Top Ten Thursday - Vocabulary

Welcome to Top Ten Thursday!

Today we're talking about top ten words or phrases we know in a different language. 

As a Swiss person I grew up speaking Swiss German and later High German at school. I was learning French, Italian, English and Spanish, the cursive ones were voluntary. The order is chronological. Back then we started learning French when we were 12, Italian at 13, English as 14 year olds, and I only started Spanish in college, so at 16. 

With Italian and Spanish being similar, it was obvious that words were going to get mixed up. Also our Spanish teacher was a strict Euro Spaniard, and she insisted we pronounce a c like the British English th, even if we felt ss as pronounced in South America was much cooler: Barsselona vs Barthelona, what do you think?

Anyway. Spanish was the hardest for me, so the only phrases I still master fluently are #1 and 2:

1. No tengo dinero, I have no money - mainly because of the 1983 Righeira song
2. Tengo mucho trabajo, I have a lot of work, that's what I kept telling the office cleaning lady when she told me to leave, I was in her way when she started working at 8pm)
3. Glida גלידה means ice cream in Hebrew. My Mom grew up in Israel, and this is one of the few words I know. Tutim are strawberries, and miz is juice.
4. Groda is frog in Swedish. No, contrary to some people's "knowledge" Swiss is not the same thing as Swedish. I had a college friend whose mom spent a year nannying in Sweden, and she taught us a couple of words. This one has stuck with me.
5. Balladeur is the French word for a walkman. The French insist to invent and use French words for things that everybody else just calls by their original English name. 
6. Other examples are ordinateur for computer, écran for screen, and le menu rapide for fast food.
7. Porca miseria is a swear word in Italian. It literally means miserable pig, but it pretty much stands for damn.
8. Sahne and Obers stand for cream. Even though German is my mother tongue, as you go to Germany or Austria, many times they use different words than we do. In Switzerland we call cream Rahm. Here's another one: Marillenmarmelade is Austrian for apricot jam, Aprikosenconfiture in Switzerland.
9. Obrigado is thank you in Portuguese. 
10. Domo arigato どうもありがとう is thank you very much in Japanese, well dome Styx, for teaching me that one: Mr Roboto.

What exotic words or phrases do you know? How did you learn them? Please tell me down in the comments section or link up your own post using the link-tool.

What's up next Thursday, June 1st? We'll post our top ten random everyday pictures and comment them. You may just go around and snap them, or you think of a time of day or theme, use your imagination! Link up here.

The week after that, June 8 we'll list ten reasons that make our favourite place on earth so special. Thank you for unintentionally bringing up that prompt, Lissa @ Rainswept! Here's the linkup.

PS: The picture at the very top of this post was part of a series of games I organised last weekend.