64

ie toaster, can opener, ice maker

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[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 41 points 1 month ago

Chinese is incredible for this

airplane is flying machine, your cell phone is your hand machine, assassin is kill hand, computer is electric brain

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 24 points 1 month ago

German has "hand shoes" (gloves) and "shield toads" (turtles)

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago

the Japanese word for socks is "undershoes"

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 14 points 1 month ago

Makes sense, English has underpants and undershirts

[-] TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

"Sick car" (ambulance)

KRANKENWAGEN

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 month ago

hell yes I knew this one and forgot michael-laugh

[-] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 11 points 1 month ago

And "flying thing" for plane.

[-] Rom@hexbear.net 22 points 1 month ago

Japanese has "kubi" (neck), "tekubi" (wrist, literally "hand neck"), "ashikubi" (ankle, literally "leg neck") and "chikubi" (nipple, literally "breast neck")

[-] huf@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago

hungarian calls the foot the leg-head...

[-] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 11 points 1 month ago

Think on your feet!

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago

Electric brain sounds rad as fuck.

To be fair I guess to compute something (hence the name computer) is brain related, not as bad ass tho

[-] 2Password2Remember@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

also movies are literally called electric shadows in mandarin, which goes hard

Death to America

[-] polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 month ago

In Poland, before computers became much more widespread, they were called "Electron Brains" (Mózg Elektronowy). Nowadays they are just computers.

[-] janNatan@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 month ago

Germans calling gloves "hand-shoes" will never not be funny to me. Similarly, they have so many literal names for things. Suicide is self-muder, airplane is fly-thing, gums are tooth-meat.

German's my second language, and just the other day I heard a new term while playing a game that was so literal I didn't need a dictionary. I wish I could remember what it was.

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago

Oh I don't like tooth meat at all kombucha-disgust

[-] IvarK@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 month ago

Swedish is exactly the same for the examples you brought upp, but we share a lot with german so its checks out i guess..

[-] piccolo@hexbear.net 22 points 1 month ago

Why isn't it called a teethbrush?

[-] HexBroke@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago

In English the singular is used when modifying another noun like that. For example, a trainer of dogs is a dog trainer, opener of cans is a can opener, a podiatrist a foot doctor, a ball you kick with your feet is a football, etc.

The real question is why does english persist with so many different ways to make plural words

[-] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

If you have multiple toothbrush you have teethbrush, like lieutenants-general

[-] Lerios@hexbear.net 14 points 1 month ago

you don't have a seperate brush for each tooth? fucking commies smh

[-] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago

Stalin ate all of the teethbrushes himself so now we're left with toothbrushes (which we have to share because communism)

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 21 points 1 month ago
[-] kristina@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

Booby, Cocks-of-the-Rock, Secretarybird... hmm

[-] huf@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

animal and plant names are terrible in any language, but it's soooo much worse when you're trying to remember them in two languages at once...

i kinda know what a pocok is, but what the fuck is that in english? what's a stoat in hungarian? what about a beech? i probably know its name in hungarian, but i cant connect it to the english names...

[-] sir_this_is_a_wendys@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago

I love how owls do nothing but owl

[-] Spongebobsquarejuche@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago

They call em fingers but I've never seen em fing.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago

They call them digits but I never seen them count

[-] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago

Butchers are sometimes butch.

[-] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 14 points 1 month ago

German is pretty famous for this, but we do it a lot in English too. We just don't concatenate our words and have lots of loan words

I wish maths had this for names. I don't want to remember mathematicians names.

Just gotta remember euler and that's like 90% of stuff 👍

[-] jaywalker@hexbear.net 3 points 1 month ago

Literally everything should be like this, fuck naming stuff after a person. Most of the time it's just the first white dude who wrote about the thing anyway. Animals, theories, buildings, rename all of it

[-] sloth@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[-] Angel@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago
[-] sir_this_is_a_wendys@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

That show was wild

[-] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[-] niph@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

I like how Brits and North American Anglos both find each other’s version of washing-up liquid/dish soap hilariously literal

[-] imogen_underscore@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

pain killers is a funny one to me

this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
64 points (100.0% liked)

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