Vera, I was looking in the Wikipedia list of false friends and noticed the word ‘slip’.
It can be a true friend or a false friend, depending on the context.
A ‘slip’ is an undergarment worn under a dress to make the dress less transparent or to make it sit neatly on the person. The dress slips on over the slip!
Of course, a ‘slip’ is also a footstep on slippery ground, so that you lose your footing, which leads to the other meaning, an accidental error or mistake. This last can also be called a ‘slip-up’. We have in Australia the expression ‘slip, slop, slap’ as a means of protection from the sun. Slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, slap on a hat!
I think one could argue that the sentence “Back in the 90s I was in Germany to do business” sounds slightly fuzzy in English too.
If it’s a lengthy period of time that we’re referring to, then it might be more exact to say: “Back in the 90s I was doing business in Germany.” (But I think we are perhaps splitting some fine hairs here!)
ad JayB: (…) would understand “Ich bin oft geschäftlich in Deutschland unterwegs” as “I’m often over in Germany doing business” - i.e. there would seem to be an implication that one often travels over there to do business, as opposed to being based there all of the time?
Yes, that’s what it means.
ad Friedemann: (…) I don’t have to teach you German and you are of course right with your examples. (…)
I don’t mind learning from others I keep learning new things all the time also in my mother tongue. Besides you never use a “lecturing” tone and I really appreciate that.
(…) I meant to say that the German equivalent to “Back in the 90ies I was in Germany to do business” does not sound natural to me: “In den Neunzigern war ich in Deutschland, um Geschäfte zu machen.” (…)
ad Peter: (…) “Ich sandte dir ein Gift, eine Flasche. Hast du es verbraucht?” (…)
My grandparents told me that when the Americans dropped relief parcels after WWII in Germany and Austria, a lot of people were afraid to open those parcels because they were labelled as “GIFT”, which in German means poison.
We must not forget that at that time English was neither widely spoken nor understood (and the Americans were still perceived as an enemy).
ad kigoik: You seem to know a lot about Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. I have checked out your profile because I thought you were German and studying one or both of these languages. However, on your profile it says you are studying German and your native tongue is “Min”. Did you actually mean “Man” like in Mandarin or is “Min” a different language (which, if it is, I have to admit I have never heard about)?
I think that my use of Geschäfte machen was influenced more by Swedish than English since I have spoken that language and studied that language much more since the earlier 90’s. Anyone one day I hope to devote more time to German.
Min is a Sinitic language within the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are many variants of Min - Taiwanese/Amoy,Teochew and Hainanese being some of them.
Min or Minnanhua is one of the three major “dialects” of Chinese along with Cantonese, and the group of languages or dialects of East China, of which the best known is Shanghainese. The key areas where Min is spoken are Fujian Province (Fukien or Hokkien) and Taiwan. The areas along the Southern Coast of China have always had more distinctive languages and while these languages are usually referred to as “dialects” of Chinese, they are languages, in my view, in the same sense that Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish or Dutch and German are languages.
ad steve: Thanks a lot for this detailed response. I guess I should have done some research on the Internet before asking that question. I look forward to learning more about these things and I obviously have a lot to look forward to
Within linguistics, outside of Chinese, they are always referred to as languages. They have their own reasons for calling them ‘dialects’ and that’s unfortunately copies by many people. But, most people think there is ‘Chinese’ and that that’s a single language. Sure, if we go back half a dozen millennia or so…
Just one correction, Steve: Shanghainese is a Wu language. (It is the best known of the Wu languages, of course).
It seems many experts already helped me to answer the question
@lovelanguagesII
You are right! I only “SEEM” to know a lot about Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Before Friedemann’s comment, I did not know how it is called in Mandarin Chinese and I still have to check it on the Internet. However, it is earlier for me to understand what it means and to remember based on my background. I am still learning, just like everyone else here.
@steve
Just one more correction. There are quite some other areas, especially in southeast Asian countries, like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where people still use this language.
ad kogik: (…) You are right! I only “SEEM” to know a lot about Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. (…)
I hope you did not think I was suggesting you were just bluffing. I am convinced you know a lot about these languages. Maybe I should have used “you appear to know a lot…” instead of “you seem to know a lot…”.
In any case, I really appreciate your input to this discussion.
@lovelanguagesII
It’s my bad. I didn’t mean anything negative regarding the quotes of what you said. Actually I would just like to show that what I know is really limited, especially comparing to some of my friends who can read and understand those ancient Oriental literatures. I am not so used to command on the forums and I think I have to learn how to phrase properly. Tut mir Leid.
@JayB: “it’ll be interesting to see how far he can get in 30 days with Pimsleur!”
For anyone that’s gone through a 30-lesson Pimsleur course or two, there will be no surprises and we’ll know exactly how far he can get with the product. The lessons vary little from language to language (although they vary more than the criticism they get).
I’m actually much more interested in seeing if he augments it with anything natural (newspapers, etc. - in other words, NOT any other product) and what that’ll bring to the table with just Pimsleur under his belt.
The course actually does give you enough in the way of grammar to use the language in many daily circumstances, provided you have a dictionary. The question I’m interested in hearing Richard answer after his 30 days is if he thinks it’s “enough”.
@HrHenry: “…The question I’m interested in hearing Richard answer after his 30 days is if he thinks it’s “enough”.”
In fairness, I guess we already know that a month of Pimsleur will not be “enough”, right?
Nothing is ever truly “enough” - that is the nature of our pet monster! :-o
You can live in a country where the language is spoken, have daily contact with native speakers, listen to many 1000s of hours of radio/TV, read hundreds of books in the language…but there will still always be more things to learn!
@JayB: "In fairness, I guess we already know that a month of Pimsleur will not be “enough”, right?
Nothing is ever truly “enough” - that is the nature of our pet monster! "
I’ve used Pimsleur a couple times for their 30-lesson courses, but never gone beyond that. What I meant by “enough” was if Richard, at the end of those 30 lessons, feels that he can sit down and work his way through a newspaper or have a simple conversation with just a dictionary. We already know that 250 or so words on their own aren’t going to be enough for much of anything, but with dictionary… that’s enough of a decent test to see how much of a handle one has on the language and its grammar in order to use it.
Pimsleur’s a great start, but you only get simple present/past/future for verb tenses (maybe a couple more, depending on language), some adjectives, adverbs and a couple pre/postpositions in those 30 lessons. For me, that’s not enough. I’m not nearly as experienced as Richard is at learning languages though, so maybe he could get by with just that. I couldn’t. But I’m also looking at this in hindsight - I didn’t begin to try to speak Turkish to anyone until I’d also gone through a Teach Yourself course after Pimsleur.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Pimsleur Turkish lessons I went through, and wished there were more than just 30 lessons.
I keep learning new things all the time also in my mother tongue. Besides you never use a “lecturing” tone and I really appreciate that.