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linguistics

Pop Culture

How Japanese introductions literally translate to English is a wild linguistics lesson

"First time! I'm Under the Forest."

Photo by Satoshi Hirayama/Pexels

Greetings in Japanese sound quite odd when literally translated to English.

Studying a language other than your own native tongue is always a trip. Wrapping your head around completely different grammar and syntax rules, trying to create sounds your mouth isn't used to, sometimes learning entirely new alphabets (or characters when there is no alphabet)—all just to be able to communicate with more of your fellow human beings. (Seriously, when are we going to decide on an actual universal language?)

Linguistics is wild, as evidenced by Japanese teacher Hikari's video demonstrating what Japanese introductions would sound like if they were translated literally into English.

One of the first greetings you learn in Japanese is "hajimemashite," which is generally interpreted as "Nice to meet you," or "How do you do"—something you say when you meet someone. But the literal meaning of the phrase is "at the beginning" or "first time," which of course sounds odd in English. (Similarly to if you were to literally translate "How's it going?" from English to another language, the understood meaning of "How are you feeling right now?" wouldn't come through, since the words "it' and "going" have nothing to do with how you're feeling.)

Then there are name introductions, which seem like they should just be straight up names, but aren't because of what they mean. "I'm Under the Forest." "I'm Inside the Field." Huh? And wait til you see how they share their ages. Watch:

If Americans spoke like Japanese #japanese #japanesebelike #japaneselanguage #japaneseculturewww.youtube.com

To make things a little clearer, the name "Under the Forest" is almost certainly Morishita, a common last name in Japan. (Japanese people generally introduce themselves by last name.) The translation "under the forest" comes from Chinese characters used in Japanese, Kanji, that most Japanese last names are written in. Morishita is 森下 in Kanji, with 森 (mori) meaning "forest" and 下 (shita) meaning "below" or "under." "Inside the Field" would be the name Tanaka, with a similar explanation, but with different characters.

As far as ages go, that's a whole other cultural quirk. In Japan, time is separated into imperial eras based on whoever the emperor is, and each era has a name. "Shining harmony 63" means she was born in 1998, or the 63rd year of the Shōwa ("shining harmony") era. Moons are months, and days are, well, days.

Japan is the only country where Japanese is an official language, but thanks to the tech boom there in the 80s and 90s and the rise of the popularity of anime worldwide, the Japanese language has seen continually growing interest outside the archipelago nation. According to University of Pittsburgh, there are around 125 million Japanese speakers worldwide, with some concentrated pockets outside of Japan in Hawaii and Brazil.

(Side note: Having studied Japanese myself, I can attest that it's a very fun language to learn. The alphabets and Kanji are the hardest parts—the phonetics are consistent and the grammar is quite logical, with far fewer exceptions to the rules than English.)

In addition to videos like this one, Hikari offers Japanese lessons on her YouTube channel. You can follow her here.

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Pop Culture

Immigrants and travelers share their funniest language mistakes and it's a riot

Learning the nuances of another language takes time, patience and a great sense of humor.

NastyaSensei/Canva, @sammstormborn/X and @ivadixit/X (via UpworthyInstagram)

Language barriers can be frustrating, but also so, so funny.

There are currently close to 7,000 languages being spoken around the world, which is a mind-blowing number since Americans are lucky if they speak two languages fluently. What that means, though, is that no matter where you're from, if you're going to go live in another country or visit for an extended period of time, you'll need to learn a new language.

However, it's not even that simple since even within the same language there can be huge dialect and colloquial differences. Meanings of words can be completely different from place to place, even when the language is technically the same. (Try using the term "fanny pack" in some English-speaking countries and you'll see some heads turn.)

Since we have not yet figured out the universal language thing, all of these linguistic differences make for some humbling and hilarious mix-ups as people try to communicate with and understand one another across language barriers.

This delightful little story from @ivadixit on X is a perfect example:

"I'm just remembering that my second year in America, someone asked me to 'validate their parking,' which was my first time hearing the phrase, and after blinking stupidly in silence for a full five seconds I said, 'Well parking is really hard but I'm sure you did it really well.'"

That tweet prompted a flood of responses of similar stories:

"In my first year in US, I was working in a research lab as an RA and our professor had arranged lunch for everyone. He said 'Lunch is on the house tomorrow.' Confused, I asked him for his home address."

"In college, my fellow student worker Maureen used the phrase, 'I'm sorry, I'm "on the rag" right now' to explain why she was out of sorts. I explained its actual meaning to her, and she was embarrased. She thought it meant 'out of sorts' and had been using it liberally."

"In Australia we often have a meal where people are invited to bring some food to share. It's often referred to as 'bring a plate.' A friend from Scotland literally brought and empty plate and was very confused, thinking we didn't have enough dinnerware."

Swipe through for more:

The sharing of these tweets prompted even more people to share their stories on Instagram, and they did not disappoint.

"For years, I used the expression 'up yours' as a congratulatory phrase, and nobody corrected me. Be nice to your foreigners. Correct them when they are wrong." – ombrettadidio

"I was going to college in the US when I saw a sign 'beware of the pedestrians' and I asked the people I was with what kind of animal a pedestrian is." – msgies

"A little kid dressed as a dinosaur roared at me in Peru and I said 'tengo mierda' (I have shit) instead of 'tengo miedo' (I'm scared). Whoops." – thebirdfromblighty

"Ooh I have a fun one. I studied abroad in France. Turns out 'preservatif/preservative' in French does not mean preservatives like you find in foods, it means condoms. Have never been met with such confused silence in my life." – kirstenpastel1

"I went to Spain with my husband and kept saying 'escuchame!' Thinking I was saying “excuse me” And he would die laughing every time. He finally told me I was saying 'LISTEN TO ME!' To everyone." – jenessa_sturgell

"I am Canadian. My husband is Australian. Family friend flew over from Australia and offered to nurse a Canadian woman’s baby on the plane. The Canadian very firmly told her 'no thanks.' She didn’t understand why the woman was so offended. In Australia when they say nurse a baby, it means to hold. In Canada when we say nurse a baby, it means to breastfeed. We still laugh about it." – jillybeans80

"I was in Ecuador on a missionary trip with my church, I over dressed one day and was burning up but had nowhere to put my jacket and sweater. I asked over and over at every store I walked by, every street vendor, anywhere for a bag, but I called it 'bolsa.' (I’m Puerto Rican, that's how we say it). No one hooked me up, most times people walked away with a face of disgust. Again and again I kept asking for a big bag, because I only had a tiny bag at the time. The local pastor that we met heard me at one point and ran to me, told me to keep quiet and then asked me what I needed… my response, a bolsa… a bag. Apparently you have to ask for a 'funda,' in that country I was pretty much asking for a sack of men's balls. Literal balls. So I walked around saying, 'Do you have balls? My balls are too small and I need big balls.' Good times. – 0rense

"When I first moved to the Netherlands, I had a Dutch bf who spoke English very well, but some things got lost in translation. I didn’t speak Dutch at the time, and one day he said his hairdresser friend was quitting her job to become an undertaker. I was shocked and asked why she chose such a drastic career change, and he said, she wants to work for herself and loves making people look beautiful. I thought ok good for her I guess, and we never spoke about it again. It wasn’t until years later (long after we’d broken up) and I’d become fluent in Dutch when I realized, oh…the Dutch word for 'entrepreneur' literally translates into “undertaker” (ondernemer). She didn’t want to embalm dead bodies, she wanted to open her own hair salon." – maggstaa26

"When I moved to the UK, whenever I got hungry I told people I was 'ravishing' instead of 'ravenous.' I guess they assumed I just had excellent self esteem. 😂" – devananatura

"A French-Canadian friend of ours told a great stories from when he was learning English. My favourites were his use of ‘skinny pig’ instead of ‘guinea pig’ and ‘spacegoat’ instead of ‘scapegoat’—both used in business meetings, btw. 😂" – fuzzballphotography

"Was ordering dinner in Danish in Denmark, the word for chicken is 'kylling,' but as an American I pronounced it as 'killing' which translates into 'kitten' - so the waitress at the restaurant was a bit horrified at my request for BBQ baby cat. 😂" – howdyeliza

Language barriers can cause confusion and frustration, but also a whole lot of hilarity. These examples are a good reminder to always stay humble and keep your sense of humor when learning a new language, but also to help out those who are learning the nuances of a new language because they definitely aren't easy to master.

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Joy

Incredibly-talented woman can change her accent so quickly people can't tell where she's from

The Language Blondie is impressive.

via The Language Blondie/TikTok

Teona Sima seemlessly switches between accents.

Some people have an innate ability to pick up languages. One of the indicators that someone can quickly learn multiple languages is their musical ear. Those who can distinguish tones can also detect minor pronunciation differences between different languages, such as how a “D” is pronounced differently in English versus Spanish.

Studies also show that people who are great at picking up multiple languages have good memories, and they can encode things in long-term memory and retrieve them quickly.

An excellent example of someone who has the innate ability to pick up multiple languages and knows how to have fun with them is Teona Sima, who goes by The Language Blondie on special media. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Macedonian and Turkish. She also has the incredible ability to speak languages in the accents of people from other countries.

Here’s a video that went viral on TikTok with over 40 million views where she speaks English in 12 different accents: American English, Greek, Australian, French, Russian, Spanish, Macedonian, British English, Serbian, Indian, Turkish and Italian.

Can you figure out where she’s from, originally, just by hearing her do multiple accents?

@thelanguageblondie

#accentchallenge #accent #accents #languages #language #languagelearning #accentqueen #imitation #american #british #english #australian #spanish #french #italian #turkish #greek #serbian #macedonian #russian #fyp #tiktok #viral #fypシ #indian #acting #challenge #polyglot

Sima has an incredible ability to interpret the English language with multiple accents, so she must be from an English-speaking country, right? Nope, she is actually from Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, where the native tongue is Macedonian. Over 1.3 million people speak Macedonian as a first language.

Currently, Sima is a student at the American University in Bulgaria and is a marketing intern.

Sima told Unilad that her ability to mimic other accents has allowed her to convince others that she is from Ireland, Los Angeles, and Australia. She says that she started to pick up her knack for accents at the age of 11 or 12.

"I grew up watching Superwoman, Miranda Sings, and Liza Koshy, and I imitated them a lot at home, which I think was crucial for my language learning skills as they involve a lot of careful listening and imitation," Sima explained.

She believes anyone can learn her language skills, but it takes time. "You will absolutely sound terrible in the beginning, but don’t get discouraged, practice, practice, practice, then practice some more, and you will inevitably master it!," she continued. "The important thing is to have fun with it and do your best to imitate exactly what you hear.”

Sima’s advice mirrors that of Emily Sabo, a linguistics researcher who says motivation is one of the most critical factors in language acquisition. People who find themselves in a new country where they don’t speak the language learn a lot faster than those who are studying it for fun.

Another one of Sima’s most impressive videos is where she pretends to be a newscaster speaking multiple languages: Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, French, Spanish, Turkish and English (UK and US).

What’s great is not only does she appear to be a native speaker when doing the accents, but she has that proper serious newscaster delivery.


Here’s a video that went viral on TikTok with over 40 million views where she speaks English in 12 different accents: American English, Greek, Australian, French, Russian, Spanish, Macedonian, British English, Serbian, Indian, Turkish and Italian.

Can you figure out where she’s from, originally, just by hearing her do multiple accents?

[Video]

Sima has an incredible ability to interpret the English language with multiple accents, so she must be from an English-speaking country, right? Nope, she is actually from Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, where the native tongue is Macedonian. Over 1.3 million people speak Macedonian as a first language.

Currently, Sima is a student at the American University in Bulgaria and is a marketing intern.

Sima told Unilad that her ability to mimic other accents has allowed her to convince others that she is from Ireland, Los Angeles, and Australia. She says that she started to pick up her knack for accents at the age of 11 or 12.

"I grew up watching Superwoman, Miranda Sings, and Liza Koshy, and I imitated them a lot at home, which I think was crucial for my language learning skills as they involve a lot of careful listening and imitation," Sima explained.

She believes anyone can learn her language skills, but it takes time. "You will absolutely sound terrible in the beginning, but don’t get discouraged, practice, practice, practice, then practice some more, and you will inevitably master it!," she continued. "The important thing is to have fun with it and do your best to imitate exactly what you hear.”

Sima’s advice mirrors that of Emily Sabo, a linguistics researcher who says motivation is one of the most critical factors in language acquisition. People who find themselves in a new country where they don’t speak the language learn a lot faster than those who are studying it for fun.

Another one of Sima’s most impressive videos is where she pretends to be a newscaster speaking multiple languages: Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, French, Spanish, Turkish and English (UK and US).

What’s great is not only does she appear to be a native speaker when doing the accents, but she has that proper serious newscaster delivery.

[Video]



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Identity

People from foreign countries share their 15 favorite words with no English equivalent

There are some thoughts and feelings that are lost in translation.

via Alexis Brown/Unsplash

A group of friends discuss linguistics.

Even though humans worldwide share the same senses, feelings, needs, wants and desires, our languages and the ways we communicate have evolved separately, so some languages have phrases and words that have no equivalent in others.

These words often emerge from the unique cultures, histories, and environments that shape each language. It's like a special secret, a word that captures a feeling, a situation, or an object so precisely that perhaps no other word in any other language can replicate it exactly.

The uniqueness of each language showcases the beauty and diversity of human experiences and perspectives. Moreover, it underlines the delightful intricacy of languages, inviting us to see the world through different lenses and embrace perspectives shaped by differing social nuances. It’s a testament to the vibrant tapestry of human expression.

The difference in languages is a beautiful thing. But it can also be frustrating when one speaks multiple languages and there is no way to express a certain feeling in one language that they can in another.

A Reddit user named Don_Pickelball asked foreign-born people who live in English-speaking countries to share the words that exist in their native language that are sorely missed in English. Here are 15 of the most interesting.

1. Geborgenheit (German)

"In German, we have the word 'Geborgenheit' which describes a very specific feeling of feeling cozy and safe and protected. Like you would feel when you're around loved ones sitting around a fire or when the person you love holds you under the warm covers when it's raining outside. I tried to explain this to someone the other day and when we googled the translation- it came up with 'cozyness' which really doesn't pay justice to what it actually means." — Else1

2. Verschlimmbessern (German)

"If you try to fix something but actually make it worse than it was before." — Chili919

3. Geborgenheid (Dutch)

"It is about feeling safe and sheltered because someone who loves you and cares for you makes sure nobody can hurt you." — Illimprovement700

4. Komorebi (Japanese)

"It roughly translates as 'the scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees.'" — tipsy_jana

5. Saudade (Portuguese)

"It has a similar meaning to 'miss you' but we have a direct translation for that 'senti sua falta,' saudade has more of an emotional feel to it, it’s really hard to explain, it’s deeper than simply missing someone." — Peddy_D

6. Backpfeifengesicht (German)

"A face in need of a fist." — No_Tamanegi

7. Estrenar (Spanish)

"To use something for the first time." — Ratonvacilon23

8. Kuchisabishii (Japanese)

"A Japanese term which directly translates to 'lonely mouth;' when you're not hungry, but you eat because your mouth is lonely." — MOS95B

9. Kalsarikännit (Finnish)

"Meaning deliberately getting drunk alone at home in your underpants with zero plans of meeting anyone or going out. I think other nations do this as well, but don't have a word for it. Delightfully relaxing and therapeutic at times, slightly concerning if done excessively. At best a wonderful opportunity to touch base with yourself, your life and your deepest thoughts and feelings. And/or watch that one cheesy comedy from 1992 you love but can't get any of your friends to watch with you because they have standards. At worst you wake up to an unholy mess accompanied by a killer headache, cheese all over the bed, cryptic messages on ripped up pieces of pizza box cardboard written by you to you all over the kitchen, and have nobody to blame than yourself." — Fit_Share_6147

10. Chaw-tamaw-tey-quat (Comanche)

"My native language is a Native American language called Comanche and isn't a written language but the word sounds like 'chaw-tamaw-tey-quat' and it basically is a socially acceptable way to say 'I'm done speaking.'" — SCP-33005

11. Tachiyomi (Japanese)

"Japanese has loads of words that require entire sentences to explain in English. My favorite of all time is tachiyomi, which means 'standing at a newsstand reading something without any intention of paying for it.'" — the2belo

12. Lagom (Swedish)

"It means not bad, and not too good. Just an average between. A very neutral word. For example, when you wash your hands, the water should be lagom hot. Not cold, not scalding hot. Just lagom." — Live_Rock3302

13. Luce (Farsi)

"It basically means intentionally acting all cutesy/precious/coy because you think it's appealing." — _eviehalboro

14. Sobremesa (Spanish)

"After a meal when you sit around the table talking." — KommieKoala

15. Załatwić (Polish)

"It means to get something done using connections/ persuasion/ backroom dealings." — ---Loading---

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