The CBB

VALENCIAN/CATALAN
raspallar 'to brush'

VALENCIAN/CATALAN
raspallar 'to brush'

certainly related to the

SPANISH
raspar 'to scratch' , 'to scrape', and 'to grate'

which gives us the yummy treats

raspado

or

raspadillo

Either way, watch for the brain-freeze!

ALBANIAN

pak nga pak

'Little by little'

But, when the Shqip-speakers told it to me, pak sounded more like /pɑkɕ/ or mebbe /pɑkɕ/

Indonesian wrote:mata hari

eye of the day (sun)...

quillion, the crossguard of a dagger or bayonet

Aszev wrote: ↑11 Nov 2017 18:41 Write the last word(s) you learned in a foreign language here!

I can't remember! :'-(

Iyionaku wrote: ↑23 Nov 2017 13:11 Mandarin

完了 wánliǎo - to finish

For extra fun, have a go with this: 没完没了 méi wán méi liǎo - endless, interminable

---

For me, from two hours ago at the train station:

Mandarin

the 粕 pò of 豆粕 dòupò - bean pulp, soybean meal/cake

(a middle-aged woman was lugging a full burlap sack labeled 豆粕 in front of me up the escalator -- asked my boyfriend how to read it since I hadn't seen it before -- according to him, it makes for good pig fodder)

Boyfriend likened 粕 to 渣 zhā, which is "lees, dregs, sediment"

Since then, I've returned home, dived into the dictionary, and yep, that's what's going on. Of course, peregrinations in the dictionary often bear other fruit, so I stumbled upon:

糟粕 zāopò - waste matter, dross, dregs

with the fun 糟 of 乱七八糟 luàn qī bā zāo - in a wild mess; and 糟糕 zāogāo - what a mess

So, to recap, new words:

豆粕 dòupò - bean pulp, soybean meal/cake
糟粕 zāopò - waste matter, dross, dregs

but the new character of the day is 粕 pò

"ameliorate"

HITTITE

𒈨𒄿𒉿𒀸 meyawas - four

In researching the Anatolian languages for my maybe-Indo-lang, it's rather interesting that they have an entirely different word for 'four'.

I have started learning Thai, today i have learnt three words.

บน "on", ไม่ a negater, and ว่า "that".

ostentation 'Prahlerei'; boasting, showing off

Cantonese

都 dou1 - all; also

This word is different from Mandarin 都 dōu in that addition to the meaning of "all" that seems to be shared by both languages, the Cantonese word can also mean "also".

(Mandarin dōu also has extended meanings of "even" and "already"; I would guess that Cantonese dou1 has these meanings as well, but I'm not sure.)

VALENCIAN/CATALAN
Nadal 'Christmas'

Out of curiosity, I googled the word ridiculosity.
It exists.

Mandarin

自拍照 zìpāizhào [t͡sɹ̩˥˩pʰaɪ̯˥͡tʂaʊ̯˥˩] - selfie

Me and a friend (who is also learning Chinese) were guessing what "Selfie" might mean in Chinese and I guessed it right, although I may not know more than 500 words in Chinese! It amazes me how straightforward Chinese sometimes is in the creation of new words. 自= self, 拍照 = photograph.

(At least that's what Pleco says, hope it is also correct)

Cantonese

學校 hohkhaauh [hɔːk̚˨haːʊ˨] "school", with accompanying verb-object construction 返學 fāan-hohk [faːn˥hɔːk̚˨] "to go to school".

Not new words, though I think I learned 逸 only two years ago. But why Sun Yat-sen is Sun Yat-sen in English is new to me. 孙中山, as he's usually known, has an "art name" of 孙逸仙, which in Minnan dialect, would be, like Sun Yat-sen. This may be common knowledge to you younger students of Chinese out there, but I never knew!

I marvel that I didn't discover this far earlier in my China experience, but besser spät als nie.

And speaking of German ... "abtasten", meaning "probe, feel", I believe in the context of a prostate exam in the movie I was watching. And "erobern", "conquer", which is just a cool word.

'abtasten' is also what people do with you(r body) at the security check at the airport.

Creyeditor wrote: ↑03 Feb 2018 16:17 'abtasten' is also what people do with you(r body) at the security check at the airport.

And what you do if you want to obtain discrete measuring results in computing or mechanical engineering. Very versatile word.

English: finale /fɨˈnæli/
English stress is so crazy. How are people supposed to know where the stress is? Is that French -é? If so, why not have ultimate stress? Is it English -e? If so, why pronounce them at all? Seems it's from Italian