Learning a new language brings many funny instances. You never know it meant something else in some other languages. And if they have an entirely unrelated meaning, it becomes a bigger source of pleasure. Let me tell you some words I came across:
I used to watch Shinchan, the cartoon series with a Japanese kid, with my nephew. The name of Shinchan’s dog is Shiro. I thought its just another meaningless words for pets like tommy and all. Whereas, to my amusement, Shiro in Japanese means white in English. And it struck me that yes! the dog was white. Quite justifiable, but amusing.
Mandarin, as we know, is a language used in China, is also a word used for citrus fruits in English. I mean what would the following sentence imply “Mandarin has a flavour of bitterness.”
‘Shove’ (pronounced as shuv) is a word in Hindi that means corpse. I wonder how would we take this sentence - “That shove was necessary to make things possible.“
Hell in German means Light. So next time, if you yell at someone saying “Go to hell”, be sure that you specify which ‘hell’ you mean.
Hose means trouser in German. So next time you see a fire, grab a ‘hose’ and... wear it! You will need to run.
See, what fun you can have while learning languages! I opened the word-stock I had. What about you?
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