JetLiposting

Hi littlebelgianwriter! By Old Greek do you refer to the language spoken in Ancient Greek? If so, that's quite impressive. I've "flirted" a bit with Latin, but it hasn't gone well . Anyway, welcome to the forum, and hope you like it here!

Yeah...thanks for the briefing Fred , but this wasn't really the point of this thread . The point of the thread was for people to write the homonyms that they know and love :wacky:. So do that, people.

My favorite French idioms are usually the ones that sound funny both when translated and in French like: Appuyer sur le champignon - to accelerate, to put your foot down (to press on the mushroom); Prendre la mouche - this is the French version of "Get lost!" (to catch the fly);

I've always liked: Have the inside track - which means to have an advantage; Carry the ball - to be in charge of something, to be responsible for something; Get off to a flying start - to have a very successful beginning;

So, what are homonyms? No, they're not that . Just in case you don't already know this, homonyms are words that are both spelled and pronounced the same, but may have different meanings. Here are a few examples: Bat - that cylindrical-shaped piece of wood used to beat up people :devil:, and to play baseball; And that creepy flying mammal that is associated with vampires :vampire:. Fine - of high quality, for instance, when you say: "Damn, that girl has a fine....uhm....dress! :wacky:"; It also means penalty (no, I'm not talking about football ) or financial punishment. Tell me what homonyms you know?

Yes, "Appeler un chat un chat" doesn't actually makes that much sense when translated literally, but that's usually the case with idioms. You get an idea of what it means though, as this idiom has similar versions in other languages, as well (like you said "to call a spade, a spade"). All of that being said, "Appeler un chat un chat" means to say everything as it is or to be direct. As for the English version "to call a spade, a spade", I have to confess that this is the first time I hear about it. Well, I actually read about it, but you get the point .

The palindromes that I like are the ones that are quite common but people don't even notice it, like names: Ana / Anna, Hannah, or some words: level, race car.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely a petrol-head ( that's gear-head for the Americans out there ). I like to bore people to death :wacky: with my knowledge about cars, motorcycles and anything with an engine basically. So, naturally I know some car idioms, or at least car-related idioms, here are a few: "To race through something" - which means to speed up while performing a task, to perform it rapidly. "To take someone for a ride" - meaning to deceive someone. Do you know other car idioms? Please share!

Hi devilishomar, welcome to thew forum! I can relate to what you're saying about reading Arabic but not being able to understand it as I have the same problem with German. I'm good at reading in German, I know how to read the words properly and all, but I don't have a clue about what I'm actually reading :confused:. See you around!

ollie, that's so funny . Another marketing mistake that springs to my mind is in the case of the Romanian SUV Dacia Duster. They've probably thought that it's a cool name for an off-road vehicle but we all know that "duster" is another name for a vacuum cleaner and it also means dusting rag, not cool names for a car . Also the Growler E concept car has a very uninspired name as "growler", in slang, means vagina. :devil:

Yeah, I have to agree with Amalia, Romanian subtitles for English movies are quite bad . The most annoying subtitles that I've seen were usually on shows about cars, it's like they were intentionally trying to mess up. Looking at the bright side, I can always ignore the subs and just listen to what the actors are saying, and sometimes the subtitles get it so wrong that it's actually funny :devil:.

Hi Rosa! I'm also studying French. I was quite good at it a few years ago, but now, as I haven't really used it for some time, I noticed that my French is...well...rusty :confused:. Anyway, welcome to the forum! Au revoir!

Well, my favorite French quote is "Le sens commun est fort rare." from Voltaire which translates to "Common sense is quite rare" and is also known in this form: "Common sense is not so common", it's a bit rude but, probably, that's why I like it .

I think the misconceptions about English apply to languages in general. People usually tend to say a language is hard to learn if they have problems grasping it's basics, but in reality you can learn any language you want if you stick with it.Also, any language is easy to learn but hard to master .

Here are a few Fish idioms that I like: "To drink like a fish" - basically meaning to drink a lot . To be "like a fish out of water" - to be very unconformable, out of place in a specific situation. Like "shooting fish in a barrel" - an extremely easy situation.

I must agree with the posts above, the capacity of the human mind is enormous and a person can learn as many languages as he or she wants. The problem is time, of course, to master a foreign language takes a lot of time. Also, for me, a problem is the fact that I simply cannot learn a language that I'm not interested in, for instance, in school I learned English and French quite fast, but I just couldn't learn German.

Wow, I actually had no idea about the actual meaning of the "kick the bucket" idiom. I know what it means but I had no idea about it's origins. And yeah, it is a bit creepy . To "Bite the bullet" is also one idiom that has been around for so long that it's historical meaning has almost been forgotten. It is thought that this idiom originates from the war ships in the 1700s and later, where injured soldiers ( or pirates in some cases ) where given a piece of leather to bite on while bullets where surgically removed from their bodies without any anesthetic, thus "bite on the bullet". This idiom has other explanations, but this is the most plausible.

I'm not sure what emoticon the characters ":=)" stand for, so I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not. I guess i'll just have to answer your question :devil:. Don't worry, I'll try to say it mildly . I don't know if it has other meanings, but in slang, to "flip the bird" means "giving someone the finger", to "flip someone off", you know, "the one finger salute " or _|_ .

Hi Christina! Unfortunately I can't help you with your native language, but I think you should go and visit Belarus someday. I don't know about you, but I always like to find out bits of my history and my roots basically. You could find out new things about yourself and better understand who you are. Regarding what you said about not wanting to go to Belarus because you're afraid you'll no longer want to return to Ireland, I'll tell you just this: Eastern Europe can be a nice place to visit, but it's quite a tough place to live in, so I think you wont have any problems going back to Ireland . Cheers!

I'm a happy person :grin:,I like to joke a lot and to hear jokes all day long ( who doesn't, huh? ) so naturally, many of the idioms that I know are usually funny, or at least sound funny to me . Here are a few: "To drink like a fish" - usually used to describe people that drink heavily. "The lights are on but nobody’s home" - you know the feeling, when you talk to someone and your message just doesn't seem to go through. "To put a sock in it" - a funny way of telling someone to "shut up!". So tell me, what are funniest idioms you know?

That depends on what am I reading. When I try to read something that doesn't interests me at all, it usually takes way longer that when I read a book or article I enjoy. As for reading out loud, I did that when I was younger. I remember that I used to read out loud from my English book, because, even if you don't learn anything, at least you can improve your accent .

People who live in the central region of Romania have a specific accent but apparently I don't, although I was born and still live in that part of the country. Also, some people told me that when I swear in English, I do it in a British accent for some odd reason :confused:. And there's more , if I don't speak in English for a long period of time, and then I try to speak again, I develop that ruff Russian accent that a lot of Eastern Europeans have.

You're right, some people get this wrong, but I never had problems understanding the difference between "it's" and "its". I learned quite quickly that "it's" is a contraction for "it is" or "it has" and that has helped me not to make this mistake. Some people have problems understanding "it", especially in Romania, because we don't have an equivalent in our language, but that's another story .

Actually, I don't . I usually learn things that I'm really interested in, this way, learning is easy and comes naturally. One of the things I really hated about school was the fact that you get bombarded with tons of useless information, so yes, I cheated a lot during school tests .

I have to agree with you. I've learned English from TV, when I was really young, and a lot of my friends have learned it in the same way. Most movies weren't translated back then, usually subtitles were used, and that actually helps a lot if you want to grasp the basics of a language.