#language problems

[alreadydeadbutnoonecares]

the reality of being trillungual is lending someone a book you thought they'd like and forgetting it's in a language they don't understand

[eclecticluminarytrash-tfd]

I honestly hate my brain sometimes like so much. I identify and nonbinary in English that's cool. Spanish is a gendered language no really changing that. I also speak Spanish and in Spanish I am "girl" or at the very least I use the feminine terms in reference to myself. Like I am not a girl except when I speak Spanish. And don't say add e to the end because that doesn't work it messes with the meaning of words.

[mr-stendahl]

…kind of want to translate my own works to Spanish but as I said, I can speak it better than I can read it and I can read it better that I can write it.

Also I would not have the slightest clue on how to write smut in Spanish lol. Like…what are the words used for cock and fucking? I genuinely do not know.

Always practice your native language kiddos, or you WILL lose it *cries in Mexican*

Ok NOW I’m off to sleep! 😴

[mask131]

I wish to share with you the INCREDIBLE frustration that one can feel when trying to translate the English terms for magic-users in a non-English language. I am sure these same complexities and difficulties exist in almost all non-English language, but since I am French, I will use French as my example.

Some words have exact equivalents. "An enchanter", "un enchanteur". "An enchantress", "une enchanteresse". "A mage", "un mage". Pretty standard.

In French we have a couple of male and female words: Sorcière (female), Sorcier (male). "Sorcière" is the French word for "witch" and it is its main translation, similarly "sorcier" means primarily "warlock" or "witch" in its male acceptation. However as you can see, sorcière/sorcier is also the etymological cousin of "sorcerer/sorceress", and so this is also a valid translation. And when you go literaly, by etymological meaning, a "sorcière" is a "spell-caster" because is "sorcier" what casts "sort, sortilège", aka a spell.

If you take the predominant English word "wizard", you do not have one exact translation in French, because we do not have such a word. "Wizard" can be translated as "sorcier", to be the male equivalent of a "witch". In a broader and more general sense, a "wizard" is translated in French as a "magicien", someone who uses "magic". But as you can see, the French word "magicien" is ALSO the French equivalent of the English word "magician", and so it can be quite complicated when you have worlds where "wizard" and "magician" are supposed to be two opposite things, and for "wizard" you have to rely on things like "sorcier" or "enchanteur". In fact, Harry Potter is in French a "sorcier" (male witch/warlock) not a wizard (magicien).

And that's just the tip of the iceberg but literaly, when in one book you have "I am not a Witch, I am a Sorceress", you are kind of screwed because BOTH English words translate as the same thing, and so you have to switch to equivalent, like turning "sorceress" into "enchantress" because else you have "Je ne suis pas une Sorcière, je suis une Sorcière" and it makes no sense.

There's a lot of similar translation problems when you go over from English language to a non-English one when it comes to legends, folklore and other supernatural topics. Like "mermaid vs siren". The English language has this neat distinction between "siren" (more in line with Greek mythology bird-women, or more focused on the enchanting voice) and "mermaid" (more focused on the "maid of the sea", fish aspect, the more Scandinavian scaly girls). But in French? THEY ARE BOTH CALLED "sirènes" and we literaly have no other word for them.

And in return there are French words that have literaly no equivalent in English. Take "le lutin", one of the most common and famous supernatural beings of French folklore. You can literaly translate it as "imp", "elf", "gnome" or "sprite" in English, and each of these words bears with it a specific connotation, one aspect of the "lutin" without any ablity to englobe ALL of what the lutin is. (Not counting the fact that "imp" itself can designate as much as "lutin" as a "diablotin", aka a little devil:demon ; or that gnomes and elves are completely different entities in French folklore. It is just that the English "elf" includes in popular culture the tiny pointy-eared Santa Claus underlings that in French we call "lutins")

[anarchical-doubter]

Ancient Greek, Latin, and English are just all the same thing to me at this point. I'm reading this book and on the left side of the page it's all Greek and then on the right side it's latin. tell me why I got through a full page of Latin before I realized it wasn't Greek

[lidrens]

gay af for a man to be learning languages. why you want to share your tongue with another man? 🤨🤨

[meanpersonaart]

The lack of one simple word in english to differentiate jagody from borówki and wiśnie from czereśnie is so infuriating to me

[ihasasecondpolitics]

So I've read a few things now where always-nonverbal people are understandably upset about people who are sometimes/usually verbal using the term "nonverbal"/ "go nonverbal" to refer to a temporary situation. It makes it harder for them to find community and talk about their stuff. So obviously we need a different term for the temporary thing.

Perhaps "wordless"? But then that has other meanings too. "langnone"? "verbroke"?

IDK, I don't have good ideas here. What about y'all?