Listo - Bitte

Who didn't learn in grade school about the "30 different words for snow" that don't exist in your language.

But how often have you been awed by a language for the words that it doesn't offer? 

Here's a tribute to the beauty in simplicity. Why not have fewer words and let those words have multiple meanings?

For example: the distinction between "loan" and "borrow" is superfluous. In Spanish and German the word is the same (ES: prestar, DE: leihen). You just have to ask "Can you loan me..." instead of "Can I borrow..." and wuddyaknow one word less in the dictionary. 

Another example: I never understood why German has two different words for neck: Hals (the front) and Nacken (the nape). It deprives the neck of its right to be a complete whole, the beam that supports the head. This is not only superfluous differentiation but muddling differentiation.

Having fewer words allows words to bring ideas together that belong together. 

The word ensayo in Spanish, for example, doesn't just mean "essay", but practice (e.g. band practice), training and trial (as in "ensayo y error"). If only I had known that while struggling over my ensayos in grade school. No sweat, kid, it's just practice.

I also like that chico in Spanish means both "little" and "child".

Copyright Goethe Institute Chicago                

Take this to an extreme and you get what Mark Twain called "exceedingly useful words". For example, Zug in German. I quote:

"Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition."

Indeed, he asserts: "That thing which it does not mean, when all its legitimate pennants [prefixes and sufixes] have been hung on, has not been discovered yet."

There is a special category of exceedinly useful words that should be the first thing covered in any foreign language curriculum. They allow for immediate and meaningful interaction with native speakers. 

Take the Spanish word listo, for example. 

The following could be a legitimate conversation:

A: Listo?
B: Listo. 
A: Listo.
B: Listo. 
A: Listo?
B: Listo. 

It means: 

A: What do you think? 
B: Great idea. 
A: Alright.
B: Let's do it.
A: Ready? 
B: Ready. 

Incidentally listo also means clever.