My little… cabbage? Terms of endearment from around the world
As Valentine’s Day is slowly creeping up on us, it’s time to learn how some of the other cultures express their love for one another. Some of them are sweet, some of them are funny but definitely all of them are very interesting to discover and-who knows?- maybe some of you can even apply them in day-to-day life if your partner comes from a different culture to yours. That would be a nice Valentine’s Day surprise.
Researching for this article was definitely fun, given that the idea started when a couple of us were having lunch together and decided to have a multicultural brainstorm about what we call our significant other.
Mostly, terms of endearment are pet-names or nicknames that we give to our loved ones (lovers, partners, friends, family) and they symbolise intimacy and closeness between two people. They are used in private or in specific situations but research has shown that they do not reveal the true relationship between two people.
It was interesting to find that some cultures (such as the Dutch) tend to have more of an abstract humour while the Spanish or Italian ones (generally considered the ‘romantic’ ones) have simpler or more straightforward expressions.
The French like to associate their loved ones with food and call them ‘petit chou’ which is the equivalent of ‘sweetheart’ and means ‘little cabbage’. Another interesting one from the French is ‘ma puce’ which means ‘my flea’ and it is considered to come from historic times when removing fleas from one another was a pleasant and sometimes intimate private process.
Staying in the area of food-related pet-names, ‘chuchuzinho’ is what you would call your love in Brazilian or Portuguese. In its original form, ‘chuchu’, it means squash, and the ending ‘zinho’ makes it a diminutive which emphasizes fondness.
In the Japanese culture, it is considered very attractive when women have an oval, egg-shaped face and that is why one popular term is ‘tamago gata no kao’, which means ‘an egg with eyes’.
So we’ve had vegetables and eggs, now it’s time for some fruits – in Indonesian, ‘buah hatiku’ means ‘the fruit of my heart’ and it can be used for lovers but it is more often used for children nowadays.
If you’re more conservative and you prefer the classics, you may have in common more than you think with the Spaniards– ‘cariño’ (honey), ‘mi amor’ (my love), ‘corazón’ (sweetheart), ‘guapo/guapa’ (handsome/beautiful), or the more intense version, ‘mi vida’ (my life). Italians tend to stay in the normal boundaries as well with pet-names like ‘amore’ (love), ‘tesoro’ (darling), ‘cuore mio’ (my heart).
While some cultures choose to associate loved ones with delicious food or sweet words, others give them names inspired by wildlife. For example, in Arabic, the image of a beautiful woman is often associated with gazelles and so, a man may say to a woman ‘Laki uyounul ghazal’ (you have the eyes of a gazelle).
Perhaps the most interesting one is the expression the Chinese use to show their loved one how much they mean to them. ‘Chen yu luo yan’ means ‘diving fish swooping geese’ and it is said to come from an old story that talked about the greatest beauty in Chinese history , a woman named Xi Shi. It is said that she was so beautiful that the fish in the pond forgot to swim when looking at her so they dived to the bottom. Likewise, it is said that the geese that flew over another great beauty called Wang Zhaojun were so struck by her beauty that they would forget to flap their wings and would end up swooping to the ground. Considering this, when a Chinese person wants to express his love for another, they say ‘Chen yu luo yan’.
In Russia, they associate the person they love with the delicate dove, calling you ‘golubchik’ (голубчик) if you are a man, or ‘golubushka’ (голубушка) if you are a woman, both meaning ‘little dove’.
Germans tend to have quirky and cute phrases like ‘Schnuckiputzi’ (cutie-pie), ‘Zuckerschnäutzchen’ (sugar–lips) and the cutest one, ‘Knutschipuh’ (smootchie-poo).
They produce it, consume it and love it. Dutch people go as far as calling their women their favorite candy dropje (liquorice). Nationalism or tradition? They also use ‘Mijn poepie’ – a quirky Dutch term for ‘my little poop’.
How do you call your loved one? Maybe it’s a classical one or something that has meaning for the two of you – let us know in the comments. Or perhaps you’ve heard some unusual ones during your travel – we’d love to hear about that too!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Japanoises (How things sound in Japanese)
Have you ever wondered how to make the sound of a typewriter in Japanese? Or how to describe the noise a cat makes?
Well, wonder no more. We present to you – Japanoises! (Yes, we were so excited that we made up a word.)
Which one’s your favourite?
Other Japanese sounds that almost made it into our top ten – ‘Doki-doki’, which is the sound of an anxious heartbeat, and ‘Chokon’, which is, literally, the sound of silence.
How do you describe these sounds in your language?
Like this? Please share it with friends! Let’s get #Japanoises trending… 😉
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Which language are you learning? The results!
We had a great response to our recent language learning survey; thank you to everyone who took the time to complete it. First things first: we’re delighted to announce that the winner of the iPad mini prize draw is Konstantia Sakellariou. Congratulations, Konstantia – your iPad is on its way!
We wanted also to share a few of our findings with you. Some of the results from the survey were as we expected, others were quite surprising. Here are just a few of the things you had to tell us. Thanks again for all your thoughtful responses, we’ll put them to good use.
Which language(s) are you learning (or would like to learn)?
The first question was pretty straightforward. A couple of people ticked every language on offer (over 100) – now that’s what we call ambition! – but most chose between 1 and 5. Here are the top ten most popular languages: 
Other popular choices included Greek, Swedish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Irish, Polish and Icelandic. We also got some requests for languages we don’t yet offer, like Guernésiais and Twi – we’ll do our best to add those languages to our list, so watch this space!
Why are you learning a language?
Next, we wanted to know why you’re learning a language. Nearly half of the respondents chose travel as a reason, and almost as many said they were learning a language just for fun. 36% of respondents said it was for family reasons or for a relationship, and 27% for work. The results were quite evenly split though, showing that there’s no one overwhelming reason – everyone has their own motivation. 
Among the other reasons, we had a range of answers, including an interest in the culture of the language, personal challenge and wanting to follow literature, film and music in other languages. Many people are living in another country, which was their main motivation for learning the local language. And one person said that their heart asked for the knowledge, which we loved 🙂
What prevents you from learning a language?
We were also interested to know what stops people from learning a language, so we asked you to rate the following reasons out of 5. The most common barrier to learning is a lack of time, followed by not having found the right method, and then the cost involved. 
Incidentally, if you’re facing any of these barriers, you may like to check out our recent posts, on finding time to learn a language and learning on a budget. And if you’re looking for resources, did you know you can try out the EuroTalk learning method for free? Either visit our website, or download our free app, uTalk for iOS, to give it a go. We believe learning a language should be fun, because our research shows we learn much better if we’re enjoying ourselves, and this in turn makes it a lot easier to overcome the obstacles that get in the way. See what you think! Other answers included not having an opportunity to use the language, a lack of motivation and difficulty finding resources for the particular language they wanted to learn (we may be able to help there – we’ve got 136 languages and counting…).
How have you used your language when travelling?
Finally, we asked how knowing another language has been useful when you’re travelling. There was no clear winner here, which just goes to show knowing a language is always useful! But the top response was that it gives you the ability to talk to locals in their own language; many people added that they felt more welcome as a result and that it gave them independence so they could make the most of their trip. There were lots of practical reasons too, with getting around and eating out narrowly beating shopping in the poll.
If you missed out on the survey this time, don’t worry – we’re planning another one soon, so keep an eye on the blog (you can subscribe by email above to get the latest updates), or follow us on Facebook or Twitter. And if you didn’t answer this survey but would still like to have your say on any of the questions, you’re very welcome to email us or add your thoughts in the comments below.
Liz
Data above based on 877 survey responses.
Goal! around the world [Infographic]
Sometimes one word is all you need… With the World Cup getting underway today, here’s how each national team says that all-important word, ‘goal’.
You can find this and lots more in our language learning app, uTalk – available to download and start learning right now from the App Store. So whether you’re watching the football at home or away, you’ll always be prepared.
(There are lots of non-football related words in there too, for those of us with other interests!)
Please do share the infographic with friends and tell us how you’ll be shouting ‘Goal!’ this World Cup 🙂
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A history of languages in the USA
Last week, a report was published using a series of maps to show the distribution of languages besides English and Spanish in the USA. We thought it was really interesting to see the huge number of languages spoken in one country; it’s easy to assume one country means one (or maybe two) languages.
Here’s a fantastic infographic shared with us by FreePeopleSearch.org, which looks in more detail at the history, distribution and usage of languages in the USA. We hope you find it as interesting as we do!
