Learning Languages

 Learning languages can  be great fun. To begin with, each language is just a code accepted by a community. While learning a language, it is an exhilarating  experience to get the feel of the known in an unknown way. 

Let me give a few examples, real fun they are, however much oft quoted. A dog is a 'chien' in French, while Germans hound it as 'Hund', 'pero'/but the Spaniards love the 'perro'! Just listen to the way the dear animal sounds in different languages. A dog barks in English as 'bow-wow', while in German, it is 'arf-arf'. Have you ever heard a dog intone 'wan-wan'? Well, yes, in Japanese, that is the way! They  'wan-wan'. No wonder, the Japanese are forever thinking of a 'win-win' solution, especially since their love for the pet friend/child is quite a legend.

Sometimes, across languages, you find a unique bonding. In German, a brother is a 'Bruder', quite like the Sanskrit 'bhratru'. The German 'Vater' ('v' pronounced as 'f') , the father, reminds of the Sanskrit 'pitru'. The Sanskrit 'matru' is the German 'Mutter' , and English mother, while 'shwashru' is 'Schwester', that is the German version of sister. Well, languages, too, believe in families! In Indo-German family of languages, Sanskrit is the mother node, while English and German are sister branches.

Funniest, however, are the 'falsche Freunde'. In translation theory, this term refers to words across languages that sound similar but have a vastly different meaning. Even in today's liberalised (in all senses of the term) times, many parents may be embarrassed if the unwed daughter is 'embarazada', that is, pregnant  in Spanish. The German secretary, it seems, gave 'Gift' (poison) when her English busy boss told her to give the dear wifey a birthday surprise. You know why? Well, the lady in question was a Norwegian who aggressively asserted her 'gift'( married status in Norwegian)!

 Multiple such examples abound, making language learning great fun. Well, let us end with a rather crazy example. My Marathi students chuckle with pleasure tinged with a 'serves you right' feel when they learn that in Spanish Daddy Dearest is known as 'padre' which in their mother tongue means, well, no harm, checking a Marathi in to English dictionary!

Pratima@ Learn a language at each-n-very (st)age!