Recent content by green slime

Because at the stage of understanding that you are talking about, it's not really the language you are immersing in, it is the culture. Langauge is part of the culture.

"How close is nuclear fusion power?"

In that sense, every word is untranslatable. Take that a step further, and that just means no humans can ever really understand each other, even when attempting to do so in what appears to be the same language. Differing cultures and interpretations exist within each country.

bulldoze (v.) by 1880, "intimidate by violence," from an earlier noun, bulldose "a severe beating or lashing" (1876), said by contemporary sources to be literally "a dose fit for a bull," a slang word referring to the intimidation beating of black voters (by either blacks or whites) in the...

Or, that there is an expression, but that it didn't come to mind, because the speaker is so imbedded with reading literature in English or that the German is so close to the English, precisely because it is not English to start with... In Swedish, it would be "Variabel blockstorlek", and that...

Kycklinglårben? Usually you are eating the thigh of the hen. Generally, they are sold as "kycklinglår," and not "kycklingben." :) "mor- och farföräldrar" or "far- och morföräldrar" is the common construction.

Except people speaking English use the word "Schadenfreude." I heard it yesterday in a BBC podcast. IOW it is on its way to being adopted into the language. Just as Smorgasbord, ombudsman, and a whole host of other words have been.

Awesome thanks to Russ_watters for articulating better than I could, some of my concerns.

I see. So where could a layperson read about these discussions? I'd disagree, with your final statement, but that is your prerogative.

If... Undoubtedly. And yet... Research is all fine and dandy. When is it time to have the discussion on the consequences for our society? Researchers gladly fob off morality discussions onto the wider audience, which is gladly ignoring everything but the latest entertainment buzz. Politicians...

It is also a matter of defining what it means to "work" as a vaccine. I.e. The difference between being so sick you need to be hospitalized, and may wind up dead, vs suffering flu-like symptoms, and being irritable for a few days...

There is a lot of speculation around this in Linguistic circles. One thing modern humans have, that earlier hominids and the other great apes do not, is have a mouth cavity and tongue constructed in such a way, that we are far more likely to swallow our tongue. This of course is quite...

That is out of topic; which was "untranslatable words." Langauge is a truly fascinating topic. The issue is one of context, and even while words are very well translatable, sentences can carry even more meaning, beyond those just in each individual word. For example, previously in reply to...

http://scholarpedia.org/article/Language_(linguistics) "Language sets people apart from all other creatures. Every known human society has had a language and though some nonhumans may be able to communicate with one another in fairly complex ways, none of their communication systems begins to...

Still no. Here's a hint: words are not the sole component of a language.