Have you ever stolen anything?
English has.
And I'm going to tell you ten words that English has stolen from other languages.
It's coming right up.
Welcome to today's lesson.
We have a bit of a vocabulary lesson for you.
But before we begin, I want to remind you to join
our social media classes because it's another great way
to practice your English skills.
So, we can kind of think of languages as being one big
giant family that has a history, and these languages are connected to each other.
And as languages develop and grow, and they add new words,
sometimes they will take words or borrow them
from other languages and then use them as their own.
and these are called loanwords.
And today, I'm going to talk to you about ten words that
English has taken from other languages.
And they're probably not going to get them back.
So what exactly are loanwords?
Well, according to the dictionary, a loanword is a word
that is adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification.
And modification is just another word for change.
So there's typically little or no change in either the
meaning of the word or the pronunciation of the word.
And many times spelling as well stays the same
So these are loan words that are taken from another language.
I don't know why they call it a loanword because when
you loan something, you typically give it back.
But we don't really give back these words.
We've just taken them.
So for these ten words - maybe you know what they mean, maybe you don't - but now
you're also going to learn a little more about the history
of these words and which language they come from.
So you'll also learn some new vocabulary words in a few different languages.
So, let's begin with French.
Now the first word that I want to show you is entrepreneur.
And I don't think the pronunciation has changed much between French and English.
My French is terrible, so I'm not really going to
try and give you the French pronunciation.
Entrepreneur.
Anyway, it's entrepreneur.
And an entrepreneur is a person that starts a business.
These are creative people. They're innovative people.
They come up with a lot of different ideas
So they start a business, and we say that they are entrepreneurs.
The next word, which is one that I like, but not one that
I like to do is a faux pas.
And a faux pas is a social situation
where somebody says something or does something
that is awkward or inappropriate.
And usually they don't mean to do this.
This is not something they want to do.
It happens on accident.
So for example, maybe somebody quit drinking alcohol because they had a problem.
And then you get together with them one night.
And without thinking about it, you offer this person a drink.
It can be a little awkward, but it's still like a faux pas.
You made a mistake.You didn't mean to and it...it's just wrong.
And often you have to apologize for it.
If we're talking about a faux pas, we might use it with the
verb "make" because somebody can make a faux pas or
we would just say that "That is a faux pas."
If you have one of these social misunderstandings
and mistakes, it's a faux pas.
The next word that we have taken from French is a genre.
And in French this means they kind or style.
We use it to classify different things such as movies or TV or music.
We'd ask like, you know "What genre is it?"
Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it a horror?
Different types of genres.
So notice the pronunciation of this, especially in English
it does not sound the way it looks.
That "g" does not have a G sound.
It's more of a ZH sound. Genre.
It's not gen-ray. It's not gene-ruh. It's genre.
Genre.
The next work is this one, right here.
Now, when I was younger and first saw this word,
I thought it was pronounced like lin-ger-ree.
And I was like, huh, maybe is that some sort of cheese.
But it is not. It is pronounced, in American English, lingerie.
And this is a type of woman's underwear, which is usually sexy and seductive.
Lingerie.
Now, you should know that in American English it is pronounced lingerie.
In British English, it is pronounced lingerie.
Which is actually closer to the French pronunciation.
So American English is lingerie British English lingerie.
And French lingerie.
I don't know why American English is so different in this.
But it's a little weird.
But...
I'm a little weird. Americans are a little weird.
And...yea, just go with it
Next, I'm going to tell you a few words that we took from German.
And the first word is kindergarten.
Now this word literally means, in German, "children's garden."
Which...I don't know how that kind of became
the word for a children's school in English.
Kindergarten is the first two years of school for children
before they go to elementary school.
So they would start in kindergarten and then go to
elementary school, and then middle school, high school and so on.
So kindergarten is a school in English.
Kindergarten.
The next word that we took from German which is a fun word is doppelgänger.
And doppelgänger is translated as double-walker.
And this just means that you are talking about a person
that looks exactly like you do.
It is a spitting image of you.
It is your doppelgänger.
Now, it's not a common word that's used frequently.
It's only used in that situation when you want
to say, "Hey, you look like this person right here." is
It is your doppelgänger.
Now, for example, people say that my doppelgänger is Ryan Gosling.
It's just...It's like we're brothers.
We look exactly the same.
Okay.
Nobody's told me I look like Ryan Gosling.
But I have been told I look like Dennis the Menace, which is an old American cartoon.
I don't see the resemblance, but maybe you do.
The next German word is one of my favorites because it kind of describes me.
And it is wanderlust.
And the word has the same meaning in both languages.
Wanderlust is just somebody who travels around
and wants to travel around and learn and explore.
Somebody has wanderlust.
Just thinking about it makes me want to pick up and go.
Finally, I want to talk to you about a few words that
English has taken from Spanish.
And the first word is aficionado.
And aficionado is a person who is a fan of something.
And it's not really just a fan.
It is a true fan.
This person has a real passion in this thing or this topic.
And they have a lot of knowledge and information about it, and that makes them an aficionado.
It's more than just a regular fan.
So for example, I am an aficionado of...
Gosh. What am I an aficionado of?
So you can think about something that you really love
and enjoy, and know a lot about it.
And then you could say you are an aficionado.
The next word that we've taken from Spanish is macho.
Now this word is used to describe somebody
who is strong, and masculine, and very manly.
We say that they are macho.
I think it was a lot more common maybe thirty years ago
mostly because there was a famous disco song about it.
Nowadays it's not as common, but people might use it
to describe a guy who's trying to be very manly
and act very strong and impress somebody.
And I don't necessarily think it's a good word.
If somebody...usually if you say somebody's macho, they're trying to pretend to be strong.
And it's not really a compliment
Another word that we have taken from Spanish is siesta.
And this just means to take a nap.
Now, I definitely think this is more common in American English.
And it's one that we've started using a lot more recently.
So instead of saying take a nap, you can say take a siesta.
Who doesn't like taking siestas?
So I hope you enjoyed this lesson on English loanwords.
If you did, give the video a thumbs up.
And now I want to hear from you.
So in the comments, I want you to write any other language
English words, that you know of, that have been taken from another langauge.
Write the word. Tell us which language it comes from.
Or maybe there is a word in your native language
that was taken from English.
You can share that with us as well.
It's always great to hear from you guys, and in this case
it's great to share this information because we can learn
so much more about languages.
Thanks for watching, and we will see you next time.