Weird and wonderful vocabulary from around the world

[Kire]

How come only German has a word for 'a person who leaves without paying the bill' (Zechpreller) or that Albanians need 27 words for moustache? A compelling new book uncovers the globe's most weird, wonderful - and meaningful - words. John Walsh picks his favourites

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article315207.ece

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Some of my favorites from Japanese:

tobokeru: to play dumb

ijikeru: to act as if you have a poor self-image

ibaru: the opposite of ijikeru, i.e. act as if you think you're really hot

kudoi: both long-winded and boring

oshii: an adjective used to describe "the (person/opportunity) that got away."

samugariya: a person who feels cold all the time

awatemono: a person who gets all panicky over nothing

shitsukoi: annoyingly persistent

shibui: the feeling that you get in your mouth when you eat an unripe persimmon

bareru: to have one's shameful secret found out

[LynzM]

2. Those are great!

:rofl: shibui: the feeling that you get in your mouth when you eat an unripe persimmon

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Yeah, it's words like that which have

kept me interested in Japanese all these years.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Here are some more from Japanese:

arigatameiwaku: a problem that you're glad to have because it comes as a side effect of a greater benefit. Example: You're just gotten a job after a year of being unemployed. The fact that you now have to get up at 5:30 every morning is "arigatameiwaku."

kanchigai: misreading someone else's intentions

ochiru: to fall from a height

taoreru: to fall over from a standing position

korobu: to stumble and fall

neboke: the groggy, incoherent state that people are in when awakened from a deep sleep

[Kellanved]

4. German also has a word with 8 consonants in a row

Angstschweiß, meaning "cold sweat". :hi:

[LynzM]

5. Germans are so great with the stringing words together....

:hi: back atcha!

Studying engineering in German, I came across some pretty absurd lengths of words!

And of course, there's always der Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitaensmuetzen... :rofl:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Or my tenth grade teacher's favorite

Kinderbettkopfkissenanzug, which is the pillow case for a child's crib.

[LynzM]

8. LOL, nice one!

And much more likely to ever be used in a real conversation! :rofl: