List of words having different meanings in American and British English (M–Z) Puns

Magulo ba? I'll give an example: sumpa and swear

"Sumpa" may mean to curse or to take an oath

"Swear" can also mean to curse* or to take an oath!

*Okay, the meanings of "curse" actually vary in the example, but can you give more solid pairs of words?

EDIT: I don't mean a Filipino word that has 2 different English translations. I mean a Filipino word, having definitions 1 and 2, translated into an English word, also having definitions 1 and 2. Give a pair of Filipino word – English translation.

(Apologies if there is any mistakes in the characters, still learning)

I'm quite interested in knowing what the "giveaways" are for a particular English accent in the UK, or at least indicators that make it likely a speaker is from X place. Has anyone compiled a list of common "giveaway" features for major accent groups in the UK?

For example, in slovenian "šef" sounds like "chef", but "šef" here means "boss", while in English it means "a professional cook".

Since too many people know English.

EXAMPLE:

Parent: [FRENCH]:
"Je veux manger une baguette"

Child: [Italian man who does not know French]:
"Le vere manager hanno barchette"

Child: [Spanish man who does not know Italian]:
"Spanish sentence that tries to translate Italian sentence"

Child: [German man who does not know Spanish]:
"German sentence that tries to translate Spanish sentence"

Parent: "My sentence meant "I want to eat a sandwich"
Italian: "Mine meant "True managers have little boats"
Spanish: "Mine meant ...

ETC... The final reveal can happen in any order, as long as OP starts. (i.e. German guy can answer before Italian guy and so on)

Water from a well.

Well, that was a nice surprise.

I'm well thanks, how are you?

“A” can be a number of different words in Welsh. These include:

1. “A” (and) – causes an aspirate mutation

>“Siôn a Siân” (Siôn and Siân, Mr and Mrs)
>
>“te a choffi” (tea and coffee)
>
>“papur a phensil” (a pen and pencil)

Before a vowel and a few other words, this “a” becomes “ac”:

>“afal ac oren” (an apple and an orange)
>
>“yn fyw ac yn iach” (alive and well)
>
>“ac felly” (and so)
>
>“ac mae e” (and he/it is)

2. “A” (who, which, that) – used in relative clauses, causes a soft mutation

>“y fenyw a welais i” (the woman that I saw)
>
>“y plant a ganodd” (the children who sang)
>
>“yr un a ddewisodd hi” (the one which she chose)

This remains as “a” even before a vowel:

>“y tri a arestiwyd” (the three that were arrested)
>
>“y person a edrychodd ar y ffeil” (the person that looked at the file)
>
>“y dyn a olchodd y llestri” (the man who washed the dishes)

In everyday language, you can drop this “a” but remember to keep the mutation.

3. “A” used to form a question, whether direct or indirect. Some examples of direct questions in the formal language are:

>“A fydd arian ar gael?” (Will there be money available?)
>
>“A oedd hi’n wyntog ddoe?” (Was it windy yesterday?)
>
>“A fyddai’n iawn?” (Would he/she/it be okay?)

Again, this “a” is usually dropped in everyday language but the mutation remains.

In indirect questions, this “a” is equivalent to “whether” in English:

>“Mae’n amau a fydd arian gael” (He/She doubts whether there will be money available)
>
>“Gofynnodd hi a oedd hi’n wyntog ddoe” (She asked whether it was windy yesterday)
>
>“Holaist ti a fyddai’n iawn” (You asked whether he/she/it would be okay)

Those then are three different kinds of “a” in Welsh. Next time I’ll post about the three different kinds of “â”, so watch this space :)

This is taken from one of our recent grammar posts on Facebook.

If I use google translate to auto detect what language the word "foli" comes from, it will automatically give me the Albanian translation. But I'm looking for an African translation... "foli" means something in languages all across the globe. Using google translate, i need to switch to every language spoken in this continent to make my own list of translations and see if one closer matches my suspicions. Is there anything out there that can make this job easier? I suspect there would be value in such search options in any auto-detect translation program. (List of known translations - by region; continent/country/province - exclude same word)

This must happen at least a few times, right?

It’s not a factual list of stereotypes like the “stereotypes of Americans” Wikipedia page is, at all. It’s the most nonchalantly arrogant, absurd, anti-factual web page I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

The few negative stereotypes they list have captions explaining them away, and also making negative references to America. Specifically.

Seriously, the whole page reads as if it was written entirely by really insecure, biased, and bigoted British people. It’s crazy.

I am a historical fiction novelist and trying to verify this for the book I'm working on. I have done a little research on it already, but since the book takes place in rural England c. 1948, I need to make absolutely sure it's plausible for one of my major characters to still live there while I'm still writing an early draft.

Thank you for your help.

For example, once I was working with lots of Spanish speakers and one of them tried to talk to the new girl because she was just silent then the entire time. She tried to say she was shy in Spanish but said “embarazada” - which means pregnant. They all felt silent and for weeks we all thought she was pregnant.