Native Tongues by Charles Berlitz
A few tid bits:
During World War I, anti-German feeling caused sauerkraut to be renamed “liberty cabbage”, and hamburger to be renamed “Salisbury steak”.
Would you like “Freedom fries” with that?
Sometimes an entire English sentence sounds like a basic expression in another language. Americans visiting Japan who would ordinarily experience some difficulty in remembering the Japanese term for “You are welcome” (dooitashimashite) have solved the problem simply- answering the Japanese “Thank you” (arigato) with “Don’t touch my mustache”. Said quickly, this is quite close enough to be an acceptable answer.
Now that scene in Toy Story 2 finally makes sense.
[In Mexico today] the Aztec rather than the Spanish names for certain animals are still used: “zopilote” (vulture), “tecolote” (owl), among many [including coyote]. The final “te” in these words stands for the Aztec “tl” ending, similarly modified in other words familiar to Americans, such as “chocolatl” (chocolate) and “jitomatl” (tomato).
Oh, and “California” is the name of the queen of the Amazons.
This book actually has some great information in it about which English words come from French, Latin, and German in particular, and therefore how knowing these words and recognizing patterns will help you learn other languages faster.
And though you may not care to learn Latin, perhaps, it's a small hop, skip, and jump to apply that information to learning Spanish, Italian, and even Portuguese.
And though you may not care to learn Latin, perhaps, it's a small hop, skip, and jump to apply that information to learning Spanish, Italian, and even Portuguese.
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