What is a word that you (or someone you know) thought that exists in English, but actually doesn’t. Like Germans saying “handy” for a mobile phone or Spaniards calling jogging “footing” while speaking English.
September 13, 2025
Thought of this because I just used the word "logish" in English. In Estonian it's just a different way to say logical (the actual word being "loogiline"). Just in case I googled it and turns out that no – it's not a thing in English.
41 comments
Oh “handy” exists in English… but it’s not for cellphones lol
In Italy “smart working” became extremely popular during the pandemic. Even now, people will say “I am doing/I am in smart”. It means work from home or remote work.
I don’t know how it became a thing when it doesn’t exist in English. My best guess is that they wanted to just “make it sound cool”
The best known ones are Touringcar (coach), oldtimer (classic car) and Beamer (projector).
Germans have a lot of those. My personal favorite is calling watching something with a crowd of people (usually sports) “public viewing”. And a few years ago, when fanny packs came back into fashion, I saw at least two large retailers advertise them as “body bags”.
Logisch is German and Dutch, so right language family wrong language.
Beamer for Digital Projector isn’t a thing among native English speakers but very common here. Instead if a British person talks about a Beamer its a BMW.
In Dutch, a beamer is a device that “beams” the laptop screen on a big screen on the wall.
I am yet to find a translation for *protestilista*. No, it’s not “protest list”. It is a record of unpaid corporate (intercompany) debts, published by newspapers. And when filing one, the instrument for doing so, *tratta*, is not “tract”, even though it comes from the same word. And it’s not a “letter of protest” either, those tend to be purely political, not related to corporate finances. Apparently the whole damn thing doesn’t exist in the English-speaking world, and corporations don’t have the risk of ending up on the infamous *protestilista* for not paying their bills.
Saying smokings for suits
“Video clip” is the *Greek* term for a “music video”.
Nostalgy.
Nostalgia doesn’t even look like an English word.
“Chilled” (e.g. for a person, instead of “chill”)
“Hello together” (not a word, but a phrase, Germans use because it’s a direct translation from “Hallo zusammen,” which is a common greeting at meetings, etc).
~~”funnily”~~ (edit: apparently this is actually legit, and everyone around me my entire life, including teachers, were saying the incorrect version — “funny enough”)
No idea but the Icelandic word for phone is phonetically semen. My wife’s Icelandic, I understand more than most but that has always made me laugh a little.
In Sweden we have after work (AW) which means go out with your collegues after work to have some beers.
I always forget that ‘wimper’ (= eyelash) isn’t a word in English. It just sounds like something that could very well be the same word between Dutch and English. Especially since most other body parts have very similar names between the two languages.
Economy class in an airplane is called “monkey class” in Danish – though not by the airline companies, obviously.
The most common, I think is the answer to “thank you”, a lot of Greeks will respond “it’s nothing” or plain “nothing”.
A coworker (cashier) had always said *”blip”* instead of “touch” for bankcards (verb and noun), until I corrected her.
But we also have a couple of pseudo-anglicism terms, like:
* *after-ski* meaning après-ski.
* *after-work* meaning going with coworkers to the pub, or other event, after work.
* *chicken-race* for a game of chicken, especially for a race with two cars going head-on towards each other at speed, where the one who yields first loses.
* EDIT: [Wiktionary](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swedish_pseudo-loans_from_English) has more examples.
‘Touristic’ is in the dictionary, but native speakers very rarely use it; they instead use ‘touristy’ or compound nouns such as ‘tourist attraction’.
‘Touristic’ is popular among European second language speakers of English because it’s cognate with French *touristique*, Spanish *turistico*, German *touristisch*, etc.
German here.
We also have Beamer for a projector to plug your laptop in for presentations and such. They can be mobile or installed in a room.
From sport:
(El) mister = the manager in a few languages.
Basket = basketball
Foot = football
Padel = Paddle = paddle ball
And
(Un) Parking = car park/parking lot
In Lithuania all 4×4 vehicles are called Jeep, *džipas*.
Similarly, in the nineties all heavy trucks (trailer trucks, dump trucks) were called Kamaz, because that was the russian brand that manufactured them. A lot of other brands showed up after we regained independence in 1991 but the name stuck for another decade or two.
Now they’re commonly called *fūros*, which is a loan word from German fahren, fuhre.
Greeks call the TV remote controller, computer.
Footing = jogging and afterwork = drinking with colleagues too here!
Camping = campsite
Jogging = sweatpants
Baskets = sneakers
In french une basket means a sneaker or generic sporty shoe.. like they are all basketball shoes apparently even if there for other sports. I’ve literally heard people say bring your “baskets de tennis” for tennis shoes.
I’m sure a lot of people are not aware it’s not a thing in english.
Footing is also used in French to say jogging
a “pendrive” in hungarian means a usb stick
Lot of Poles say “eventually” instead of “alternatively”, as it’s “ewentualnie” in Polish.
We used to say «overhead» for «overhead projector» when that was a thing.
What we call in french a “camping car” is called a camper van in english ; we also have “footing” for jogging (though both can be said), and “jogging” for sweatpants lol
In Norway, we also call recliner chairs «stressless», which is really a brand name for a type of recliner.
«Pocket» = paper-back book.
There’s a “Polish” word for an USB drive which is *pendrive*. Spelt like English, said like English. Except, no one actually says that in English
Okay so uhh, funny story here
The act of making your jacket waterproof is apparently **NOT** called “impregnating it”
Which I realized shortly after saying it, based on the receivers reaction when I *tried* to convey something other than that my jacket is now awaiting birth
A lot of Dutch people have told me that “donnot” (means “do not”) is an English word. He to pull out the Oxford English Dictionary to prove them wrong.
A Finnish man told me not to accept drugs in the local park because there were a lot of “civil suits.” He meant “plainclothes police.” Not quite a new word, but I thought it was very inventive!
Bungee jumping is “puenting” in Spanish (bridging≈).
There’s so many words that are close in German and English, I remember feeling when I started learning German that English speakers would be able to figure out what I was saying Auf Deutsch…
Calling a parking lot just “parking”.
funniest one i’ve heard was a french coworker saying “assist” when they meant “attend” meetings
they’d proudly say “i assisted five conferences last year” and everyone thought they were volunteering instead of just showing up
language false friends are brutal but they make for the best stories
Germans have this thing called dogging.
It is VERY different to what Brits call dogging.
Scotland has the locally famous “outwith” for outside. It’s understood, but rarely used in England.
41 comments
Oh “handy” exists in English… but it’s not for cellphones lol
In Italy “smart working” became extremely popular during the pandemic. Even now, people will say “I am doing/I am in smart”. It means work from home or remote work.
I don’t know how it became a thing when it doesn’t exist in English. My best guess is that they wanted to just “make it sound cool”
The best known ones are Touringcar (coach), oldtimer (classic car) and Beamer (projector).
Germans have a lot of those. My personal favorite is calling watching something with a crowd of people (usually sports) “public viewing”. And a few years ago, when fanny packs came back into fashion, I saw at least two large retailers advertise them as “body bags”.
Logisch is German and Dutch, so right language family wrong language.
Beamer for Digital Projector isn’t a thing among native English speakers but very common here. Instead if a British person talks about a Beamer its a BMW.
In Dutch, a beamer is a device that “beams” the laptop screen on a big screen on the wall.
I am yet to find a translation for *protestilista*. No, it’s not “protest list”. It is a record of unpaid corporate (intercompany) debts, published by newspapers. And when filing one, the instrument for doing so, *tratta*, is not “tract”, even though it comes from the same word. And it’s not a “letter of protest” either, those tend to be purely political, not related to corporate finances. Apparently the whole damn thing doesn’t exist in the English-speaking world, and corporations don’t have the risk of ending up on the infamous *protestilista* for not paying their bills.
Saying smokings for suits
“Video clip” is the *Greek* term for a “music video”.
Nostalgy.
Nostalgia doesn’t even look like an English word.
“Chilled” (e.g. for a person, instead of “chill”)
“Hello together” (not a word, but a phrase, Germans use because it’s a direct translation from “Hallo zusammen,” which is a common greeting at meetings, etc).
~~”funnily”~~ (edit: apparently this is actually legit, and everyone around me my entire life, including teachers, were saying the incorrect version — “funny enough”)
No idea but the Icelandic word for phone is phonetically semen. My wife’s Icelandic, I understand more than most but that has always made me laugh a little.
In Sweden we have after work (AW) which means go out with your collegues after work to have some beers.
I always forget that ‘wimper’ (= eyelash) isn’t a word in English. It just sounds like something that could very well be the same word between Dutch and English. Especially since most other body parts have very similar names between the two languages.
Not really what you’re asking for, but in the early years of transformation, when anything sounding roughly western was a premium, we had a juice/soft drink brand called “Dick Black”… [I shit you not](https://www.logotypes101.com/logos/797/7D2F6685B59E448265310D351966D87D/Dick_Black.png)
In Danish, a “babylift” is a carrycot.
A “speedmarker” is a permanent marker.
A “cottoncoat” is a long coat.
A “butterfly” is a bowtie.
Economy class in an airplane is called “monkey class” in Danish – though not by the airline companies, obviously.
The most common, I think is the answer to “thank you”, a lot of Greeks will respond “it’s nothing” or plain “nothing”.
A coworker (cashier) had always said *”blip”* instead of “touch” for bankcards (verb and noun), until I corrected her.
But we also have a couple of pseudo-anglicism terms, like:
* *after-ski* meaning après-ski.
* *after-work* meaning going with coworkers to the pub, or other event, after work.
* *chicken-race* for a game of chicken, especially for a race with two cars going head-on towards each other at speed, where the one who yields first loses.
* EDIT: [Wiktionary](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swedish_pseudo-loans_from_English) has more examples.
‘Touristic’ is in the dictionary, but native speakers very rarely use it; they instead use ‘touristy’ or compound nouns such as ‘tourist attraction’.
‘Touristic’ is popular among European second language speakers of English because it’s cognate with French *touristique*, Spanish *turistico*, German *touristisch*, etc.
German here.
We also have Beamer for a projector to plug your laptop in for presentations and such. They can be mobile or installed in a room.
From sport:
(El) mister = the manager in a few languages.
Basket = basketball
Foot = football
Padel = Paddle = paddle ball
And
(Un) Parking = car park/parking lot
In Lithuania all 4×4 vehicles are called Jeep, *džipas*.
Similarly, in the nineties all heavy trucks (trailer trucks, dump trucks) were called Kamaz, because that was the russian brand that manufactured them. A lot of other brands showed up after we regained independence in 1991 but the name stuck for another decade or two.
Now they’re commonly called *fūros*, which is a loan word from German fahren, fuhre.
Greeks call the TV remote controller, computer.
Footing = jogging and afterwork = drinking with colleagues too here!
Camping = campsite
Jogging = sweatpants
Baskets = sneakers
In french une basket means a sneaker or generic sporty shoe.. like they are all basketball shoes apparently even if there for other sports. I’ve literally heard people say bring your “baskets de tennis” for tennis shoes.
I’m sure a lot of people are not aware it’s not a thing in english.
Footing is also used in French to say jogging
a “pendrive” in hungarian means a usb stick
Lot of Poles say “eventually” instead of “alternatively”, as it’s “ewentualnie” in Polish.
We used to say «overhead» for «overhead projector» when that was a thing.
What we call in french a “camping car” is called a camper van in english ; we also have “footing” for jogging (though both can be said), and “jogging” for sweatpants lol
In Norway, we also call recliner chairs «stressless», which is really a brand name for a type of recliner.
«Pocket» = paper-back book.
There’s a “Polish” word for an USB drive which is *pendrive*. Spelt like English, said like English. Except, no one actually says that in English
Okay so uhh, funny story here
The act of making your jacket waterproof is apparently **NOT** called “impregnating it”
Which I realized shortly after saying it, based on the receivers reaction when I *tried* to convey something other than that my jacket is now awaiting birth
A lot of Dutch people have told me that “donnot” (means “do not”) is an English word. He to pull out the Oxford English Dictionary to prove them wrong.
A Finnish man told me not to accept drugs in the local park because there were a lot of “civil suits.” He meant “plainclothes police.” Not quite a new word, but I thought it was very inventive!
Bungee jumping is “puenting” in Spanish (bridging≈).
There’s so many words that are close in German and English, I remember feeling when I started learning German that English speakers would be able to figure out what I was saying Auf Deutsch…
Calling a parking lot just “parking”.
funniest one i’ve heard was a french coworker saying “assist” when they meant “attend” meetings
they’d proudly say “i assisted five conferences last year” and everyone thought they were volunteering instead of just showing up
language false friends are brutal but they make for the best stories
Germans have this thing called dogging.
It is VERY different to what Brits call dogging.
Scotland has the locally famous “outwith” for outside. It’s understood, but rarely used in England.