Words you commonly use that are from another language

The Late Night Gourmet

The Late Night Gourmet

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I have a scrolling desktop background that displays whatever images I want; this one has pictures I took in Paris earlier this year. When this one came up, I thought: if I didn't know where this was taken, it could have been just about anywhere. Looking more closely at the words, you see:
  • Rotisserie on the warmer for the chickens. This is a commonly used word in the States.
  • The chalkboard menu has the words Bon Appetit! We all know what this means, but if I used it after serving dinner to my family, I would get a strange look, and I'd probably be called pretentious (for good reason).
And so, a new thread was born.

Most of us on the forum are native speakers of English, but I'm also very curious about words that non-native speakers use from other languages (English or otherwise). I'm not interested in brand names (I suspect everyone worldwide knows what Coke and McDonald's are), but more words that have become a regular part of the lexicon.

No need to confine them to cooking terms. An example of a non-cooking term is rendezvous. I might still be called pretentious for using that, but it's certainly a term everyone would understand.
 
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Interesting topic - many of these words relate to food and cooking, of course.

As you say, we have a range of members who are bilingual here and I'm not sure how this topic would relate to them. I'm interested to know.
 
Morning Glory said:
Interesting topic - many of these words relate to food and cooking, of course.

As you say, we have a range of members who are bilingual here and I'm not sure how this topic would relate to them. I'm interested to know.
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Yes...I'm thinking that someone in Italy might have a German term that they use, for example.

In a related topic, I do know that I heard a lot more American phrasing, word usage, and slang (though still with a British accent) while waiting for a train in England when I visited in 2015 than I did when I visited for the first time in 1993. The world is becoming more global due to social media and widespread communications.

In the 80s and 90s, Ford had an exchange program between their offices in Dunton, England and Dearborn, Michigan. The participants were expected to stay at least 2 years, so really only younger people did it. I recall visiting a friend who I knew in the States after he had been in Dunton for about a year. He had developed a full-on British accent, and used terms like "straight away". This didn't bother me.

It certainly worked the other way. One fellow - who I always felt had a British accent despite being here for a decade - told me that his friends back home say they can't understand him! And I recall being in a car with three native Britons who had been in the States for a bit over a year, when one used the phrase "kinda neat", his fellow Britons laughed out loud and never let him hear the end of it. :laugh:
 
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Me and most of my friends work in management areas at international companies, not only do we speak and write english regularly but we also use a lot of technical terms that could very well be translated, but we are used to hearing and reading those words in english and end up sticking with the english version. So we end up using a lot of foreign (mostly english) words in conversations, even when a perfectly good portuguese translation is available - words like feedback, meeting, recap, dry run, performance, burnout. We're only made aware of this by our non-management friends who thoroughly enjoy making fun of us because of this.

Now one drink related word that is the same all over the world is happy hour. There's many reasons why an hour can be happy, but a happy hour always involves booze!
 
I'll have to start paying attention. I use a lot of British idioms, which people somewhat falsely attribute to having lived there, but it's more due to watching a lot (and I mean a lot) of British TV when I was growing up. Even today, I watch far more British TV than American. It's not even close.

I also use a fair amount of German terms, just because of where I live, names of dishes and sausages. One word, when we used to eat out at certain places, that I heard occasionally (and I'm not sure of the spelling) is if a weisswurst would arrive at the table split (an unpardonable sin), it would be sent back, with the sharp comment, "That's aufblatz!" - meaning that the casing has burst and it's not suitable for eating.
 
To give a clearer idea, I work in human resources. In college we studied avaliação de desempenho, but at work we always say performance appraisal.

We have reuniões everyday, but we always call them meetings.

To fire someone is called a despedimento, but we talk of layoffs.

Now that we've been working from home since March some of our colleagues have esgotamentos, but we call it burnout.

When some colleagues ensaiam a demonstração for a customer, they call it rehearsing a demo for a customer.

We could actualizar o estado of a project but we prefer to say we're doing a status update.

Or we could ask someone: mantém-me actualizado, but instead we ask them: mantém-me no loop (keep me on the loop)!

Feedback is one word that doesn't have a good translation in portuguese, neither dry run. All the other examples I gave are of perfectly common portuguese words that we end up automatically translating to english, often even in everyday conversations, just because we're used to :D
 
Sushi & sashimi, menu, dinneri (from dinner), kebab, tahini, falafel, siirappi, sorbetti, (syrup and sherbet, originally from Arabic), hangover or dagen efter (from English and Swedish; dagen efter means literally ´the day after´), duunata (from to do), kopipeistata (from copy & paste), suola, siemen (salt, seed; from an ancient Indoeuropean language), kassa, pasta, pesto (from Italian), lonkero (from long drink), häppeningi (slang from English happening), terassi, marinoida (terrace, to marinate; derived from French), aspiriini (aspirin; from German), trendi (trend), pihvi (from beef), cowboy, tv, wc, info.
 
LissaC said:
Me and most of my friends work in management areas at international companies, not only do we speak and write english regularly but we also use a lot of technical terms that could very well be translated, but we are used to hearing and reading those words in english and end up sticking with the english version. So we end up using a lot of foreign (mostly english) words in conversations, even when a perfectly good portuguese translation is available - words like feedback, meeting, recap, dry run, performance, burnout. We're only made aware of this by our non-management friends who thoroughly enjoy making fun of us because of this.

Now one drink related word that is the same all over the world is happy hour. There's many reasons why an hour can be happy, but a happy hour always involves booze!
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The word I hear constantly from people in non English speaking countries is "okay."

CD
 
I use words from everywhere, kapish, nyet, nada, Das is gut, jah, kaput,chow, anyone that knows me, knows I'm odd, so it's all good.
We have the Maori language here as well, nothing that you guys would know. We have Maori week here and I always learn a phrase and walk into my local pub and speak in Maori. I get glazed looks. My mate normally asks what I just said? Phrases like, there's a hole in my canoe.
We use the word Kia kaha a lot, it means be strong. Used a lot since the quakes and now covid. Kia ora means welcome, I sometimes welcome new bees with it.

Russ
 
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