Little Friends

4 February 20264 February 2026 By Simon

In Mandarin Chinese, one word for a child or children is 小朋友 (xiǎopéngyǒu), which means literally ‘little friend’. It’s generally used by adults to address children.

My god-daughters, Isla & Mia

The other day when talking about my experiences in China, I translated 小朋友 from Chinese into French as petits amis, which means boyfriends. I was talking about children, and didn’t realise I’d said something unusual until my friends looked at me strangely, and asked if that’s what I really meant. I assured them I was talking about enfants (children) and not petits amis.

Other ways to refer to children in Mandarin include:

孩子 (háizi) = child
小孩子 (háitóng) = child
儿童 (értóng) = child
孩童 (háitóng) = child
小儿 (xiǎo’ér) = young child
少儿 (shào’ér) = child
娃娃 (wáwa) = baby, small child, doll

Source: https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary

Words for older sister – 妹妹 (mèimei), younger sister – 姐姐 (jiějie), older brother – 哥哥 (gēge) and younger brother – 弟弟 (dìdi) – can also be used to refer to children in Mandarin.

Other ways to refer to a child in French include:

bambin = toddler
bout de chou, bout d’chou, boutchou = sweet little thing, little one, little tot
chérubin = cherub
fils = son
fille = daughter
galopin = urchin, scamp, brat, ragamuffin
gamin = kid, street urchin, street kid (dated)
marmot = kid, brat
minot = kid, lad

Source: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/enfant#fr

Have you mistranslated terms like I did?

Are there interesting words for child(ren) you know in French or other languages?

Ideophones

28 January 2026 By Simon

What does the word tututu make you think of?

It’s an ideophone from Bebe (Naami) a language spoken in parts of Cameroon, and to a speaker of Bebe, tututu suggests the sound of a grinding mill.

Other ideophones in Bebe include:

kpaŋkpaŋkpaŋ = the sound of a bell
gbaaaŋ = the sound of a door closed with force
waaa = the sound of a running water
ŋgɔɔɔŋ = the sound of a lion roaring
ŋaaaŋ = the sound of a baby crying

Source: Naami Orthography Guide, by Grace Tabah and Mkounga Tala Blaise

You can find out more about Bebe on Omniglot – this is a new page I added today, and finding out about the ideophones in this language inspired me to write this post.

An ideophone is a member of the class of words that depict sensory imagery or sensations, evoking ideas of action, sound, movement, color, or shape. They are also known as mimetics or expressives. Unlike onomatopoeic words, which imitate sounds, ideophones can also indicate action, state, intensity, smell, colour or manner. They are common in such languages as Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Yoruba and Zulu.

Here are some examples:

がぶがぶ (gabugabu) = gulping, guzzling, gulp gulp – Japanese
きびきび (kibikibi) = briskly – Japanese
しとしとと降る (shitoshito to furu) = to rain or snow quietly – Japanese
가물가물 (gamulgamul) = (light) fading away into the distance, moving away faintly, in a blurred manner – Korean
버글버글 (beogeulbeogeul) = boilingly while spreading in all directions; bubblingly while spreading in all directions – Korean
꽁냥꽁냥 (kkongnyangkkongnyang) = lovey-dovey – Korean
படபட (paṭapaṭa) = fluttering – Tamil
புசுபுசு (pucupucu) = soft and bushy, fluffy – Tamil
விறுவிறு (viṟuviṟu) = energetically, lively, spicy – Tamil
khazimula = shining brightly – Zulu
qaqa = bursting – Zulu
jabula = happily – Zulu

Does your language have ideophones, or anything similar? Do you have any interesting examples?

For more information about ideophones see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideophone
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Korean_ideophones
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_onomatopoeias

Outside Aliens

15 January 202621 January 2026 By Simon

As a non-Chinese person in China, a word you’ll hear quite a bit is 外国人 (wàiguórén), which means foreigner, foreign national or alien. Some people like pointing out any foreigners they see, and they might say or shout 外国人 at them, assuming they won’t understand.

Me in front of the Old City Wall in Zhaoqing / 我在肇庆古城墙前

外国人 [外國人] (wàiguórén) could be translated literally as “outside country person” or “foreign nation person”. A slang version is 歪果仁 (wāiguǒrén) which literally means something like “slanted fruit benevolence” or “askew results humaneness” [source].

When Chinese people look at me and say 外国人, I might reply by saying I’m not a 外国人 but rather a 外星人 (wàixīngrén), which means space alien or extraterrestrial. This often gets a smile or laugh. Or I might point that to me they are the 外国人.

When I worked in Taiwan, I was officially an alien as I had an Alien Registration Card, which I found quite amusing.

外国人 is a formal and polite to refer to a non-Chinese national, and seems to be used particularly to refer to people who don’t look Chinese or Asian. Other ways to do so include:

老外 (lǎowài / lou5 ngoi6) – “old foreign” – this is an informal, slang term for foreigners, particularly foreigners of non-East Asian ethnicities, and is used throughout China in Mandarin and Cantonese. It is seen as offensive or rude by some [source]. It can also mean a layman or amateur, and in Cantonese it can refer to a father-in-law, specifically a wife’s father [source].
鬼佬 (gwai2 lou2) – “ghost man”, “devil person” – used in Cantonese and Eastern Min to refer to a foreigner, particularly a white Westerner. It is considered derogatory [source].
洋人 (yángrén) – “ocean / foreign person” – refers to a foreigner, especially a westerner or Caucasian. Used in some varieties of Mandarin, Gan, Hakka, Jin, Wu and Xiang [source]
外宾 [外賓] (wàibīn) – “foreign guest” [source].
国际友人 [國際友人] (guójì yǒurén) – “international friend”.
外国朋友 [外國朋友] (wàiguó péngyou) – “foreign friend”.

In China, people who were not born in the area they live are known as 外地人 (wàidìrén – stranger, outsider, non-local, out-of-towner) by local people. I met quite a few such people in Zhaoqing [source].

In the few days I’ve been in Hong Kong, I’ve seen more 外國人 than I did in 6 weeks in Zhaoqing. There, it’s rare to spot a 外国人 in the wild. Here, they’re more common. Today, for example, I heard 外國人 speaking English, French, German, Dutch, Russian and other languages I didn’t recognise. There were quite a few at Victoria Peak, which I visited today.

A view from Victoria Peak (太平山), Hong Kong

In Japanese, 外国人 (gaikokujin) is used to refer to a foreigner, an alien, a foreign national or a person who is not Japanese [source].

The informal version, 外人 (gaijin), is used specifically for foreigners of European ancestry, and used to mean any outsider, or an estranged or unfamiliar person. After Japan opened up to the outside world in the 1850s, 外人 started to be used to refer to foreigners, especially foreigners in Japan. It is considered negative and pejorative by some these days [source]. It can also refer to ethnically Japanese people who have grown up outside Japan and are not Japanese citizens [source].

One Another

7 January 20267 January 2026 By Simon

The other day I came accross the word 彼此 (bǐcǐ) in one of my Chinese lessons. It means each other or one another, and while I’d seen both characters before, I hadn’t seen them together like this.

Illustration of the Chinese and Japanese word 彼此

There is also the idiom 彼此彼此 (bǐcǐbǐcǐ) in Chinese, which means you and me both or that makes two of us [source].

彼 (bǐ) on it’s one means that, there or those in Mandarin Chinese [source].

I’m more familiar the character 彼 in the Japanese words like 彼 (kare – he, him or boyfriend) and 彼女 (kanojo – she, her, girlfriend), 彼ら (karera – they, them) and 彼氏 (kareshi – boyfriend, he, him)

彼 can also appear in Japanese words like:

彼 (are) = that (thing / person / time / place)
彼の (ano) = that, those, the – usually written あの
彼処 (asoko) = there, over there, that place, yonder, you-know-where, private parts, that far, that much – usually written あそこ
彼方 (achira) = that way, that direction, over there, yonder, that (one / person), foreign country (esp. a Western one) – usually written あちら
彼方此方 (achikochi) = here and there, various places, all around, all over, everywhere, throughout, muddled, confused, back to front – usually written あちこち
彼是 (arekore) = this and that, one thing or another, this way and that, around about, roughly, nearly, almost – usually written あれこれ, can also be written 彼此

Source: https://jisho.org/

此 (cǐ) on it’s one means this or these in Mandarin Chinese [source].

In Japanese 此 can appear in words such as:

此れ (kore) = this (one / person) now, this time, here – usually written これ
此の (kono)= this, last, these, parts この
此方 (kochira) = this way, this direction, here, this (one) – usually written こちら
此処 (koko) = here, this place, this point, here, now – usually written ここ
此奴 (koistsu) = he, she, this fellow, this guy, this person, hey you! – usually written こいつ

Source: https://jisho.org/

I’ve seen some of these words written with kanji in subtitles for songs online, perhaps to save space on the screen.

When I first started learning Japanese, I tried to learn all the rarely-used kanji like this, and wanted to know the kanji for every Japanese word, if they existed. I’ve since forgotten a lot of them, but the Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese lessons I’ve been working on recently have helped.

When I try to read texts in Chinese or Japanese, I can usually understand enough to get some idea of what they mean. However, there are often characters I’ve forgotten, or haven’t learnt yet, which can be frustrating. Fortunately, I can usually find them in a dictionary or translation app on my phone, or I can ask someone.

Quick Brown Foxes

30 December 202530 December 2025 By Simon

A pangram, or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence that includes every letter used to write a particular language at least once. The best-known example in English is “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”.

Illustration of the pangram 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog'

This pangram has been used used since at least the late 19th century. Telegraph companies such as Western Union used it to test the accuracy and reliabilty of their equipment, and these days, pangrams are used to display typefaces in computers, and for other programs.

An even more difficult challenge is to construct a short pangram using – that is, one that contains as few letters as possible.

Here are some examples:

Quick nymph bugs vex fjord waltz (27 letters)
Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex (28 letters)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow (29 letters)
How quickly daft jumping zebras vex (30 letters)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly (31 letters)
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs (32 letters)

A perfect pangram is one that contains each letter of the alphabet once. here are some examples:

Blowzy night-frumps vex’d Jack Q
Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx
Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz

The Finnish word Törkylempijävongahdus, which means “a whinge of a sleazy lover”, is an example of a short pangram in one word. It contain all the letters of Finnish alphabet used to write Finnish words, but not the ones used to write words borrowed from other languages.

Are there similar examples in any other languages?

Another kind of pangram is a phonetic pangram, that is, one that contains all the phonemes of a particular language. Here’s one for English sent in by Murray Callahan, who inspired this post:

That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he has foiled you again, creating chaos.

Can you come up with any others for English or other languages?

Sources and information about pangrams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangram

https://clagnut.com/blog/2380/

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pangram

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/385085/is-there-such-a-thing-as-pangram-for-phonemes

Beware your shoes!

25 December 202525 December 2025 By Simon

Here are a few more signs I spotted recently that have ‘interesting’ English versions.

Sign on escalator

I saw this sign on an escalator in the local college campus. If you want to use this escalator, you have to hold the child and the pet, and if you haven’t got them, just borrow or hire them.

The use of handcarts is banned. Handcart is a translation of 手推车 (shǒutuīchē), which, based on the picture, refers to pushchairs, baby buggies, strollers, or whatever you call them. It can also mean trolley, cart, barrow, handcart or wheelbarrow, and literally means “hand push vehicle”. Other translations of pushchair / stroller include 推车 (tuīchē) and 童车 (tóngchē).

You have to watch your sreps to keep safe while waking in the mall, and you must keep your children from plating or running.

Here’s another sign from a different escalator.

Sign on escalator

Here you must hold the child’s hand, carry he pet in your arms, hold the handrail and beware your shoes. The use of carts is banned, the bulky item is forbidden in, and you should not play, slapstick, climb or look at the phone. Most people seem to look at their phones all the time, so the last one is asking a bit much, perhaps.

Rather than slapstick, 打闹 (dǎnào) could also be translated as to quarrel, squabble, be rowdy, play boisterously, or engage in horseplay. So no rowdy or boisterous playing, squabbling or quarrelling with horses on the escalator.

Sign on escalator

This sign, in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, forbids you from striding. A better translation might be “No Climbing on/over the fence”. Are the Japanese and Korean versions well-translated?

Here’s a sign I spotted on a litter bin / trash can:

Sign on litter bin

If you have any disposable tableware, old pottery (who carries old pottery around with them?), pericarp skins or the dust, you can dispose of it/them here. I’ve no idea where ‘pericarp’ came from – a better translation of 果皮 (guǒpí) would be ‘fruit peel’, and 瓜壳 (guāké) would be better translated as ‘melon rind’.

Merry Christmas, by the way, if that’s something you celebrate.

Oceanic Lutes

10 December 202525 December 2025 By Simon

My mandolin

When looking for the names of various instruments in Chinese, as you do, I came across 洋琵琶 (yángpípá) for mandolin. 洋 (yáng) means ocean, sea, foreign or western, and the 琵琶 (pípá) is a traditional Chinese string instrument described by the MDBG Chinese dictionary as a ‘guitar-like instrument’. So it’s a ‘foreign pipa’ in Chinese [source].

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the pipa (see above) it as a ‘short-necked Chinese lute’ that originated in Western Asia, and has been known in China since the 2nd Century AD. Apparently the Chinese name comes from the way it’s played: pí originally meant to pluck in a forward motion, and pá meant to pluck in a backward motion. Different characters with the same sounds were later chosen for the instrument’s name [source].

Chinese Pipa

The word 洋 (yáng) also appears in

洋葱 (yángcōng) = onion, or ‘foreign scallion / green onion’
洋气 (yángqì) = Western style, foreign style, trendy, fashionable, or ‘foreign steam / vapour’
洋葱 (yángcù) = potato, or ‘foreign taro’

Another Chinese word that appears in various instrument names is 琴 (qín), which on its own refers to a type of long zither with seven strings, plucked with the fingers, also known as a 古琴 (gǔqín). The 琴 (qín) is also translated as a Chinese lute or guitar [source].

Other types of 琴 (qín) include:

钢琴 [鋼琴] (gāngqín) = piano, or ‘steel qin’.
风琴 [風琴] (fēngqín) = organ, or ‘wind qin’.
口琴 (kǒuqín) = mouth organ, harmonica, or ‘mouth qin’.
竖琴 [竪琴] (shùqín) = (Western-style harp). or ‘vertical qin’.
小提琴 (xiǎotíqínqín) = violin, or ‘small hand-held qin’.
中提琴 (zhōngtíqín) = viola, or ‘medium-sized hand-held qin’.
大提琴 (dàtíqín) = cello, or ‘big hand-held qin’.
低音大提琴 (dīyīn(dà)tíqín) = double bass or ‘low sound (big) hand-held qin’.
班卓琴 (bānzhuóqín) = banjo, or ‘banjo qin’ – the Chinese characters sound similiar to the word banjo

I think it’s interesting that in Chinese, non-Chinese instruments and other things are referred to as variants on traditional Chinese instruments, etc, while in English, Chinese instruments are referred to as versions of ‘Western’ instruments like guitars, lutes and zithers.

Sylvan Forests

23 October 202523 October 2025 By Simon

When is a forest not a forest?

In modern English, the word forest [ˈfɒɹɪst / ˈfɔɹəst] means:

A dense uncultivated tract of trees and undergrowth, larger than woods.
Any dense collection or amount – e.g. a forest of criticism

Historically it referred to ‘defined area of land set aside in England as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use’, and didn’t necessarily contain trees.

It comes from Middle English forest (forest, wood, a preserve for hunting exclusive to royalty), from Old French forest (royal hunting ground, forest), from Early Medieval Latin forestis (a large area reserved for the use of the King or nobility, often a forest and often for hunting or fishing, forest), from Proto-West-Germanic *furhisti (forest), from *furhiþi (forest, woodland) and *hursti (thicket, wood, grove, nest) [source].

*furhiþi (forest) comes from *furhu (fir, pine), from Proto-Germanic *furhō (fir, pine, forest [of fir or pine trees]), from Proto-Indo-European *pérkus (oak), from *perkʷ- (oak) [source].

Words from the same roots include pērkons (thunder) in Latvian, perkūnas (sound of thunder, god of thunder) in Lithuanian, perth (bush, hedge) in Welsh, quercia (oak) in Italian, forêt (forest) in French, vorst (copse, grove, woodland) in Dutch, fjör (vitality, energy, fun, life) in Icelandic, and cork, fir and farm in English [source].

*hursti (thicket, wood, grove, nest) comes from Proto-Germanic *hurstiz, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷr̥s-ti-s, from *kʷres- [source].

Words from the same roots include hirst (a barren, unproductive piece of ground, usually a hillock, knoll or ridge) in Scots, horst (an elevated land overgrown with shrub) in Dutch, Horst (the nest of a bird of prey, eyrie, bush, thicket, small forest) in German, and hurst (wood, grove – found mainly in place names such as Sissinghurst) in English [source].

The Irish word crann (tree, mast), the Welsh word pren (timber, wood, tree), and related words in other Celtic languages also come from the same roots, via Proto-Celtic *kʷresnom (tree, wood) [source].

In Middle English, the word wode was used to refer to a living tree, a group of trees, a grove, a copse, a wood, a forest, wood, etc. As a verb, it meant to hunt, to take to the woods, or to hide oneself in the woods, and a wodeward was a forester or forest warden.

Wode comes from Old English wudu / ᚹᚢᛞᚢ (wood, forest, woods, tree), from Proto-Germanic *widuz (wood, tree, forest), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰ-u-s [source].

Words from the same roots include wood in English, viður (trees or brambles, forest, wood, timber) in Icelandic, viita (a thicket of young deciduous trees) in Finnish, gwedhen (tree) in Cornish, gwezenn (tree) in Breton, and fiodh (wood, timber) in Scottish Gaelic [source].

Another forest-related word in English is sylvan, which means pertaining to the forest or woodlands, residing in a forest or wood, wooded, or covered in forest.

Related words include silviculture (forestry – the care and development of forests in order to obtain a product or provide a benefit), silvology (the scientific study of forests), and names such as Syliva, Transylvania (“across the forest”), Spotsylvania and Pennsylvania (“woodland of William Penn”).

It comes from Medieval Latin sylvanus, from Latin silvanus, from silva (forest), from Proto-Indo-European *s(w)el- (beam, board, frame, threshold) [source]. Words from the same roots include selva (forest, wood, mass, multitude) in Italian, selva (jungle, woods, forest) in Portuguese, and silva (bramble, blackberry bush) in Galician [source].

String Phones

16 October 202516 October 2025 By Simon

In many languages, words for telephone are some variation of telephone, but in some, such as Swahili, the word for phone is completely different – simu. Let’s find out where it comes from and what other words are related to it.

The Swahili word simu means telephone, telephone message, telegraph or telegram. Some related words include:

simu ya mkono(ni) / simu za rununu = mobile phone
simu maizi = smartphone
kibanda cha simu = telephone booth / box
kitabu cha simu = telephone book
piga simu = to make a call, to phone

It comes from Omani Arabic سيم (sīm – telegram), from Persian سیم (sim – wire, string, cord; silver, wealth, money [poetic]), from Middle Persian (ʾ)sym /⁠ (a)sēm (silver), from Old Persian 𐎿𐎡𐎹𐎶𐎶 (siyamam⁠ – silver), from Ancient Greek ἄσημον (ásēmon – silverware), from ἄσημος (ásēmos – unmarked, unintelligible, indistinct, silver) from ἄσημος, from σῆμα (sêma – mark, sign, token), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰyéh₂mn̥, from *dʰeyh₂- (to perceive, to see) [source].

Words from the same PIE roots include semaphore, semantic in English, semáforo (traffic light, semaphore) in Spanish, σημασία (simasía – meaning, sense, significance) in Greek, sim (string, wire, lead) in Azerbaijani, אסימון (asimón – token) in Hebrew, and сым (sym – wire) in Kazakh [source].

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented a device he called the telephone, which he described as an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically”. This was the first use of the word telephone to refer to the telephone we know today. Before then, it had been used to refer to other similar devices [source].

The English word telephone was borrowed from French téléphone (telephone), which comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε (têle – afar) and φωνή (phōnḗ – voice, sound) [source].

Other languages that do not use some version of the word telephone include:

Armenian: հեռախոս (heṙaxos) – from եռա- (heṙa – far) and խոսել (xosel – to speak)
Breton: pellgomz – from pell (far) and komz (to speak, talk)
Chinese: 电话 [電話] (diànhuà) – from 电 [電] (diàn – lightning, electric power, energy, electricity) and 话 [話] (huà – speech, talk, words) – borrowed from Japanese 電話 (denwa – telephone, phone call)
Finnish: puhelin – from puhella (to chatter)
Icelandic: sími – from síma (cord, rope)

Incidentally, the similarity between the Icelandic word sími and the Swahili word simu is entirely coincidental, and they are not related.

Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/telephone#Translations

Gluten Glue

8 October 20258 October 2025 By Simon

Did you know that the words glue and gluten are related to each other, and to the word clay?

Glue [ɡluː] is:

A hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance.
Anything that binds two things or people together.
A viscid secretion on the surface of certain plants.

It comes from Middle English glew [ɡliu̯] (glue, birdlime, tar, resin), from Old French glu (glue, birdlime), from Late Latin glūs, from Latin glūten (glue), from Proto-Italic *gloiten, from Proto-Indo-European *glóh₁ytn̥, from *gleyH- (to smear, to stick, glue, putty) [source].

Gluten [ˈɡluːtən / ˈɡluːtn̩] is:

The major protein in cereal grains, especially wheat; responsible for the elasticity in dough and the structure in baked bread.

It comes from Middle French gluten, from Latin glūten (glue), etc. [source].

Clay [kleɪ] is:

A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.

It comes from Middle English cley, from Old English clǣġ (clay), from Proto-West Germanic *klaij (clay), from Proto-Germanic *klajjaz (clay), from Proto-Indo-European *gloy-(y)ó-s, from *gleyH- (to smear, to stick, glue, putty) [source].

So they all come from the same PIE root. Other words from that root include glynu (to stick, adhere, settle) in Welsh, klína (to smear) in Icelandic, glina (clay, loam) in Polish, liiv (sand) in Estonian, klei (clay) in Dutch [source].

Omniglot Blog

Adventures in the world of words and language

Category: Words and phrases

Little Friends

Ideophones

Outside Aliens

One Another

Quick Brown Foxes

Beware your shoes!

Oceanic Lutes

Sylvan Forests

String Phones

Gluten Glue