| Birte Priebe |
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 This seems to be the season of technical terms: after last week's Sprosse, here's another one, this time from Russian. Reißschiene (t-square, a drawing tool) has turned into рейсшина (pronounced "race-shina").
The image is from www.school.xvatit.com.
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Spring is almost here - time to clean the windows! Including the glazing bars, if any. They are called Sprossen in German, as well as in Norwegian and Danish.
The image is from www.sentrumbygg.no.  Only 86 days to go till the next FIFA World Cup! Time to look at a piece of football/soccer terminology: the (blatant) dive, known in German as Schwalbe (swallow) - apparently because a diving player's splayed arms and legs are reminiscent of a swallow's wings and tail. The Dutch have taken over this term (as evidenced by the above still from an interview with Arjen Robben who, according to Wikipedia, is infamous for his dives.) For those of you who speak Dutch: somebody seems to have come up with a Dutch equivalent, the fopduik.
 To be honest, I never expected this entry to become so topical. Штурм ("shturm") is the Russian version of Sturm (assault, attack). Admittedly, the poster above is for an American movie ("White House Down" in the original version), but against the backdrop of what is happening in Ukraine/Crimea these days, it might as well be a Russian one.
The image is from www.online-life.ru.  Today is Shrove Monday, the most important day of German carnival. Not that I'm a carnival fan myself, but it is a nice opportunity to present you a carnival-related term - schminken, and the matching noun, schmink. The verb schminken is used for all kinds of makeup in German, from your daily mascara and eyeliner to children's face paint. In Dutch, however, it is used exclusively for the more flamboyant kind (see picture), including stage makeup. For this purpose, the Dutch use schmink, which is the German Schminke minus the "e".
The image is from http://adwords.fun-en-feest.nl. |
AboutThis is a blog about the traces German (my mother tongue) has left in other languages. Contributions from your language(s) are more than welcome! Mail me at b.priebe@aiic.net. Archives
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