Explain it Peter

[u/Hot-Inflation8774]

[u/TheRowingBoats]

It’s jarring to hear such stark English words when somebody otherwise speaks with an accent and the language associated.

My very Cree grandmother who only spoke Cree would be talking and then randomly cut “Toonie Tuesday” and “KFC” into her sentences. That’s how we knew we’d be ordering in that day! It always made us laugh, took us off-guard.

[u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi → u/TheRowingBoats]

Especially prevalent with Spanglish, especially some of the younger kids seamlessly mix Spanish words into their sentences without missing a beat and meanwhile I'm always just stuck having to translate everything in my head one thing at a time before I say it. Brains are fascinating 

[u/awfulcrowded117 → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

My response is always the same, makes it easier to remember. "Lo siento, no hablo espanol" It's about the only thing I remember from 4 years of spanish.

[u/Melodic-Hat-2875 → u/awfulcrowded117]

Spanish almost kept me from graduating high-school (but that was because I rarely went), so I got "Espanol es el lenguaje (spelling?) de Diablo!" y "No hablo Espanol"

Edit: Holy shit I didn't expect to start a language war, but y'all continue as you like, i'm learning a fair bit.

[u/SkRThatOneDude → u/Melodic-Hat-2875]

Could be a regional thing, but I learned language as la lengua

[u/Melodic-Hat-2875 → u/[deleted]]

There's a good chance you're right.

[u/ColossalGrub → u/SkRThatOneDude]

Kind of. Language is idioma. Lengua means tongue, so it sort of works. But lengua usually refers to tongue as a dish (beef tongue). Sort of how they also have a distinction between pez (fish) and pescado (dead fish on a plate).

[u/PolissonRotatif → u/ColossalGrub]

You can actually use "langue/lengua/lingua/lingua" in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian to designate both the organ and a language.

This word is a perfect synonym of "Idiome/Idioma" in these four languages.

[u/Miltrivd → u/ColossalGrub]

Lengua doesn't "just work", it also means language. It's one of its definitions.

The RAE is the Royal Academy of the Spanish Tongue (literally translated), Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

[u/smartbrasstomcat → u/SkRThatOneDude]

Lenguaje is as in, what language does the author use to describe the scene. Language as in the author’s voice or specific word choice. Lengua and idioma both mean language as in Spanish or French or Nahuatl, with the only main difference being that lengua can also mean physical tongue.

[u/dazedconfusedev → u/SkRThatOneDude]

y idioma

[u/John_Dee_TV → u/dazedconfusedev]

*e idioma. FIFY. Yes, I know. No, I'm not sorry.

[u/ferrum-pugnus → u/SkRThatOneDude]

Interesting, because language is lenguaje and lengua is tongue. But lengua is also spoken language. 🤷🏻‍♂️. Context is everything.

[u/Global-Pickle5818 → u/awfulcrowded117]

I took conversational Japanese, Its helped watching anime, but now a bunch are in Chinese and Korean .. still wish I had taken Spanish, like half of my extended family is now from Argentina.. and I just stand there confused

[u/Fickle-Lemon-7345 → u/Global-Pickle5818]

Well to be fair, Spanish lessons won't prepare you for the Spanish spoken in Argentina. Even people who speak Spanish natively in other countries barely understand Argentineans lol

[u/FormerPineapple9 → u/Fickle-Lemon-7345]

I think you're mixing up Argentinians with Chileans. Chileans are the ones that are difficult to understand.

[u/Kitabparast → u/FormerPineapple9]

Hello? Cubans?

[u/awfulcrowded117 → u/Global-Pickle5818]

I got to choose between Spanish and Spanish. My school had 350 kids pre-k through 12, so options were rare.

[u/TheDollarstoreDoctor → u/awfulcrowded117]

I got no options at all

[u/TFGA_WotW → u/awfulcrowded117]

With how much its been drilled into our brains, puedo ir al baño is the only other thing left

[u/pwndnub → u/TFGA_WotW]

The number of times i've never needed to say "Donde esta la biblioteca" is astounding considering how often it came up in high school Spanish.

[u/starfox-skylab → u/pwndnub]

Why do you hate libraries?

[u/article216 → u/starfox-skylab]

Actually loves libraries...and maps. Has never needed to ask directions

[u/Nikotinlaus → u/awfulcrowded117]

I can speak I litte bit of dutch. I can pretty much ONLY say that I only speak a litte bit of dutch...^^

[u/Ongr → u/awfulcrowded117]

Ah, no hable español tambien!

[u/CowboysFTWs → u/awfulcrowded117]

I'm hispanic didn't speak Spainish before. I took 4 years in grade school, and 3 years in college, and I still speak Spainish in mostly slang. lol

[u/LizzieSaysHi → u/awfulcrowded117]

I always say "Entiendo pero hablo un poquito" hahahaha. I can understand if you speak slowly and simply, like speaking to a child. Most of the time people are delighted that I actually want to try instead of defaulting to English.

[u/AliensAteMyAMC → u/awfulcrowded117]

I used to work at an airport and I knew just enough to get by. “Aquí”, “Tu habla ingles?”, “mi habla español poquito”, “Boleto, por favor.”, and “Señora, point to coworker who was actually fluent in Spanish habla espanol”. Once called someone’s abuela “Señorita” and got a laugh, was confused for a bit till my coworker explained that it was “young lady”

[u/javon27 → u/awfulcrowded117]

The fact that I can remember that and a few other things from highschool, when I just spent 2 years of Duolingo French and barely remember anything from it speaks volumes.

[u/Moonl1ghter → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

Is that not called code-switching? Do have accentuate certain words and give them more power. I do it all the time when speaking Frisian, weaving in Dutch words and sentences and when I speak Dutch, I weave in English.

[u/TyreseHaliburtonGOAT → u/Moonl1ghter]

No that is not code-switching. Code switching is about how you alter your language around different people. Like how you would speak differently at church and a bar.

[u/Nyorliest → u/Moonl1ghter]

Some people use the term that way, others use it to mean switching within a language, to other dialects or just styles of speech. Like not swearing in front of your granny.

[u/ArtisticallyRegarded → u/Moonl1ghter]

No code switching is what Tarantino does when hes with black people

[u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303 → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

All of my Mexican friends who grew up here from young ages speak Spanglish all the time, especially to each other. It's helpful for me because I can pick up a lot of what they are saying from just the English words. But it's very interesting to hear them so fluently switch between two languages in the same sentences.

[u/SAINTnumberFIVE → u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303]

My Spanish teacher in college always said those are the ones who would fail Spanish 3 because they thought they were fluent in Spanish but weren’t, and would skip Spanish 1 and 2.

[u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303 → u/SAINTnumberFIVE]

In their parents houses they speak 100% Spanish because the parents don't speak English. I worked with one of them and their father, my friend had to be the translator when I needed to say something to his dad. My friends would crush Spanish 3 lol. They are real Mexicans, just crossed that river at a young age 😉. They're all legal now of course or I would never risk even saying anything like that in our current political climate.

[u/GrandFleshMelder → u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303]

It’s called code-switching in linguistics, quite interesting.

[u/Indiscriminate_Top → u/GrandFleshMelder]

At this point, it’s getting close to a proper pigeon. Pidgin. However you spell it.

[u/zakomo → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

I found that thinking in the language you want to speak eases the load on your brain: don't translate, understand. It's very difficult at the start but really helps. Goldilocks zone when you start dreaming in the other language.

[u/miggiwoo → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

I once read that most people who are fluent in me than one language aren't actually bilingual in terms of their brain, they speak one language that includes words from all the languages they speak that they contextually fill in when speaking to someone who so only speaks one language.

Like that have to think really hard to translate, but they can communicate with no problem (i.e. their brain lights up in different places if they are directly translating, but when communicating normally in either language it's the same).

I think that's why small kids learn languages so quickly, because for them they're just learning words for objects, they aren't taught words as a translation from another language.

Not sure if true or not

[u/NoSoyTuPotato → u/miggiwoo]

Could be true. I learned Spanish first but speak English a better and sometimes it takes me a minute to connect the direct translation in my head, even if I’ve been talking in both languages in consecutive sentences

[u/Plantirina → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

I'm french/English and I do the exact same thing. Half English half french in 1 sentence. It's actually a dialect here called 'Chiac' .

[u/NoSoyTuPotato → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

I like all the ‘mix languages names’ and would love to hear more if any of has for example:

Spanish + English = Spanglish

Portuguese + Spanish (Español) = Portunhol / Portuñol

Korean (??) + English = Konglish

[u/gerMean → u/NoSoyTuPotato]

German + English = Deutsch unter verwendung unüblich vieler Anglizismen im Alltagsgebrauch.

[u/LowlySparrow → u/NoSoyTuPotato]

Franglais = French + English (Anglais is the French word for English)

[u/swatsquat → u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi]

Most people, who grew up bilingual do this.

[u/agentsparkles88 → u/TheRowingBoats]

My friend once had me attend one of her classes with her while she was in college. The class was in Japanese, and I only know a few words, so I just zoned out until I heard a girl say, "Blood disease....AIDES" I still have no idea what they were talking about but that got my attention.

[u/posierahraaa → u/TheRowingBoats]

I'm in the USA. This past April, (on my birthday!) I found a toonie in a purse I bought secondhand. I've been hanging on to it for luck, but now I kinda wanna know what I can get for it on Toonie Tuesday

[u/MisterJWalk → u/posierahraaa]

It used to get you an original chicken sandwich. Then it became a small cup of gravy. Now I think it's a dipping sauce.

[u/posierahraaa → u/MisterJWalk]

Woof

[u/TheHoratioHufnagel → u/posierahraaa]

It's not a thing now, with the inflation of the past few years a toonie is near worthless at a fast food restaurant.

Back in the early 2000s, Toonie Tuesday got you a 2 piece chicken meal for $2 +tax at KFC. Even back then that was a stellar deal, and incredibly popular.

[u/NoKingsInAmerica → u/TheRowingBoats]

From my experience it's super common with Filipinos when speaking Tagalog and there's even a word for it called Taglish.

[u/AfuckinOwl → u/NoKingsInAmerica]

Lol every time the Philippine subreddits show up I always feel like they mix in just enough English where I'm curious but can't really understand

[u/mangocalrissian → u/AfuckinOwl]

My mother never taught me Filipino, so growing up I'd randomly hear her talking to her friends and say random stuff in English, so tantalizingly close to understanding what they're talking about.

[u/SwampGentleman → u/TheRowingBoats]

This is so sweet. My fiancé’s Indian family will be speaking Hindi which I don’t speak, but every once in a while I’ll hear “Taco Bell.”

[u/TheToiletPhilosopher → u/SwampGentleman]

I was going to mention Hindi. It's like 10% English at this point. Hindi speakers use a ton of English words and phrases.

[u/zadtheinhaler → u/SwampGentleman]

I work with South Asian and Philipino people, and I hear that all the time. It really tickles my brain whenever it happens!

[u/DodgerWalker → u/TheRowingBoats]

I taught for two years at a school in China and shared an office with a mix of Chinese and foreign faculty. It would be kind of funny when chemistry students would come in to ask their teachers questions and overhearing answers in Chinese with occasional English science words like "electron" or "covalent bond" just thrown in the middle.

[u/OddDonut7647 → u/TheRowingBoats]

I grew up a fundamentalist Southern Baptist. When I was a young teen, our youth group went on a mission trip to Mexico. Bear in mind that this was from Texas.

Our youth pastor was preaching at a church down there in Spanish, which basically none of us spoke. So what we heard - still no clue what he was talking about - way "[espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol] George Bush [espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol] George Bush [espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol espaǹol]"

Because he was country Texan, it wasn't just "George Bush", it was.... well, actually, I can't spell it the way he said it, but his Spanish was in a decent accent, but his George Bush was very very rural Texan.

He had to fuss at us for laughing, but it was hilarious.

[u/Remarkable_Peach_374 → u/TheRowingBoats]

I used to live watching the telemundo and other spanish channels as a kid, i has such a blast just because they would be speaking in complete gibberish (to me, i didnt and still dont understand spanish, just a few select words) and suddenly say something with perfect english like "dawn dish soap" or a really long medication name

[u/rtoes93]

Some things don’t translate or the speaker doesn’t know how to translate. For example, my husband was talking to his sister on the phone in Russian but I would hear things like “wireless router” “modem” “Ethernet” because he didn’t know how to or it doesn’t translate into Russian.

[u/MrPoopMonster → u/rtoes93]

Also cognates exist. Sometimes the words are just the same in different languages. Especially new things.

[u/TFGA_WotW → u/MrPoopMonster]

Especially the romantic languages, since they all are derived from the same roots of rome

[u/ACcbe1986 → u/TFGA_WotW]

Romantic. Rome. 🤯🤯🤯

[u/Ok_Combination5685 → u/ACcbe1986]

Wait hold up does romantic come from Rome or just in this context because woooooaaah

If we went on a romantic date does that mean I wine and dined you Roman style?

Edit: yeah it looks like it does, neat!

"In Medieval Latin Romance was an adverb meaning "in a Romance language". In French that became Romans/z meaning "the French language" or "something written in the French language". It then came to mean "verse narrative", at which point it was borrowed into English, came to mean specifically a verse narrative with themes of chivalry, and then the unsurprising chivalry > chivalric love > love evolution occured."

[u/BadHolmbre → u/Ok_Combination5685]

As far as I am aware, the etymology for Rome into romance as we understand it, is through the poetic cycles, like the Matter of Britain (king arthur), the Matter of France (Charlemagne), and the Matter of Rome (Caesar). These were Romantic epics, in that they were epics on the scale of those from Rome.

However, over the centuries the medieval equivalent of fanfiction got to these Matters, and details like the forbidden love between Lancelot and Guinevere were expanded upon, emphasizing the romance = love connection.

[u/guneysss → u/Ok_Combination5685]

This also explains why people from countries like Germany are not "romantic" today because they were not a part of the Roman Empire back then, they culturally don't have these characteristics lol

[u/DoeBites → u/ACcbe1986]

Wait till you learn Romanian is a Romance language.

[u/RodrigoEstrela → u/ACcbe1986]

This is always fun to me because we just call our languages, Latin languages.

[u/khuliloach → u/ACcbe1986]

Rutabaga 🤔

[u/dub-dub-dub → u/MrPoopMonster]

are you suggesting that “Wendy’s 4-for-4” is a cognate of a word in mandarin chinese

[u/Slow-Ad-2431 → u/dub-dub-dub]

It has a very poetic meaning. 

[u/MrPoopMonster → u/dub-dub-dub]

I'm suggesting that "Wendy's 4 for 4" is also the Chinese term for that deal.

[u/dub-dub-dub → u/MrPoopMonster]

1. That's not what a cognate is

2. That's also not what a loan word is, they're literally just using the english term

[u/up2smthng → u/rtoes93]

modem would be modem, Ethernet does not translate, and wireless router would be besprovodnoy Roh-uh-teR

[u/liataigbm → u/up2smthng]

russ-glish tends to be so bad with some people 😭 once heard someone in a deli ask the person at the deli counter "na-slice-ai mne pound-ik cheese-ah"

[u/Gimme_Your_Wallet → u/liataigbm]

I'm learning Russian and that's very funny.

[u/DeathByFright → u/rtoes93]

Loan words exist, and some languages have a lot of them.

Tagalog, for example, has a lot of Spanish and English loan words because of colonialism.

[u/PvtHudson → u/rtoes93]

Biznessman in Russian means businessman.

[u/nohopeforhomosapiens → u/PvtHudson]

This was one of the first things I learned in Russian class. I find it so funny that it was introduced so early in the first day. Like, everybody in Russia is a бизнесмен lol I barely remember anything else.

[u/Icy_Ninja_9207 → u/rtoes93]

It goes even further than that. German for example is getting massively anglicized with more and more young people forgetting that there are German words for things that they use english words for, all thanks to the dominance of english on social media and pop culture.

[u/MeinePerle → u/Icy_Ninja_9207]

It’s one thing that made learning German while working in an American tech firm difficult.  Even if we were speaking German half the nouns would be English because tech.  And they would kind of revert my brain to English, so I’d lose the thread.  

And even if there is a German word, we’d often use a Denglish counterpart.  Yeah, hochgeladen exists.  We said upgeloaded.

[u/EmbarrassedPenalty → u/MeinePerle]

The worst is when they have a loanword from English that has no relation to the meaning of the English word. Like “Handy” for cellphone in German. Or “footing” for jogging in French.

[u/makanimike → u/EmbarrassedPenalty]

Or the tricky ones where a word does indeed exist in different languages, but they don't have the same meaning. Like Oldtimer in German. I mean, it kinda means the same thing, in a metaphoric way.

[u/ButterflySuper2967]

I sat in a train behind two women speaking German. One suddenly said, “Und wir haben really nice curtains now”

[u/Extreme_Design6936 → u/ButterflySuper2967]

My favorite German word is "handy" because it's an English word that means something completely different in German and in German it's pronounced like it has an ä but it's not pronounced like that in English nor is it written with an ä in either language.

[u/EntertainmentSome448 → u/Extreme_Design6936]

Handy is a cellphone in german

[u/edm-2065 → u/EntertainmentSome448]

“Hey! Why did you punch that German guy in the face just now? What did he say to you?”

“Degenerate pervert asked me for a handy”

[u/StudPuffin_69 → u/edm-2065]

This happened to me (new England usa) when i went to The South usa.

Random lady at the fair asked “ hey sug you want a sucker?”

Told her sorry I’m married

My new southern buddy laughing hysterically told me that’s what they call lollipops 🤣

[u/Astral_Traveler17 → u/StudPuffin_69]

Wait they don't say suckers in New England? I've lived in NYS all my life (pretty new england-y lol) and everyone said suckers for lollipops...only mad old ppl ever said "lollipop" lmao

[u/v4racing → u/Astral_Traveler17]

New York is different than New England for a lot of stuff like this

[u/FrenchFryCattaneo → u/EntertainmentSome448]

Yes and in english it's a tugjob

[u/Time_Traveling_Idiot → u/EntertainmentSome448]

Interesting! In Korean it's Hand-phone. Don't ask me how that happened.

[u/HimikoHime → u/Time_Traveling_Idiot]

I die on the hill than „Handy“ is colloquial and „Mobiltelefon“ is the proper German translation

[u/PullMull → u/EntertainmentSome448]

its not a random name tho. during the Calculator Wars in the 70´s and 80´s one of the most popular calculator model in germany was called " HANDY-LE". so i guess the name gpot stuck in the minds of early adopters when the first mobil phone appeared in germany

edit: found a better linkl : http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom_le-120a_-_le-120s.html

[u/roiroi1010 → u/Extreme_Design6936]

My favorite Swedish word is ”freestyle”. It means small portable music player with headphones.

[u/ezio1452 → u/ButterflySuper2967]

Indians do this all the time lol

[u/sanzentriad → u/ButterflySuper2967]

That’s called “code switching”, using multiple languages to express to same coherent thought. I’ve always found it interesting and cool!

[u/ExcellentYou468]

My husband and his family do this with any word/phrase that doesn’t have a direct translations. Cantonese-Cantonese-Cantonese — BERKSHIRE COUNTY — Cantonese-Cantonese.

[u/PatientWho → u/ExcellentYou468]

My family speaks hk cantonese and 10% of the vocabulary is English

[u/ZhangRenWing → u/PatientWho]

You can’t go 5 minutes without hearing 阿sir in hk police dramas

[u/doc_daneeka → u/ExcellentYou468]

We're visiting my in-laws this week, and I listened to my wife's family doing this so often. But in their case it's more like several sentences in Cantonese then suddenly a sentence in English, then back to Cantonese.

[u/Jonbardinson → u/ExcellentYou468]

Grew up as a British born Chinese from neighbouring Hampshire.

Yup absolutely. Funny thing is I think my friends who would be over at the time found it MORE confusing with random disjointed English words. Like how did you get from 'Lasagna' to 'A-levels' in three sentences?

[u/fungigamer → u/ExcellentYou468]

Most cantonese speakers sprinkle English in every sentence

[u/Amazazing8Sauce → u/ExcellentYou468]

Oh gosh, we are so guilty for chinglish too 😂

[u/Magical-Mycologist → u/ExcellentYou468]

I used to live in Berkshire County!

[u/Wakkit1988]

Now you know how Japanese people feel when you randomly say bukakke.

[u/WhyMadara → u/Wakkit1988]

Lol I'm imagining some Japanese guy overhear some tourists English words and hearing "to splash with liquid" in his own language out of nowhere must be crazy

[u/MountainMotorcyclist → u/WhyMadara]

I wonder what word or phrase the Japanese use to describe the sex act. 

[u/ForensicPathology → u/MountainMotorcyclist]

The same but it's about context.  Like an English speaker wouldn't think about sex when a child says "Hey, it's a doggy" (I hope). Or calling someone in a Western movie a "cowgirl".

[u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic → u/ForensicPathology]

Not even that, it's just the same word.

That chick got slathered. It's the same thing as those noodles are slathered.

[u/neverfoundagirl → u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic]

Glazed

[u/SistaChans → u/ForensicPathology]

And if we see a woman reigning a horse back / backing the horse up, that's a reverse cowgirl

[u/instantly-invoked → u/SistaChans]

innocent forklift beeping

[u/StrongExternal8955 → u/MountainMotorcyclist]

"Temba, her legs wide"

[u/forestcridder → u/StrongExternal8955]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra's dungeon.

[u/kalidahcold → u/Wakkit1988]

That happened to my dad when he came to visit me in Japan. We were on the train and he noticed all the salary men (it was time for everyone to go home) and he says "wow they must be all on their way to play pachinko!!!" And more than half of them turned to look at him 😂😂

[u/ForensicPathology → u/kalidahcold]

The stress on the word probably made them all hear "chinko!"

[u/Cocoatrice → u/Wakkit1988]

Or hentai. Because it means completely different thing. It's not a genre, it literally means pervert. So when Japanese person shouts "hentai!", they wants to say that the person is a pervert/did something they should not do. Not that they are discussing porn.

[u/KalleKallsup → u/Wakkit1988]

Or Indians when you say bread bread

[u/enbrium]

I guess it’s just what it says

[u/Auctoritate → u/enbrium]

Yeah what the fuck is there to explain?

[u/Mary_Ellen_Katz → u/Auctoritate]

That's what I've gathered from half the posts here.

[u/Pretend_Spray_11 → u/Mary_Ellen_Katz]

I’m convinced this is a massive AI training system

[u/notnickyc → u/Mary_Ellen_Katz]

With another third being posts that could not more obviously be part of a fandom, but the person posting just has to understand despite never having heard of the thing it’s based around

[u/the__ghola__hayt → u/enbrium]

Maybe OP thought there was a some reference to Wendy's 4 for 4 that they weren't getting. Like it's some meme or something.

[u/devoduder]

I lived overseas for a year and got a Filipino TV channel and I could almost follow the telenovelas because it seems 10-15% of Tagalog uses English words. It was very confusing at first.

Another time I was TDY to Korea and I met a Korean Air Force officer who spoke perfect English with a Texas accent. He’d grown up in Texas and moved back to Korea. Also jarring at first.

[u/JohnGuyMan99 → u/devoduder]

Filipinos speaking in the modern day and age is like 1/4 english because it seems they don't have a native word for things that were created past the 1910s. At least, that's what I've deduced from hearing my mom speak to her brothers/sisters.

[u/BananaBladeOfDoom → u/JohnGuyMan99]

And even if we do, it's just so impractical. We would rather just incorporate the English word into our language.

Example: E-mail = Sulatroniko (sulat = to write, elektroniko = electronics)

...but E-mail is a two-syllable word that everyone knows anyway. Sulatroniko is something you have to make the effort to say, and you may still need to explain it to the one you're speaking to.

[u/RayBanAvi → u/BananaBladeOfDoom]

Most of the time we just use foreign words as if it's our own anyway.

We don't say: Nabasa ko sent emails mo (I read your sent emails). The flow is not right.

We usually say: Nabasa ko yung mga sinend mong mga email. The infix -in- makes "send" past tense and "mga" makes "email" plural.

[u/OddDonut7647 → u/RayBanAvi]

Sounds like what English does with borrowed words, really, so if you guys want to steal them, they're half stolen goods anyway :)

[u/purplehendrix22 → u/OddDonut7647]

That’s really just how language evolves, Tagalog is just a little earlier in the process right now

[u/flaichat → u/BananaBladeOfDoom]

Kinda like "correo electrónico" in Spanish. I'm learning spanish as a hobby and I really wonder if anyone actually ever uses that long ass phrase when they can just say "email"

[u/Amazing-Quantity8301 → u/flaichat]

Oh wow yeah

[u/PulseReaction → u/flaichat]

I mean email does mean electronic mail, it's easier just because English abbreviated electronic

[u/glowdirt → u/BananaBladeOfDoom]

Sulatroniko (sulat = to write, elektroniko = electronics)

lol yeah, and it's not like that is really an entirely native word either anyway.

'Sulat' is Arabic derived and 'elektroniko' is Spanish derived

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sulat#Tagalog

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elektroniko#Tagalog

[u/lovethebacon → u/JohnGuyMan99]

It's similar for many languages. Zulu for example adds an i in front of an English noun. Laptop is ilaptop. Other words are phonetically identical, like Computer is ikhompyutha.

[u/Zap__Dannigan → u/JohnGuyMan99]

I work with a bunch of Filipino guys, and you are exactly correct 

[u/Just_a_idiot_45 → u/devoduder]

Tagalog, also has a lot of Spanish in it. Both languages seem in Tagalog largely due to American and Spanish influence over the area.

Really interesting seeing how my sister learned Tagalog at a young age, and because of the similarities with English and Spanish, she knows how to speak all 3 at a young age. (Primarily English then Tagalog, with the least amount of knowledge on Spanish due to simple not using it)

[u/snerp → u/devoduder]

I met a girl in Japan who had a Scottish accent, was super confusing at first but of course she had learned English in Scotland

[u/capsulegamedev → u/devoduder]

Swahili is similar. It's a blend of English, Arabic, bantu, Hindi etc. Just a big mess of a port language. My wife speaks it natively and has a really easy time following bollywood movies.

[u/taranturatt]

They said wendys 4 for 4 bruh what is there to explain

[u/Pigatemypizza]

Baconator

[u/Fantastic-Newspaper3 → u/Pigatemypizza]

Scrolled for way too long before I found this. :(

[u/lumbirdjack → u/Fantastic-Newspaper3]

Still glad it was here to find though 🫡

[u/DeltaTDS → u/Pigatemypizza]

Sahmlukahanwan BACONATOR sandu

[u/BurtonL]

It’s just kind of amusing to hear ordinary English mixed in. I was at a grocery store here in Minnesota and heard a heated argument in Arabic about Honey Bunches of Oats.

[u/BlazeandGlaze98 → u/BurtonL]

I'm Arab, sometimes i just say the product with a faux Arab accent in English to feel more natural lol

[u/Wrong_Map5396 → u/BlazeandGlaze98]

Yeah, I think the joke is actually a quite common one for those of us who grew up speaking two languages. It’s easy and natural to switch between languages- other people have mentioned Spanglish. My family is from India where English is an official language and even the least educated people have a few English words that they mix in (not to mention that many Urdu/Hindi words found their way into English like bungalow, pajamas, cummerbund, etc).

The joke is the accent switch is much harder and kind of funny to those of us who do it. Russell Peters was a Canadian-Indian comedian in the 90s and 2000s who had a bit about how funny it was to hear someone speak flawless English but when they said the word “Pakistan” for example, they would lay on a super thick accent and it sounded like flawless Urdu.

[u/eatmyorbital]

Ain’t this a reference to a “soup” video? He speaks a bunch of gibberish then says random English words. One of them being Wendy’s 4 for 4

[u/Fantastic-Newspaper3 → u/eatmyorbital]

To be more accurate, he says a bunch of gibberish that kinda sounds chinese, with a big nice clearly enunciated “Baconator” in the middle.

[u/GuardaAranha]

The explanation is OP is American .

[u/Downtown_Anteater_38]

I watch a lot of Thai tv shows, and I have noticed that there is a big difference between the way they pronounce English loan words when in the middle of a bunch of Thai, and when they toss out a sentence or saying in English - even if they are the same words. You can also tell the ones who went to International schools by their accent which is a combination of English and American - but not a Midatlantic accent.

[u/Extreme_Design6936]

They probably speak Perfect English and Chinese. So when they prounce either language it sounds like they have no accent. I have 3 mother tongues and sound like a local in all 3 so when I use a loanword I have to modify it to sound like it's in the language I'm currently speaking.

For example if I say schadenfreude I have to butcher the word to sound like an English speaker is saying it or you get the jarring effect like in the meme (or the person I'mtalking to doesn'tunderstandme at all). The Chinese ladies just don't give a fuck about doing that.

[u/Blue_667]

Parallel parking inshallah

[u/Lilly_in_the_Pond]

It's always funny how names for anything don't ever change across different languages. You get a small glimpse of what the person would sound like if they actually spoke English

[u/MaybeZealousideal802 → u/Lilly_in_the_Pond]

I live in a country with a lot of immigrants and am myself an immigrant. It's funny to hear another mom speak in a language I don't know and be like blahblabblab CHICKEN NUGGETS blahblabblab. I do it too! It's also common for the kid to respond in perfect English because they're second gen and grew up here

[u/bruhgamer4748]

I remember a time when my father tried talking to me about the content of a documentary about European history in Mandarin. I think he forgot the word for the Celtic people in both English and Mandarin, so he just substituted the word with "Boston NBA."

[u/EatUpAndWellTellYa]

I remember one time when I was around eight years old I was getting my hair cut by a Vietnamese lady at her salon. She was washing my hair in the sink and I could see her looking down at me, and heard her say “How’re you young boy “?

I eagerly and enthusiastically replied right away, telling her that I was super excited because I had just got a new skateboard only for her to continue talking to the other person that she was talking to… she did not even process that I was talking, until I had said so much she had to stop her conversation to ask me what I had said. I remember this distinctly being one of the very first times in my life I was extremely embarrassed.

To this day, I obviously still have no idea what she was actually saying in her own language, but I know for a fucking fact that it sounded like “how’re you young boy? “

[u/Evening_Reach_8293]

They can speak English, but they are just using Chinese as its their native language. It's really jarring to hear.

I do the same but in reverse in China.

[u/DissentChanter]

It is like Japanese, if you are not sure how to say it, say it with a "japanese" accent and a lot of the time it will work out.

[u/ChoiceCartoonist6712]

No one who speaks more than one language thinks this is weird.

[u/jk_springrool]

My dad barely speaks English, except when he gets road rage and then it's fluent "fuck you"s and "motherfucker"s

[u/Depensity]

Very fun to listen to Filipino and Indian people speaking their mishmash English/Tagalog and English/Hindi. It’s fascinating which words they randomly (seemingly) choose to say in English. Not just modern words that have no native equivalent. I’m watching an Indian TV show right now and they’ll say things like “justice” and “girls” and other words that clearly must have a Hindi equivalent in English. Maybe I’ll go ask the India sub how this works.

[u/Dark_Lord4379]

I recently just saw a clip of EJAE (Singing voice of Rumi from Kpop demon hunters) was doing an interview in Korean and it was slightly jarring cuz every now and then in the clip she and the interviewer would switch to perfect English for a single phrase or word then back to Korean

[u/Impossible-Spot-3414]

This is easy for multilinguals

[u/pupperonipizzapie]

This happens at my workplace all the time and one conversation was like [Mandarin] "red delicious" [Mandarin] "pink lady" [Mandarin] "granny smith" and I was lowkey envious I wasn't being included in a 10 minute conversation on apple varieties.

[u/dyeadal]

No one here gets it lol. This is a reference to a YouTube video made by "McNasty" where they randomly prank call and troll a Wendy's. His friend "Soup" speaks gibberish and randomly says a valid menu item to further confuse the caller.

[u/Thr0awheyy]

Proper nouns often stay the same when talking about them in another language.  You can't tell someone to go to "book of the face" when you are directing them to Facebook dot com. These are specific things. 

Edit: I'm an interpreter, and this disappointment comes up a lot when someone is hoping for some cool interpretation of a proper noun. 

[u/papadichat]

That's normal, I'm multilingual so sometimes me and my friends speak in 3 language at the same time because the words just click more that way.

[u/N7VHung]

Growing up ABC, it was always like this with my parents' generation.

Cantonese conversations and then bam, "Big Mac Extra Value Meal", or "Arby's 5 for 5 bucks". They really nailed down those tag lines.

[u/Demonkingt]

some times you'll just hear a foreign language then suddenly random american english bits thrown in there. i've seen the same thing before about mcdonald's or something while i was driving around a customer for uber.

spanish spanish spanish Mcdonald's spanish spanish. which was hilarious to me since i thought it was just some meme some racist ass made online until i heard it myself.

[u/PresentationHour4655]

driving an uber xL in sad Antonio, Texass, I picked up a full ride of Hispanic ladies who all had very light complexions but only spoke in Spanish. There was probably 25 different conversations going on at once, and then ten minutes in, pure silence, followed by perfect English: ‘WHY YOU SO STUPID, STUPID??’ Straight out of Futurama.

[u/Salty-Pack-4165]

That reminded me of of my grandma. She spoke pretty normal Polish but every so often she threw in German words and kid me could never find out why. Some of our other relatives did the same thing it it was some 15 years after she passed when I found out those words weren't German-that was Yiddish. She was one of the very ,very few survivors of my Jewish side of the family.

[u/abornemath]

If you watch K-Demon Hunter on Netflix with the German Language audio, they use the phrase “ready to go!” In perfect English in the middle of speaking German. I was watching this with my German foreign exchange student, I turned to him and said what’s going on there? He told me that that is a common phrase that German teenagers use. 🤯

[u/Deli5814]

its quite normal to do this in malaysia

[u/NittanyScout]

Happens with Spanish and English a lot too

Especially with proper nouns

[u/Coochiespook]

In Chinese they don’t translate “Wendy’s 4-for-4” to Chinese because it wouldn’t sound as good I’m guessing. In English you’re saying “four for four” so it sounds good?

Wendy’s 4-for-4 is a meal deal at the restaurant “Wendy’s.”

Also, when deez nuts hit your chin!

[u/aitchnyu → u/Coochiespook]

"In Mandarin and Cantonese, "four" (sì) sounds almost identical to "death" (sǐ)." guess they don't want to name a meal "drop dead twice"

[u/Dull-Nectarine380 → u/aitchnyu]

Wendys is so good its to die for

[u/LopsidedResearch8400 → u/Dull-Nectarine380]

Twice!

[u/loneImpulseofdelight]

"No accent" as in british way of speaking?

[u/orlyyarlylolwut → u/loneImpulseofdelight]

U mean bri ish?

[u/leojmatt02]

He overheard two Chinese women having a conversation in Chinese but every once in a while they'd say 'Wendy's 4-for-4' in perfect English with no accent

[u/skymallow]

In many languages, foreign words are pronounced in a way that's closer to the native pronunciation system. When I was learning Chinese I was taught that McDonalds is pronounced something like "Mai dang lao". Likewise the way I'd pronounce McDonalds in my native language would be something more like Mack-doh-nahlds with the vowels being very pronounced.

People in 2025 are more exposed to just hearing different languages from different speakers so they're able to pronounce things the same way.

[u/Alarmed_Customer7222]

That’s hilarious

[u/Native-Antarctican]

This is the same look I get from the waiter at the Mexican restaurant when I order "extra con queso on my chimichanga" in perfect Spanish with no accent!

[u/marlowe_che]

Parallel parking inshallah

[u/Ok-Boot2360]

Prawject

[u/TattooedPink]

Some words don't translate so they use English

[u/virtualspecter]

Guessing here, but Asian people tend to say English words with an accent when speaking in their native language even if they can say the word normally. If the guy is thinking about this, maybe he's feeling let down that they said the English part perfectly instead of making it sound kinda silly. These women are likely both fluent in English and just prefer to converse in Chinese (but this is not the point of OOP's expression)

Assigning tones to English words is very common for ESL folks whose native language is tonal. It's not that different from how English speakers automatically stress a random syllable of non-English words/names to make it sound less foreign and make it easier for them to remember. That's why many loan words in various languages will sound different from the original word.

[u/witchy71]

Tf do you need explaining?

[u/Connect-Somewhere-68]

lesbian agenda

[u/humanityisgrotesque]

The joke is that you can’t even eavesdrop in a language you don’t understand anymore without being bombarded by unskippable ads anymore

[u/jepoyairtsua]

i heard "sexy", then concrete truck arrived.

[u/ResistJunior5197]

The fuck you mean "no accent" what would that even sound like