Funny. Today I learned that a “vasistas” in French, which originates from the German “was ist das,” meaning “what is this nonsense?”.. Reminded me of the origins of the words “kangaroo” and “sharamyzhniki”…
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/11/vasistas.html
Could you please provide the text you need translated? You mentioned an HTML format with a date but did not include the content to be translated.
In Brussels, Russian speech is hardly heard. Lots of Chinese, and of course, Germans, Dutch, and French. Americans. It reflects in a certain way
About 100,000 WWII veterans were still alive in Russia and about 500,000 in the USA as of 2017. These are people older than 85 years.
Oh, I highly recommend reading this. A colleague discusses how business operates in the USA, the text is about construction, but I would say “using construction as an example.” Very useful.
https://america.d3.ru/tri-porosenka-stroiat-dom-ili-populiarno-o-stroike-v-amerike-1416889/
Brussels just now.
Reading the brochure “Employee Code of Ethics” of the client, to whom I came here. The brochure is in French. It includes a phrase about the company taking action in case of law violation – in French, this is prendre des mesures. Literally, it translates directly. Came home to Google, wondering what measures (mesure) have to do with it. The word “measure” clearly relates to measuring, and prendre means to take. In English, there’s a similar phrase: to take measures. The internet doesn’t answer why measuring something means doing something to fix something. Maybe you know?
I recalled another interesting example, I wrote about it sometime. The word au lieu means “instead,” where au=at, and “leau” – place. Interestingly, in English, instead is built similarly (stead means “place,” which is related to stadt in German, meaning city). So, it’s a calque as well.
Became interested in the question of linguistic “calques” and found a few more. Have you ever thought that department literally means “parting,” and influence – where in = in, and fluence = flow. As for the word “переворот” (coup) – it’s a calque from revolution, as revolve means to turn. Also interesting is the word “трогательный” (touching) – translated as touchant. Actually, it arrived into Russian from there. les personnages les plus touchant 🙂
What amazes me most about Belgium is that it’s normal to know three languages. Everyone I interact with in the office is fluent in English, French, and Dutch, and I suspect they understand and can somewhat speak German as well. I haven’t met a single Belgian who couldn’t understand me in English and respond appropriately. Yes, sometimes there are those who don’t know it well enough, but for the most part, the educated people here effortlessly chatter in three languages.
Very cool.
This is from the Royal Museum of Arts in Brussels. It seems as though in the Middle Ages, artists competed for the title of being the most meticulous in rendering details. Here you have a painting by Bruegel with a million people, each face detailed; there you see the entire 17th-century Brussels as depicted by Jean Baptiste Bonnecroy. I’ve added to the painting with some close-up shots of the details.
Nowadays people post food on Instagram, but in the 17th century, they painted it for that purpose.
I won’t be surprised if they also wear diapers (not musicians)
