Favorite "non-English" phrases?

[Animavore]

Schadenfreude

Win.

Lock the thread.

[Svartalf]

I often call morons Dummkopf in German or Baka yaro! in Japanese (moron)
Often say "Cà bhfuil imid" to myself in Irish when not sure exactly where I am and which way to go to reach point B

and am often known to mix words from several languages in my speech, either for humorous purposes, or just to annoy the other party.

[enkidu]

Dugnad is the Norwegian word for doing work voluntarily to help others.

Going to build a shed? Let's have a dugnad.

Of course, not everyone likes doing work for free, and then you may say they lack dugnadsånd. Which can sort of translate to the spirit of dugnad.

Any other languages have anything equivalent to dugnad or dugnadsånd?

That is a word worth pursuing around the world. A brief perusal:

Colonial N A: bee
Older English: bean, bene
N A Amish inter alia: barn raising
Finnish: talkoot
Swedish-Finnish: talko
Estonian: talgud
Hungarian: kaláka
Turkish: imece
Polish: tloka
Cherokee: gadugi

Nice. How did you find out this?

Shamelessly, just a few minutes on Google and Wikipedia. But in the back of my head there are echoes of having read about this custom in a considerable number of neolithic/tribal societies.

[colubridae]

Dugnad is the Norwegian word for doing work voluntarily to help others.

Going to build a shed? Let's have a dugnad.

Of course, not everyone likes doing work for free, and then you may say they lack dugnadsånd. Which can sort of translate to the spirit of dugnad.

Any other languages have anything equivalent to dugnad or dugnadsånd?

That is a word worth pursuing around the world. A brief perusal:

Colonial N A: bee
Older English: bean, bene
N A Amish inter alia: barn raising
Finnish: talkoot
Swedish-Finnish: talko
Estonian: talgud
Hungarian: kaláka
Turkish: imece
Polish: tloka
Cherokee: gadugi

Nice. How did you find out this?

Shamelessly, just a few minutes on Google and Wikipedia. But in the back of my head there are echoes of having read about this custom in a considerable number of neolithic/tribal societies.

The welsh version translates as "fuck that twat and his shed, lets go to the sheep-shaggers arms for a pint"

[colubridae]

"L'esprit de l'escaliers"


french

literally
'the spirit of the stairs.'

It's a cute expression and I don't know of any other language equivalent.

It describes the a brilliant idea you have that would have won a previously lost argument.
and you know that it is too late to use it

[colubridae]

Everyone knows 'deja vu'

But there are two more that I know of

'Jamais vu' = never seen.
Something you know you know, but you get the eerie feeling that you are sure you have never seen it before.


'Presque vu' = almost seen
Something you think you see, maybe out of the corner of your eye. But when you look again there is nothing there.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hunderte und Tausende

[klr]

Blizt(krieg) ...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Blizt(krieg) ...

Blintz(kreig)

[leo-rcc]

Nebelwerfer.

[klr]

Blizt(krieg) ...

Blintz(kreig)

I corrected one spelling error, but left in another ...

Apparatchik ...

[Svartalf]

Nebelwerfer.

Fog thrower? what's that

[klr]

Nebelwerfer.

Fog thrower? what's that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebelwerfer

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Nebelwerfer.

Fog thrower? what's that

Hair dryer.

[klr]

http://www.lukemastin.com/testing/phras ... ction=home