weird language

[evanny]

so... this topic is simply for the weird things in languages that dont seem so logical but we have them anyway. people could post this kind of stuff in any language...
for example...in latvian we use a lot of double negative to simply say a negative.
for example:
never do that again
(neg)....(pos)
nekad (never) tā vairs nedari (don't do)
(neg)............................(neg)
meaning is totally the same but in latvian sentence almost contradicts itself and for others it might seem weird

[Suki]

Originally Posted by evanny

in latvian we use a lot of double negative to simply say a negative.
for example:
never do that again
(neg)....(pos)
nekad (never) tā vairs nedari (don't do)
(neg)............................(neg)
meaning is totally the same but in latvian sentence almost contradicts itself and for others it might seem weird

Same here! I think most languages use double-negative sentences. At least all Romance languages do.

In Catalan you would write:

No ho facis mai més.

Neg. Pos. Neg.

No = don't.

Mai més = ever again. Actually "mai" means "never". So the literal translation would be: never again. That makes two negatives.

[JustinRossTso]

Yeah, our old music teacher that has an Italian accent always goes "You don't do nothing, you get out!" To kids that don't do anything.

[hennaz]

In Mandarin, there are stative verbs (verbs that describe the state the subject is in), meaning that the word for "to be" 是 (shì) is not used.
Eg. The weather is cold = 天气冷 (Tiānqi lĕng) (lit. "weather cold").

With Japanese, just translating what someone is saying is insufficient, because while the translation may be correct, you have to know what the speaker is implying ie. if a Japanese taxi driver tells you "It's difficult to get there in 10 minutes", he actually means it's impossible. And if you invite a Japanese to a party and they say, "I'll think about it later", they are really saying "no", albeit euphemistically. Japanese is not just another way of speaking; it's another way if thinking. Japanese people do not think the same way as other nationalities; it is crucial you learn about Japanese culture, social customs and etiquette when learning their language, and that's a problem even machine translations (eg. Google) can't get round; such artificial methods would need artificial intelligence to tell you what people are actually implying. I think this is the main difficulty for foreigners learning Japanese.

[mandalina]

But you know your language first and English second shouldn't you find it weird how it is in English? (Not that I find it weird since if you are using another language you should think in that way)

'negative+positive' to state a negative.

as your example:

Never do that

In my native language:

negative+negative

"Sakın yapma" or "Asla yapma"

"Sakın" and "asla" used for never and "yapma" is negative form of "do" verb.

if I translate "never do that" literally "asla yap" now this sounds weird.

So I think this is not a strange thing. Every language has their own grammar rules.

[Amatsu11]

I didn't know that there was a language with double negative o.o

Well, in spanish there are many ways to say an adjetive to make it sound less harsh or formal like you could say for example: small= pequeño but to make it sound less fromal you can say: pequeñito
another example: ugly= feo or you can say feito

another one : fast= rápido or rapidito or rapidísimo

[Suki]

Originally Posted by mandalina

But you know your language first and English second shouldn't you find it weird how it is in English?

Yeah, English can be very confusing at times. Although I still think it's not a tough language to learn. Pronunciation mainly. How the heck does one word get two different pronunciations?! (eg. either, direction). That's not a common thing you find in many languages, or is it?

Also, what's funny is that every verb demands an explicit subject, which has to have a specific gender even though it doesn't affect the rest of the words in the sentence [He is happy / She is happy . Happy stays the same]. In Catalan (and Spanish, and most languages that come from ancient Latin), a subject ain't always needed (cause you can tell who the subject is by how the verb is conjugated) but every single object or noun complement has a gender as well [Está contento / Está contenta; the O, in the first case, lets us know the subject is a HE, while the A; in the second case, makes it unnecesary for the subject to be there cause we know from that one letter it's feminine therefore SHE]. That's why it's funny when an English-speaking person has a go at speaking Spanish, they just never get that right with the genders.

[Decimus]

English phrase: 'Long time no see'.

It defies all conventional grammatical rules.

(Okay, most, but still.)

May be ultimately derived from broken English, such as Native American Pidgin English or Chinese Pidgin English. Of particular note is the latter, as the Chinese phrase '好久不见' translates (almost) literally into 'Long time no see'.

[Suki]

Originally Posted by Decimus

English phrase: 'Long time no see'.

It defies all conventional grammatical rules.

LOL it so does!

This reminds me... it's funny when you're watching an English movie with subs, let's say German subs. The actor opens the fridge and says "No milk" and on the screen there's like two lines of German writing and it's like for God's sake all he said was "no freaking milk" xD This happens a lot and cracks me up for some reason I haven't figured out yet... >.> xD

[File0]

Originally Posted by Suki

LOL it so does!

This reminds me... it's funny when you're watching an English movie with subs, let's say German subs. The actor opens the fridge and says "No milk" and on the screen there's like two lines of German writing and it's like for God's sake all he said was "no freaking milk" xD This happens a lot and cracks me up for some reason I haven't figured out yet... >.> xD

This should be the translator(s) fault. You also can say: "there isn't any freaking milk in the fridge, though I thought there was"

Kein milch.-- in german
Nincs tej-- in my language