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English is one of the most popular languages in the world. About 2 billion people speak it but to find out just how deeply it has really made its way into cultures around the world, Reddit user everythingtiddiesboi made a post on the platform, asking "Non-English speakers of Reddit; the way Americans use foreign words such as Bon Appétit and Sayonara in regular conversation, what English words do you use?"
And their call was answered. People immediately took to the comment section, sharing the okays and randoms they hear in their countries, providing interesting insights into our collective linguistic landscape.
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#1
Norwegians use 'Texas' as an adjective in describing parties, as in, 'That party was Texas!' In this context it means both 'huge and epic' and 'probably embarrassing for everybody involved.
Stephanie Did It 4 years ago
As as 100% Texan, I think this is awesome! We don't have a comparable term, though, because *ahem* we are Texas.
Everythingtiddiesboi told Bored Panda it was actually their own language that inspired the post in the first place. "I was just thinking about all the foreign words I say as an English speaker (for example, gesundheit, sayonara, adios, etc.)," they said.
"All the responses made me realize that almost everyone in the world says 'OK' and 'f**k'."
The technologies of telephones, radio, TV, records, CDs, mobile phones and the internet have enabled most people in the world to access each other's language really fast. David Crystal, author of "English as a Global Language," said the world has changed so drastically that history is no longer a guide.
"This is the first time we actually have a language spoken genuinely globally by every country in the world," he told The New York Times. "There are no precedents to help us see what will happen."
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#2
In France, a lot of "Ouat Ze Feuk" (wtf)
And it seems that it's going to stay that way. At least for a while. "English is dominant in a way that no language has ever been before," John McWhorter, a linguist at the Manhattan Institute, a research group in New York, and the author of a history of language called 'The Power of Babel,' said. "It is vastly unclear to me what actual mechanism could uproot English given conditions as they are."
As English continues to spread, it is fragmenting -- just like Latin did -- into a family of dialects, and linguists say it could even lead to fully-fledged languages - known as Englishes.
However, unlike Latin, most scholars say English seems to be too widespread and too deeply entrenched to die out. Instead, it is likely to survive in some simplified international form - sometimes called Globish or World Standard Spoken English.
#3
In Poland we often use "sory" (pronounced a bit differently than sorry) instead of przepraszam, guess why.
#4
There's no real word for yes or no in Irish.
Some use "ta" or "sea" (those are missing fadas) but those translate closer to "it is"
So if you go to a Gaeltacht area you will hear native Irish speakers chatting in Irish to one another but saying "ya" or "yes" every few seconds because it's a useful word and how the hell did we not have a work for it for so long
Stephanie Did It 4 years ago
When I lived in Alaska I asked a native Tlinget speaker what their word for "please" was. He didn't know then came back and said they don't have one because in native culture everything you do for someone else is going to be naturally reciprocated, so no need for Please and Thank you.
#5
Dutch speaking person here. We have loads of loanwords from English. Even verbs. The interesting part is that the Dutch conjugation rules still apply for verbs loaned from English.
"I deleted" becomes "Ik deletete"
"I've gamed all day" becomes "Ik heb de hele dag gegamed"
Not a verb but "The backed-up data" becomes "De geback-upte gegevens"
#6
Sorry,' 'ok,' and 'cool' are the most common ones in Czech. Even my grandma uses those.
#7
Well, I live in Greece and we use A LOT of English words. But, the weirdest thing I've noticed (especially from teenagers) is to go to a tourist area, mostly beaches, and try to act like tourists. So, we are just walking on the streets having a high-level conventions in our fake-a$$-British-accents.
-No Mr. Stathakopoulos I'm British. Please repsect my accent
#8
In German, the list is as long as the day is... also long? F***, sorry, f*** you, hello, good morning, b****, bye, what's sup?, and cheers just to name a few. Also, a lot of people just kinda swap in the direct English translations for words to sound young and trendy. Nouns like pants, bag, backpack, bike, ect are popular as well as germanized verbs like "collecten", "up-picken", "texten", ect.
Friedemann P 4 years ago
We have our own term for it: "denglish" - (deutsch/german mixed with english), I would add meeting, briefing and a few other business terms. To be honest I picked my son up from kindergarten one time and had to explain why my son always say f*** when something goes wrong.. uhhmm!?..my fault..
#9
In France, we use the word "weekend". We literally don't have a French word for it. So we just use the English one.
Marky Mark 4 years ago
In Quebec the gov't agency for French language use (Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise) they didn't like that Quebecers were using loan word like 'Weekend' and 'Hot Dog' so they tried to inject french versions like "Fin de Semaine' and ' Chien Chaud'.
#10
Visiting a girlfriend in Spain, her friends loved saying "Kill It" when finishing a drink.
To them it was the funniest way to take shots.
#11
In my line of work as a programmer the average Dutch sentence is 35% English vocabulary and when I speak with friends it's 20%.
I do just really use interjections like "though", "I guess", "like", "I mean" in my normal Dutch together with a lot of nouns and verbs that have a perfectly cromulent Dutch alternative—this is not that odd for Dutch speakers.
Like I would absolutely just say something like this in "Dutch": "Yeah, ik ben nu bij den final stages dier page; ik moet nog even de shadows afwerken en wat eye detail voltooien en dan is het wel done, I guess.".
#13
Hindi and Marathi: we use tons of English words in daily language. There are many things for which only the English word is in use, because the vernacular word either is outdated or doesn’t exist. Simple examples: “table”, “light/bulb”, any computer related noun: speaker, keyboard, etc. Many English verbs are also freely and very commonly adapted into Hindi sentences, eg. “Maine usko help kiya” (I helped him) would be considered a valid Hinglish sentence.
Rick 4 years ago
I’ve noticed from quite a few shows that when Hindi speakers are angry or arguing with each other a lot of English words are interspersed. It wasn’t uncommon to hear my old next door neighbours arguing in a language I couldn’t understand but every fifth or sixth word was “b******t” lol
#14
The French say: le selfie le feedback le brunch There’s more but that’s all I can think of just now
#16
One English word recently adopted by Russian is "fake". It's used as a noun, not an adjective (e.g. "this story turned out to be a fake"). Another word increasingly used by Russians online is "hater".
#17
Talking with a portuguese man the other day, apparently they call bowling by its English name. There is a word for it in portuguese, Boliche, But he had never heard it before
#18
I'm Dutch and a translator and man, so many English words have been integrated into Dutch that it is hard to tell sometimes where one language ends and the other begins. Especially in corporate speak on the management level, it's basically 90% English.
De business case over de accountability van de return on investment was een sterke driver van year over year groei van de service provider.
Just threw some words together that might not make absolute sense, it's more of an illustration to show how much English I deal with in what is supposed to be an English text.
Ludwig Michiel 4 years ago
I'm a Dutch speaking Belgian, and this kind of "management speak", littered with English words that can be perfectly replaced by their Dutch equivalent annoys the hell out of me. If I hear someone speaking like that, I only hear "Ooh, I'm such a professional, listen to what Really Important Stuff we do here", while if you translate it in regular Dutch, what they say is absolutely banal.
#19
I'm Croatian and the English words that we use a lot are 'random,' 'accidentally,' and 'officially
#20
Brazilian Portuguese:
The word "site " as in website.
Ok.
Delete (with Portuguese conjugation)
Monetize (also with portuguese conjugation)
Flaps (of airplanes)
We call flashdrives exclusively as pendrives.
Notebook/Laptop
Do tennis and jeans count?
NMN 4 years ago
Some of those have been implemented in the formal language. Like "tennis", it might be the original foreign word, but the current Portuguese word is "tênis", so it does not count. However, in some regions ppl use other words as well to the point that they sound obnoxious. One that is pretty common everywhere is "delivery". Also, back in 2008 (idk now) "what the hell", "lol" (as a word not as acronym) and owned (with pt conjugation) were common among teens (so were several Japanese words and mannerisms, like kawaii, sugoi, banzai, baka, chotto... at least in my niche)
#21
Im korea there are a few english words used but they rarely have the same exact meaning. For example, “panty” is used to mean underwear but it is a gender neutral term (essentially what underwear is in english). There are some words are that are used as slang like “some”. A “some” relationship is essentially when two people are interested in each other but haven’t had the girlfriend/boyfriend talk yet.
#23
I'm a french speaker and here in switzerland I hear a lot of english words as well!
• cringe • awkward • sorry • bye • cool • fast food/junk food • design • game art/digital art, speed paint • cute • creepy
And a lot of other! In fact a lot of young people use to use english sentences for being cool!
Natalie Bohrteller 4 years ago
I'm not sure if it's solely based on the fact that they want to be cool. I think a very important reason is also the huge influence of the internet where the main means of communication is English.
#24
Pakistani here, pretty much every other sentence in Urdu spoken by people that live in urban areas has at least some English in it. Sometimes whole sentences, sometimes just a swear word. Mainly because of two reasons: we (along with India and Bangladesh) used to be a British colony until 1947, and also American media influence is pretty much everywhere.
Fridge, light, table, phone, internet, pistol, shirt, pants, shorts (we use the British "knickers"), school, college, backpack (bag), camera, movie etc. This list could pretty much go on for paragraphs.
Mohammad Ammar 4 years ago
You can basically substitute any urdu verb and noun for English and get by. I didn't know how much I'd been substituting until I gave my urdu exam.I realised that I actually didnt know the urdu words for half the stuff around me.
#25
Italian here, we (mis)use A LOT: from cocktail to smartphone, freezer, shampoo, jobs act (kill me!!), exit poll, welfare, startup, manager, full time, freelance, CEO (no one knows what it stands for), target, brand, makeup, outfit, playback, live, teenager, ...
Kathryn Baylis 4 years ago
CEO means chief executive officer, so I’d need to hear/see and example of it to understand the context Italians are using it for.
#26
There are lots of English words used in Italian, sometimes idiosyncratically: 'public relations,' 'flash' (for USB drive), 'feeling' (for romantic chemistry)
Toea Muresan Iulia 4 years ago
flash drive sure, PR, management, marketing, market, also in Romania
#27
Many swear words: F***, S***, Oh my god, Shut up, Come on, B****, Motherf***** and F*** off are common. We also use stuff like: nice, cool, gay, straight up, trash, stuff, dope, cops etc. the list is way too long. But I don't like to use English words and «Germanize» them. I find that cringy.
Anxious Pansexual Nightmare 4 years ago
Please tell me you use gay as homosexual and not as stupid or anything
#28
A lot of curse words, obviously. I also use slang that I would never use in an English conversation like saying lol(it got obsolete and uncool very fast in English but stuck with me and many memesters including me and my friends in Russia).
StinkyMonkey 4 years ago
Fun fact: lol is an actual word in Dutch and it means 'fun', or 'merriment'.
#29
Alota Russian: f***, sorry, hi, bye, ROFL, lol, ok, prank, flex, what's up, s***, b****, guy, okurrrr, oh my god
#30
Iranian here. Lot of curse words, like f***, b****, goddammit, etc.
What do you think ?
tuzdayschild 4 years ago
The funny thing is, English has borrowed many words from practically every language list in this post.
Vincent Philippart 4 years ago
In (belgian?) french we have a weird expression : to do something "à la one again". It means "in a rushed, unprepared manner". It uses English words, but has no meaning in English, and remains a baffling mystery to me.
Wena Wanderlust 4 years ago
I'm from Southern France. We used to say the same thing but I've always thought the origin was "à la hooligan" to say in a rushed/not well-done way.
Load More Replies...
troufaki13 4 years ago
It's no surprise that many people in the world use English words in their every day communication. English is a universal language, most movies are American, most popular social media are in English so people try to keep up the trend. Also, sometimes new things/ideas need new words and they're usually in English and then it's easier to adopt this word as is than to make one up in your own language.
tuzdayschild 4 years ago
The funny thing is, English has borrowed many words from practically every language list in this post.
Vincent Philippart 4 years ago
In (belgian?) french we have a weird expression : to do something "à la one again". It means "in a rushed, unprepared manner". It uses English words, but has no meaning in English, and remains a baffling mystery to me.
Wena Wanderlust 4 years ago
I'm from Southern France. We used to say the same thing but I've always thought the origin was "à la hooligan" to say in a rushed/not well-done way.
Load More Replies... troufaki13 4 years ago
It's no surprise that many people in the world use English words in their every day communication. English is a universal language, most movies are American, most popular social media are in English so people try to keep up the trend. Also, sometimes new things/ideas need new words and they're usually in English and then it's easier to adopt this word as is than to make one up in your own language.
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