and I answered it on Thu 24 Dec 2020, 15:21.

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Posted: 17 Apr 2021 17:29
by Sequor
貯存 (simplified 贮存), pronounced zhùcún in China and zhǔcún in Taiwan, 'to store sth, deposite sth'
貯存器, CN zhùcúnqì TW zhǔcúnqì, 'storage device' (in computing)

Although to be honest, I actually learned this word by encountering it in the wild in a different order: 存贮器 cúnzhùqì, in a text from China.