What are some of your favorite foreign words?

Bollucks - can mean good or bad depending how it used or just another word for testicles.

"Parochial Bonehead" in English (a foreign language where I am) means "Xiang Ba Lao Bai Chi"

666EnergyDrink wrote:

Brett in Tokyo wrote:

atatakakunakatta (wasn't hot)

"Brett Larner" in Canadian means "Delusions of Grandeur."

atatakakunakatta isn't too origional. But 666, for someone who claims to have lived in Japan your posts on Japnaese are, well,

bimyo

that's my word btw .

Reason I think it came from soldiers returning from Viet Nam is that I lived in three places in the early to mid 70's. El Paso TX, Killeen Texas and New Orleans. I heard that word used A LOT in EP and Killeen but not so much in NO. EP and Killeen have huge Army bases (Fort Bliss and Fort Hood), NO does not. If that word was Cajun/Creole in origin it would have been used a lot in Nawlins, eh? So it stands to reason that it may have been popularized by Nam soldiers who heard it from the French-speaking Viets.

Er... wrote:

Yes, he means the French beaucoup. And while it is certainly more likely to have come from Cajun/Creole it is entirely possible that it came from soldiers returning from Viet Nam, which remains a full member of La francophonie today, despite the fact the colonial French is spoken only by older Vietnamese.

Clifford Diffley wrote:

wait. You mean the French 'Beaucoup'? from Vietnam? more likely either cajun or creole, right? Are you thinking of something else?

Enchanté

Fartlek

Sisu

Banzai

Asciugamano

Douche

Namida!

Gesundheit!

- estrella (Spanish)

- scintilla (English)

- lutin (French)

Nothing in German for sure.

deinos (Ancient Greek)

http://www.wordnik.com/words/deinos

Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

farfegnugen

I like the German word for look out which is Vorsicht! (for- sisht)

its on signs that are fun to say like Vorischt! Lebensgefähr. (Look out potentially fatal)

Merd!

Carioca wrote:

Saudade - Portuguese. Final d more like a j. Means something like homesickness, longing, reminiscing, remembering.

yeah but that's not portuguese, that's brazilian.

Matlock wrote:

Saudade - Portuguese. Final d more like a j. Means something like homesickness, longing, reminiscing, remembering.

Carioca wrote:

yeah but that's not portuguese, that's brazilian.

A feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament.

saudade is also a word in: Portuguese