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Can you recognize all the existing words in your own language?


Mameha

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This may be a stupid question, can you always recognize all the words in your language? I mean, for example there are some old words/expressions, or ones that are not so used, and most of all the dialectal words, that in Italian i have no idea they exists. Obviously i think that everyone can recognize the meaning anyway by the context or maybe from the sound or the similarity with another word with the same meaning. What about your language? Give me some exemples!

 

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No, which I don't consider to be all that odd. I mean, I haven't studied my language to its full extent and I honestly don't intend on writing any novels in it any time soon, so I reckon I don't even need to know all the words. Sure, it sounds nice and sophisticated when you blurt out a big word, but it also sounds pretentious and I would just rather be understood than eloquent. 

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4 hours ago, Mameha said:

This may be a stupid question, can you always recognize all the words in your language? I mean, for example there are some old words/expressions, or ones that are not so used, and most of all the dialectal words, that in Italian i have no idea they exists. Obviously i think that everyone can recognize the meaning anyway by the context or maybe from the sound or the similarity with another word with the same meaning. What about your language? Give me some exemples!

 

As a Caribbean native I speak Creole. English language is also a major language in my country. I remember in my mid teenage years I would force myself to learn a lot of words in my language. I read extensively and I realized the impact it had on my brain. I  was sharper and more alert than the other persons within my class when it came on to the English language. So yes I am able to understand  most words in the language of English and whatever words I'm not familiar with I can always use contextual clues to understand them.

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Ok story time, I do speak hungarian as my mother tongue but I just moved to a country where they also speak hungarian but hungarian people are minority there (romania) so there's a lot of words i don't know, they are hungarians yes, of course but use different words for differents things.

So we could have a conversation with my friends in hungarian but they are still staying sentences i do not understand at all.

It's more like american and brit english, try and tell to a US resident words like : nappy, blimey, aubergine, or chuffed and their eyes will widen in a second.

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My language is very complex and even for us native speakers, it can prove difficult to understand. A lot of younger people prefer to communicate and be understood. But older people tend to use difficult words that many may not be familiar with. I find myself sometimes asking people to explain what certain words mean. Sadly, i can't remember those words for the simple reason that I don't use them in my day to day speech, they aren't part of my vocabulary. I much prefer to keep it nice and simple :) 

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6 minutes ago, lushlala said:

My language is very complex and even for us native speakers, it can prove difficult to understand. A lot of younger people prefer to communicate and be understood. But older people tend to use difficult words that many may not be familiar with. I find myself sometimes asking people to explain what certain words mean. Sadly, i can't remember those words for the simple reason that I don't use them in my day to day speech, they aren't part of my vocabulary. I much prefer to keep it nice and simple :) 

Fortunately the unknown words are even the less used ones :)

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33 minutes ago, Mameha said:

Fortunately the unknown words are even the less used ones :)

That's the good thing, Mameha...at least we don't have to worry about them too much. I think some of the people who prefer to use them are just show offs. Well, the ones in my country want to show those around them that they have a good grasp of the language. But I just feel it's weird LOL I mean, what's the point of it if you keep having to stop and explain the words?! Some people are sticklers for the old language, but they need to recognise that language evolves and changes all the time. My belief is that language has to communicate.

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17 hours ago, Mameha said:

This may be a stupid question, can you always recognize all the words in your language? I mean, for example there are some old words/expressions, or ones that are not so used, and most of all the dialectal words, that in Italian i have no idea they exists. Obviously i think that everyone can recognize the meaning anyway by the context or maybe from the sound or the similarity with another word with the same meaning. What about your language? Give me some exemples!

 

Not stupid at all. There seems to be an assumption that because you are a local, then you probably know ALL the words in your language. I remember a comment from a Korean co-worker before who was surprised that I don't know the local equivalent of English words. He pointed out that since I'm local, I SHOULD know how to say things in the vernacular. NOT knowing ALL the words in your language is clearly indicative that language is truly dynamic. Exposure, exposure is key. If you are exposed to old people who seem to know deep-rooted words, then there's a chance that you'll have a wider vocabulary compared to someone who may be local but continuously use the second language in his daily communication.

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I think very few people, if anyone, can recognize every single word meaning in their native tongue.  Mostly, it's because of idioms.  You can't fully understand what a word means if the meaning is constantly changing.  For example, gay at one time meant happy in my language.  Now it refers to homosexuals.  That is one of many words that has changed meaning over the years. 

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3 hours ago, takibari said:

Not stupid at all. There seems to be an assumption that because you are a local, then you probably know ALL the words in your language. I remember a comment from a Korean co-worker before who was surprised that I don't know the local equivalent of English words. He pointed out that since I'm local, I SHOULD know how to say things in the vernacular. NOT knowing ALL the words in your language is clearly indicative that language is truly dynamic. Exposure, exposure is key. If you are exposed to old people who seem to know deep-rooted words, then there's a chance that you'll have a wider vocabulary compared to someone who may be local but continuously use the second language in his daily communication.

I use more new words because it's how i talk normally with people, but i think that in my language speaking with old terms sometimes is more...elegant i guess, so i like to use them anyway in particular situations :D and sometimes when i hear an old complicated term it seems sooo strange because most of old terms are long or complicated words (even the pronounce is strange). Yesterday my brother told me that in a tv show here in Italy someone used a term that we didn't know it existed and we laughed xD

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This is a very interesting idea. My first thought was 'yeah, I could recognize any English word,' but I come across words all the time that are completely new to me. It's only after your learn a word that it becomes recognizable, even if it is in your native language.

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It is definitely really hard to recognize each and every word in a given language. You have so many factors to count in, like local accents and dialogues, old expression not used anymore these days and words from an older version of the language that you know. I think you really have to be an expert in any given language to know and recognize each and every word.

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Sadly no... I don't recognize all the words within my native tounge, heck I don't recognize most phrases and saying which I'm slightly ashamed of, but none the less that still doesn't stop me from trying to figure them out in the end... So yeah... 

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