I laughed at this article because Oh my lady gaga is hilarious. But it also reminded of how popular foreign words become in other languages, and how quickly those words are picked up (and often their meaning changed) and become part of other languages. My go to example for this is Japanese, which after studying for three years and conversing with exchange students, I've learned uses a lot of English loan words. For example, 'rerakusu o suru' for 'to relax'. Rerakusu is the Japanese pronunciation of relax. There are many verbs like this: tenisu o suru for "to play tennis" and geemu o suru 'to play a computer game'. Several nouns are also from English: keeki, aisu kurimu, and aekon. (cake, ice cream, air conditioining)
I thought this was pretty interesting for a few different reasons, one of which being that I think I would die laughing if I heard a foreign person exclaim, "Oh my Lady Gaga!" But it really got me thinking about how phrases and words get used across cultures. The most prominent example that I can give, which isn't exactly pop cultural, is how my friends and I used borrowed words and phrases from languages we've taken throughout our education. And even though we don't all necessarily know the languages that the others use, we pick up on certain appropriate, or sometimes funny words and phrases we may use in the middle of having conversations in English. I would guess that doing this presents a novelty, and in our case, a humor that kind of supplements the enjoyment of the conversation. It's all in good fun, like when we say, Adios!" instead of simply saying bye, but it truly is interesting how we do pick up on things like that. And I actually always wondered if it was just we English speakers that do it, but apparently not.
I laughed at this article because Oh my lady gaga is hilarious. But it also reminded of how popular foreign words become in other languages, and how quickly those words are picked up (and often their meaning changed) and become part of other languages. My go to example for this is Japanese, which after studying for three years and conversing with exchange students, I've learned uses a lot of English loan words. For example, 'rerakusu o suru' for 'to relax'. Rerakusu is the Japanese pronunciation of relax. There are many verbs like this: tenisu o suru for "to play tennis" and geemu o suru 'to play a computer game'. Several nouns are also from English: keeki, aisu kurimu, and aekon. (cake, ice cream, air conditioining)
ReplyDeleteI thought this was pretty interesting for a few different reasons, one of which being that I think I would die laughing if I heard a foreign person exclaim, "Oh my Lady Gaga!" But it really got me thinking about how phrases and words get used across cultures. The most prominent example that I can give, which isn't exactly pop cultural, is how my friends and I used borrowed words and phrases from languages we've taken throughout our education. And even though we don't all necessarily know the languages that the others use, we pick up on certain appropriate, or sometimes funny words and phrases we may use in the middle of having conversations in English. I would guess that doing this presents a novelty, and in our case, a humor that kind of supplements the enjoyment of the conversation. It's all in good fun, like when we say, Adios!" instead of simply saying bye, but it truly is interesting how we do pick up on things like that. And I actually always wondered if it was just we English speakers that do it, but apparently not.
ReplyDelete