Test your vocab knowledge in a foreign language

[Viktor77]

I've realized lately just how much vocabulary one has to acquire if one wishes to become fluent in a second language. So I thought it would be interesting to post a diagram of some common but obscure vocabulary items and see if you can name them in a second language you've learned. You can also feel free to do this in your native language. I chose this image because 1) ideally you should know all of this vocabulary in your native language and 2) even though farming methods are not universal, farming is pretty universal and most languages should have unique names for these items (unlike say the inside of a computer where vocabulary might be borrowed from a few major languages). Obviously you may not use any dictionaries or online aides, just your mind!

I understand full well that this does nothing more than test if you learned obscure vocabulary in a foreign language, but it does show the breadth of vocabulary a language contains since these are not super common nor super specific items and a native speaker would ideally be able to identify them without being interested in agriculture in particular.

For 2 you can give the name of the item as a combination or both parts. 6 is one item with 2 images, there should be no difference between them. 9 and 10 are not meant to be some specific type of this tool, just the general tool. Some of these items might have multiple names but very few of them should.

I advise you to hide your answers. You can put guesses then color them red if they were incorrect.

[Viktor77]

My attempt in French:

More: show

1.
2.
3. Un piochet Une pioche
4.
5.
6. Une cognée Une hache
7.
8. Un arrosoir
9.
10. Une épelle
11.
12. Tendeur de gazon ? Une tendeuse

[Xephyr]

Why are they all gardening tools? I think variety of items would be more on point.

[Viktor77]

Why are they all gardening tools? I think variety of items would be more on point.

Yes well you can offer up an image but all the good ones had STOCKPHOTO written across them so this is what I found and besides these are all gardening tools that native speakers should know easily.

[Xephyr]

Yes well you can offer up an image

Alright, I'll try:

More: show

[Nortaneous]

ah yes, a lawnmower is a farm tool

[Yaali Annar]

Yes well you can offer up an image

Alright, I'll try:

More: show

A: Tang
B: Corong
C: We don't have a word for that
D: Gada
E: Mata
F: Jagung
G: Busa
H: Hati Yahudi
I: Cakar.

[Imralu]

My attempt at all of them in German and English. My English is not much better than my German according to this. I've just realised what 3 is, but I'm leaving my answer.

More: show

1. die Karre
2. der (Garten)schlauch
3. der Bodenhacker [??]
4. die (Garten)schere
5. das unnötig große Messer [??]
6. die Axten / die Beile (I think Beile are smaller but I can't remember)
7. die Heugabel
8. die Gießkanne
9. der Rechen
(In the north "die Harke" or "der Harken" or something, also cognate with rake)
10. der Spaten (can't remember if the plural has an Umlaut, but I think it does)
11. der andere Bodenhacker (-s, -) [??]

1. wheelbarrow
2. hose
3. ice pick? WTF? [??]
4. garden shears / pruning shears / secateurs? [?]
5. sabre? sickle? scythe? [??]
6. axes (singular is "axe")
7. pitchfork
8. watering can
9. rake
10. spade
11. hoe

A. der Schraubenschlüssel
B. die Trichter
C. der Hefter, der Tacker
(there's a longer word I forget)
D. der Auaschläger [????] Maybe 'die Keule' but that's just a club.
E. das Auge, die Wimpern, der Make-Up
F. die Wabe [?]
G. der Schaum
H. der Sechseck
I. der Vogelfuß, die Krallen

A. spanner
B. funnel
C. stapler
D. mace
E. eye, eyelashes, make up
F. honeycomb
G. foam
H. hexagon
I. bird foot, talons

[Viktor77]

More: show

Ok, in French.

More: show

A. Une clé (Dictionary adds à molette or anglaise)
B. It might have tuyau in it but no idea Un entonnoir
C. Une agrafeuse
D. Un mêle (I doub't very much that that is correct) Une massue
E. Un œil
F. Du maïs
G. L'écume or la mousse
H. Un hexagone seems a logical guess
I. Une serre (une griffe is a claw but French of course has a specific word for a bird's claw....

[finlay]

Man, I don't even know half of those in English. Like, yeah sure if you want to get to post-C2 level and be able to effortlessly converse about anything, you'd wanna learn about farming tools, but I have zero interest in farming and gardening, so I'd only bother learning them if I had to. Also, fluent doesn't mean the same as proficient or having a good vocabulary - it just means that you can speak without excessive hesitation, which means that anyone B2 level and above is probably "fluent", but even then...

[Viktor77]

Man, I don't even know half of those in English. Like, yeah sure if you want to get to post-C2 level and be able to effortlessly converse about anything, you'd wanna learn about farming tools, but I have zero interest in farming and gardening, so I'd only bother learning them if I had to. Also, fluent doesn't mean the same as proficient or having a good vocabulary - it just means that you can speak without excessive hesitation, which means that anyone B2 level and above is probably "fluent", but even then...

Of course I understand. This is just to demonstrate the average vocabulary size of a native speaker, even in domains we don't care about, which is who we ultimately want to emulate as a foreign language learner. And we never used that system in the US, or at least none of the institutions I attended ever did (maybe Illinois does but I've never been tested by them, they test more by means of your MA exam and defense.).

[finlay]

what system?

[Viktor77]

what system?

C2, B2, etc. I am not well read on this system as I have never been exposed to it.

[hwhatting]

Ok, my attempt. Russian and English are languges I'm most fluent in, so it's a shame that I had to look up a lot of the words (red). German is my native languages, so this is for reference.

Russian
Xephyr's Pictures - got all of them except D (not an item I talk about often, and it turns out that the Russians just loaned the German word).

More: show

A ключ
B воронка
C стэплер
D моренгштерн
E глаз
F вафли
G пена
H шестиугольник
I когти

Farm / Gardening Tools - so I only knew 8 out of 12. I definitely do too little gardening in Russian.

More: show

1 тачка - huh, I only knew this as a slang word for car. So this is its basic meaning...
2 шланг
3 кирка
4 ножницы
5 секач
6 топор
7 вилка вилы - remebered it correctly only when looking it up
8 лейка
9 грабли
10 лопата - also means shovel; when checking. I also found the synonym заступ
11 Several words here: кирка, кайла мотыга - only the last one I've seen before
12 газонокосильщик

English
Checked Imralu's answers after writing this down. I didn't know tools 8 and 9, got 4 wrong, am glad that even a native speaker is unsure about 5, and wait - F is not the pastry I thought it was?

More: show

Xephyr's Pictures:
A wrench
B funnel
C stapler
D mace
E eye
F wafers ??
G foam
H hexagon
I claw, talon

Tools:
1 wheelbarrow
2 hose
3 pickaxe
4 (gardening) scissors
5 machete (?)
6 Axt
7 pitchfork
8 ??
9 ??
10 spade
11 hoe
12 lawnmower

German - and I still think that Xephyr's F is pastry. Xephyr, tell me that I'm right.

More: show

Xephyr
1 Schubkarre
2 Schlauch
3 Spitzhacke
4 Gartenschere / Heckenschere
5 Hackmesser / Machete (?)
6 axe
7 Forke
8 Gießkanne
9 Harke / Rechen
10 Spaten
11 Hacke
12 Rasenmäher

Tools
A Schraubenschlüssel
B Trichter
C Hefter / Tacker
D Morgenstern
E Auge
F Waffeln
G Schaum
H Sechseck
I Klaue, Krallen

[Xephyr]

They're corn cobs. Also, E is supposed to be "eyeliner" (or at least "makeup")-- not "eye", which I would presume is pretty basic vocabulary.

[hwhatting]

Some comments on Imralu's German (for the words themselves, see my list):

More: show

6. die Äxten / die Beile (I think Beile are smaller but I can't remember) - yes, that's correct
7. die Heugabel - also Forke
9. der Rechen
(In the north "die Harke" or "der Harken" or something, also cognate with rake) - yes; Harke is actually the word IMD (I'm Northern)
10. der Spaten (can't remember if the plural has an Umlaut, but I think it does) - no, it doesn't - die Spaten

B. der Trichter
C. der Hefter, der Tacker
(there's a longer word I forget) - Is there?
E. das Auge, die Wimpern, das Make-Up
F. die Wabe - yes, that's "honeycomb", but as we now know they're supposed to be Maiskolben (der M.; sg. and pl. are identical)
H. das Sechseck

[hwhatting]

They're corn cobs. Also, E is supposed to be "eyeliner" (or at least "makeup")-- not "eye", which I would presume is pretty basic vocabulary.

One can mix the simple with the sophisticated...

corn cob

More: show

Russian- поча́ток кукуру́зы - had to look it up, as I didn't know what "cob" was in Russian
German: Maiskolben

eyeliner

More: show

Russian: карандаш (для глаз) lit. "(eye) pencil"
German: Eyeliner (yep, it's a loan)

[Viktor77]

Can you do the organs of the human body in a foreign language? I took out a few that I thought were a bit tough to identify from this not so great drawing.

[linguoboy]

For my high school Spanish class, our teacher had us bring in a picture of the human body and label all the parts on it. Then we had a quiz where we had to list out all the terms we knew. I did very well on it, so I started making similar pictures for other languages I learned, but at some point I realised I wasn't really learning anything from them. Without context, these terms just don't stick for me.

[finlay]

Can you do the organs of the human body in a foreign language? I took out a few that I thought were a bit tough to identify from this not so great drawing.

That I probably can do to an extent

3. レバー
5. 十二指腸？
8. ちんこ、チンチン、ペニス
9. 金玉
12. 胃
14. 耳
15. 脳

or not

[finlay]

ok i checked some - some have multiple words which is confusing

1. 肺臓 haizou
2. 食道 shokudou shit that's oesophagus because i'm a tool 気管 kikan
3. レバー reba (meat)、肝臓 kanzou、肝 kimo
4. 大腸 daichou
5. 十二指腸 juunishichou (duodenum)？ 小腸 shouchou
6. 卵巣 ransou
7. 子宮 shikyuu、母体 botai、子袋 kobukuro (meat?)
8. ちんこ chinko、チンチン chinchin、ペニス penisu 男性器 danseiki、陰茎 inkei(my dictionary has a bunch of words marked "slang" as well as these) - also glans is 雁 (gan) apparently but I don't really need to know that.
9. 金玉 kintama 睾丸 kougan, 陰嚢 innou
10. 気泡 kihou、膀胱 boukou
11. 腎臓 jinzou
12. 胃 i, 胃腸 ichou、お腹 onaka (i did know this one tbh)
13. 心 kokoro、心臓 shinzou (it's downright embarrassing that i forgot this one)
14. 耳 mimi
15. 脳 nou, 脳髄 nouzui

and now to promptly forget them, seeing as i'm not training to be a goddamn doctor.

[Viktor77]

and now to promptly forget them, seeing as i'm not training to be a goddamn doctor.

No but if you go to the doctor and they tell you have an intestinal infection you might want to know what they're talking about. Or if they ask where it hurts, if you just point to the lower back they might not know you mean kidneys. Now as a native speaker of English I never needed to know say "pleura" but these ones are pretty common.

[Viktor77]

In French I took a stab at it:

More: show

1. Les pulmones Les poumons
2. Le trachéa? La trachée
3. Le foie (should've known that one from foie gras)
4. Knowing French probably La grosse intestine Le gros intestin
5. Then La petite intestine L'intestin grêle
6. Les ovaries? Les ovaires
7. L'utérus? Nailed it for a guess, also vagina=le vagin apparently (I'd have no reason to really know)
8. Le pénis formally, la bite, le teub (verlan)
9. Embarrassingly I don't know Les testicules, should've been obvious, Les couilles is vulgar, I knew that but forgot it
10. La vessie (this one was completely new to me)
11. Les reins
12. L'estomac Forgot Le ventre too
13. Le cœur
14. Les oreilles
15. Le cerveau

[Imralu]

Thanks Hwhatting!

Umlaut on Äxte? Gah, I thought it was one of the feminine -t nouns with just -en. I guess it's like Nacht. Also, funny that I didn't think of the English word "hatchet" as well, but thought of both Beil and Axt. Das Make-Up ... I feel like, if German's going to take English words ... please just take the the as well. I don't care if everyone pronouncs it /zə/, I will too. Why is it der Drink??

Also, no one actually knows what the hell that yellow thing is with the holes. I guess it does look like corn cobs ... but with all the corn kind of carefully taken out leaving holes.

Can you do the organs of the human body in a foreign language? I took out a few that I thought were a bit tough to identify from this not so great drawing.

More: show

German

More: show

Ohne Wörterbuch
1. die Lunge - die Lungen (Pl)
2. die Luftröhre (Atemröhre) [?]
3. die Leber
#? der Milz [der?]
4. der große Darm [? aus dem Englischen "gekalkt"]
5. der kleine Darm [? aus dem Englischen "gekalkt"]
6. der Eierstock - die Eierstöcke
7. die Gebärmutter, der Uterus
8. der Penis (der Schwanz, Rüssel ...)
9. der Hodensack (einzeln, der? Hoden ... sonst sage ich einfach Eier)
10. die Blase
11. die Niere - die Nieren (Pl)
12. der Magen ... anscheinend ohne Ausguss, also ein Blindmagen. *sterb*
13. das Herz
14. das Ohr - die Ohren
15. das (Ge)hirn ... haha, oder das Bregen

English

More: show

1. lung(s)
2. trachea, windpipe
3. liver
#? spleen
4. large intestine
5. small intestine
6. ovary, ovaries
7. uterus, womb
8. penis (dick, cock, schlong, wang ...)
9. scrotum, teste(s), testicle(s) (ballsack, balls ...)
10. bladder
11. kidney(s)
12. stomach
13. heart
14. ear(s)
15. brain ... my brain's name is Brian.

[finlay]

and now to promptly forget them, seeing as i'm not training to be a goddamn doctor.

No but if you go to the doctor and they tell you have an intestinal infection you might want to know what they're talking about. Or if they ask where it hurts, if you just point to the lower back they might not know you mean kidneys. Now as a native speaker of English I never needed to know say "pleura" but these ones are pretty common.

I tell you what I do in that situation: I find an English speaking doctor. Or if I really can't do that, I take my phone with a dictionary on it and/or do a lot of pointing to elicit the word from them. The need begets learning, not the other way round...