Foreign words and phrases

[Hillbilly]

What???
NO
Calaboso? (jail)
Comme si come ça (so so? I don't think I spelled it right)?

HB

[Lesley D]

I agree with you on one out of two.

1/ Calabozo- I would not consider as a foreign word that is universal in usage in other languages outside of Spanish. The words and phrases must be used internationally in their language of origin in other languages and understood.

2/ Comme si, comme ça- Oui!


-LDG.

[Chirimoya]

Dominicans use the Italian "ecco le qua " (sp?) and the French "cachet" in everyday speech.

Not to mention all the anglicisms that have been covered before.

[qgrande]

This last group is all pretty well understood here, alhtough I don't see many people using salle à manger, sans, supermarché and Weihnachten (if they're not talking to a Frenchman or German of course).
Wurst neither, although 'bratwurst' is used. And 'que sera' is French as well (without the accent of course, but well, you don't hear those if it's blared from the football stands ).

[Jostan]

I agree pretty much with AnnaC on the first few lists.
On the last list, phrases that i hear people say:
- que sera sera
- renaissance
- ragout
- señor etc.
- s'il vous plait
- summa cum laude
- tapas
- veni, vidi, vici
- voila
- wunderbar
- wurst
- Weihnachten

I do understand most of the words posted on all the lists (not all!) but this is because I also speak some German, French and Spanish. But most of them I never encounter when just speaking normal dutch (so my list of words not being used is a lot longer than ggrande! Although we do use auf wiedersehen here, but I live kinda close to the German border, that probably has something to do with it.

[Lesley D]

I just remembered one more while thinking about the thread:

81) Crème de la crème (French)- cream of the crop meaning 'the best of the best'.

En español decimos 'la flor y nata' which is the equivalent expression of the French and English above.

Interestingly the French expression is widely used internationally in other languages and the English and Spanish equivalents I think are equally common in their own respective languages.

Quick question for qgrande or Jostan:

I have heard that quite a bit of Spanish is spoken in the Netherlands. Is that true? I would love to hear your feedback. Thanks.


-LDG.

[Jostan]

Creme de la creme is definetly used here.

About Spanish, not really many people speak Spanish here, most people that do are from South America/Caribean, but in comparison there are not many people from there here. My guess is, that they use it more frequent in Amsterdam/Rotterdam.
Spanish is getting more popular here now though, more schools are starting to teach it (a lot of high schools dont have spanish in their program)

I did read an article a while ago, that spanish is very popular as a second language in the scandanavic countries, getting close to English!
And I do have to say, a lot of Norwegian tourist that I meet in the DR do speak at least a little bit spanish and some very well.

[qgrande]

I agree with Jostan, Spanish is not a very prominent language here, although it is certainly growing. Even in Amsterdam Spanish/Latin American immigrants are not a very visible group, although there are quite a few.
Everyone speaks at least a bit of English, and at high schools English, French and German are compulsory. Because of immigration Turkish and Arab are also visibly present and taught at certain schools, but I think after those Spanish is the most popular optional language at schools. It certainly is pretty 'hip' to learn Spanish now, but still relatively marginal.

[Lesley D]

Many thanks for your replies. That's very interesting to know. Although Spanish is becoming a language of interest in the Netherlands or at least in the cities Jostan mentioned it seems like there are enough languages spoken as part of the vernacular "speech" of the masses already. Spanish in Europe in general has competition though with many other languages but the key phrase is it's a language of 'interest'.

Okay back to Foreign words and phrases. If any come to mind feel free to add them to the list.


-LDG.

[Hillbilly]

Lesley: You are "sort of right" and I was 'sort of right' , too.

Calabozo is the Spanish term. What I was thinking I was writing should have been "calaboose" , the internationally accepted term for jail...
And the one i forgot was hoosegow, also a jail....widely used in the SW USA ( from the Spanish Juzgado)

HB

And we all forgot one we learned in kindergarten(from the German), which is paper maché, and something we learned along the way: Macho-machoism.

The list can grow enormously, since English is perhaps the language with the most "loan words"....Just read a dictionary.....