22 Foreign Words in Daily English: Are they from your language?

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from  SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  

Do you recognize these words? Let's talk about it.  

This morning, I was sitting on my patio,  enjoying my chai latte and yogurt with granola  

for breakfast, I'm a connoisseur of chai lattes  and this one was perfect. I was so gung-ho to do  

the daily Sudoku that I knocked over my chai latte  and spilled it all over my pajamas. What a klutz.  

If you understood all this lingo kudos to you,  if you didn't, no worries. Today, I'm going to  

help explain 22 foreign words in English. If you  speak one of these languages. Well, you're in luck  

because English takes a lot of words from other  languages and uses them in daily conversation.  

These words are loaned or borrowed or directly  taken from other languages. So if there is a word  

from your native language that is used in English,  well, great. You already know how to use this word  

and you could use it in English. Sometimes the meaning of words is  

slightly different in English. And always the  pronunciation is more English like, but overall,  

if one of these words comes from your native  language, you're going to know how to use it.  

And if none of these words comes from your native  language, I challenge you to let me know in the  

comments a word from your native language that we  use in English. All right, let's get started. The  

first three words from other languages that we use  in daily conversation in English are from Spanish.  

Our first one is the word patio. Notice that the  pronunciation of this word is the T changes to a D  

sound pad, patio. This is very common in American  English when there is a T surrounded by vowels,  

that T changes to a D, patio. A patio is an  outdoor area that's usually with some cement or  

stones. There might be a table there for eating  and it's connected in some way with a walkway  

or maybe directly connected to your house. So we can use this word like this.  

I like to eat my breakfast on the patio,  or we were sitting on the patio enjoying  

the beautiful weather. Patio. Sometimes when  you're on the patio, you hear, bzzz, it's a  

terrible sound, right? This is a mosquito. Notice  the pronunciation mosquito. Again, that final T  

is changing to a D sound. Mosquito. Mosquito is  that really annoying buzzing insect that bites you  

and then, well, technically probably not bites  you, but it attacks you and then you itch. Oh,  

it's really annoying. Well, we use this word often  in daily conversation because they're everywhere  

in the warm weather. So you could say, "I love to  go camping, but the mosquitoes always eat me up."  

Or you might say, "Don't forget the bug spray  because the mosquitoes are really bad today."  

I hope mosquitoes are not bad where you live.  The third Spanish word that we use in daily  

conversation in English is savvy. Notice that this word has two V's,  

this is very unusual in English. But  it's taken from Spanish, so there we go.  

Savvy. Savvy means that you have some practical  knowledge or maybe you have an ability to make  

good judgments or good choices. Let's take a  look at these sentences. I lack mechanical savvy,  

so if I have trouble with my car, I ask my dad  for help. Here we're talking about that practical  

knowledge about cars. I lack this knowledge.  I don't have practical knowledge about cars.  

I lack mechanical savvy, or I'm not savvy about  cars, so I ask my dad for help. Or you could say,  

"People who are financially savvy, make good  accountants." People who are financially savvy,  

they have this practical knowledge and they  can make good judgments about finances,  

about money. They are financially savvy.  All right, let's go to our next language. 

Italian. The next three words come from Italian,  but we use them in daily conversation in English.  

The first word is paparazzi. Paparazzi. These are  the people who pursue celebrities or famous people  

and take pictures of them while they're walking  their children to school, or while they're at  

the grocery store. I think this would be  very annoying if you were a celebrity,  

maybe it's what you sign up for, I don't know,  but these people are the paparazzi, so we can  

use it in this way. The celebrity went out in a  disguise so that the paparazzi wouldn't find her.  

She had to go out in a disguise, like a mask  or big hat, or somehow change her appearance,  

or you could say, "I'm so glad that I'm not  famous and the paparazzi don't follow me."  

I'm so glad that the paparazzi don't follow me. For me, even though there are almost 3 million of  

you on YouTube who are subscribed to this channel,  never once has a stranger said, "Oh, you're  

Vanessa, hi." That has never happened before. I  think everyone is spread out around the world,  

so I don't have a problem with paparazzi. This  is very nice. But if you follow my channel  

and you happen to see me, please, don't be worried  to say hello. Yes, you can say hello to me.  

I'm just a normal person. So if you see me by  accident somewhere, feel free to say hello.  

But so far, this has never happened to me.  Our next Italian word in English is cartoon.  

Cartoon. And this is either a drawing or a motion  animated set of drawings. A famous technique  

would be Walt Disney. Walt Disney is famous  for his cartoon drawings or his cartoon style. 

Or you might say, "Sometimes the news is  just too serious, so I turn on cartoons  

instead." We use this to talk about the category  of TV show that is animated. Something like this,  

like a classic one is Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny is a  cartoon and when I was a kid, on Saturday morning,  

I would watch some Bugs Bunny cartoons. Our  final Italian word today that is used in English  

is latte. Latte. Notice how this word, if you  are Italian, you've noticed this word is sounding  

English, it's not sounding very Italian anymore,  but when you go to a coffee shop and you say,  

"I'd like to order a latte," they will know  exactly what you mean, because this is an espresso  

drink with some steamed milk. Or if you don't like  coffee like me, you might get a chai latte and  

this is steamed milk with a tea mixture, a spiced  tea mixture. There's no espresso, but it's that  

idea of steamed milk plus some caffeine stimulant. So we can use it in these sentences. My husband  

usually drinks his coffee black. This means no  milk, no sugar, but sometimes he makes a latte  

or I was feeling a really sleepy, so I stopped  into the cafe and got a latte. Our next three  

foreign words that are used in English are from  Turkish. The Turkish language. Our first word is  

yogurt. This food has now become pretty common all  around the world. And it is a milk based food that  

is mixed with some bacteria and it makes it thick  and really tasty in my opinion. So you could say,  

"In the morning, I like to add some berries and  nuts to my yogurt to have a healthy breakfast,"  

or "I learned how to make yogurt at home."  This is true. I tried to make yogurt, but  

Turkish students, I need your help. It's always  too liquidy and not so thick and it took so much  

effort and so much time and so much milk that I  could buy good quality yogurt at the grocery store  

for much cheaper. And it's so much easier,  

but I would love to make good quality  yogurt at home. I just need a little help.  

Our next Turkish word in English is kiosk. Kiosk.  We use this word when we're talking about a small  

booth or stand where you can buy something. These  are often in a shopping mall or in an airport,  

this type of big shopping type of situation. So  we could use these sentences. I went to the kiosk  

to buy a ticket for the train. This might be just  a machine, or it could be a booth where someone is  

working, but it's this idea of a small area where  you are purchasing something. Or you could say, "I  

used the kiosk to check-in early for my flight."  In this situation at the airport, it's almost  

always a machine. You just put your passport in  and it prints out your ticket for you, you don't  

have to wait in line. It's the fast way to check  in for a flight and this is an automated kiosk. 

So if you go to the airport and there's a sign  that says, "Use the kiosk for fast check-in,"  

now you know what that is. And even if you  are not Turkish, you know what this word is.  

I think I might have said that there were  three Turkish words. Actually, there is just  

two in this lesson, so let's go on to our next  language. The next three words come from French.  

The first word is genre. Genre. This pronunciation  is very English, but that's how we say it, genre,  

and it means the style of literature or movie  or film or music. There might be a horror film,  

there might be a mystery film or a romantic  film. These are the different categories or  

the different genres of film. So for me, my  favorite genre of literature is historical  

fiction. This is the category, or in my opinion,  the romantic film genre is usually pretty cheesy.  

This means stereotypical, maybe not so interesting  in my opinion, but everyone has their own opinion. 

Our next French word that we use in English is a  big one. Entrepreneur. I get a lot of questions  

asking, "Vanessa, how can I pronounce this word?"  And even though I broke down this word in another  

English lesson that I made called 106 Difficult  Words in English, you can watch it up here.  

I will give you a little sneak preview. Let's  break down this word. Entrepreneur, entrepreneur,  

entrepreneur, entrepreneur. And this means  someone who has their own business, who works  

for themselves. So for me, I don't like having  a boss, so I decided to become an entrepreneur.  

Or you might say, "With the internet, it's  easy to become an entrepreneur. You could  

do a craft, you could paint something and sell it  online. Boom, you are an entrepreneur. You have  

your own business." Our next French word that we  use in English is connoisseur. Notice the English  

pronunciation here, connoisseur, connoisseur. And it means someone who can judge  

something based on an expert taste. They are  an expert and they know a lot about a field.  

So a common way to use this is to talk  about a wine connoisseur. So we might say,  

"The wine connoisseur ordered the  most expensive wine on the menu."  

Okay, they want the highest quality because they  can tell the difference. For me, if I drink a $15  

bottle of wine compared to a $200 bottle of wine,  I probably don't know the difference because I  

am not a wine connoisseur. But if you are a wine  connoisseur, you probably can tell the difference.  

But instead of being a wine connoisseur, we might  say, "I am a connoisseur for fresh water." This  

seems very strange, but it's true. Let me tell  you a little story. Whenever I go on vacation  

the one thing that I usually miss the most  about home is really fresh, clear tasting water. 

It's totally safe to drink tap water in the  U.S., tap water just comes from the sink.  

Usually, totally fine to drink that,  but I really have a refined taste  

for fresh water. And when we lived in our old  apartment, I would walk to the grocery store  

three or four times a week with big glass  jars and I would refill those jars with  

some fresh filtered water. The water was from a  tap at the grocery store. They sold this really  

cheaply and it was fresh and I could fill up my  containers and take them home. And this is what we  

drank for several years until we had children and  then we bought a filter for under our sink that's  

reverse osmosis, it's really fancy. And this is  something that is important to me. I love to drink  

fresh, clean, filtered water, and I can really  taste the difference. If I don't have this type  

of water for one week, I can really taste  the difference in my body and in my mouth. 

So we might say, "I am a fresh water connoisseur."  All right, our next two foreign words used in  

English are from Chinese. And the first one is  ketchup. Ketchup. You might know ketchup, this is  

a sauce with tomatoes and the stereotype is that  we dip some French fries in ketchup, but this word  

originated in Chinese, I actually listened to a  interesting podcast about the origin of ketchup.  

Seems very strange to be a podcast topic. But if  you're interested, I highly recommend Googling  

the origin of ketchup. In fact, the first ketchup  had no tomatoes. Ooh, very interesting. All right,  

so we can use this word like this. I watched in  horror as my friend covered her expensive steak  

in ketchup. Oh no. Or you could say, "I  like to dip my french fries in ketchup  

and mustard." Very common thing. Our next Chinese  word that's used in daily conversation in English  

is one that you actually heard at the beginning  of this lesson and that is a fun one, gung-ho. 

Gung-ho. In English, this means that you  are really enthusiastic and excited about  

something. So we could say, "My very organized  friend was gung-ho about organizing my closet."  

So organizing my closet is not something that  is important to me, but my friend loves to  

be organized. So when she saw my closet, she  said, "Oh, I really want to organize this. Oh,  

please, can I organize your closet? This looks so  great. What a good project." She is gung-ho about  

organizing my closet. But we can also use this in  a negative sense. This is true for me. I was not  

gung-ho about preparing my taxes and filing all  of the documents at the beginning of this year. I  

was not gung-ho. I was not enthusiastic. I was not  eager or excited. I was not gung-ho. Our next two  

foreign words that are used in English are from  Japanese. The first one is Sudoku. Maybe you have  

done one of these types of puzzles before. They're  logic number type puzzles. And we might say that,  

"On a long flight, it's nice to do Sudoku." You can bring a little booklet. Maybe you  

could even do it on your phone and  you can keep your mind active in this  

simple but effective way, by doing Sudoku. Some  people even say that doing Sudoku puzzles are a  

good way to keep your brain active and healthy. So  as we get older, it's good to do little tasks like  

this in order to keep our mind active. The next  Japanese word that we use in English is tycoon.  

Notice this is not typhoon. Typhoon is a type of  storm, but a tycoon is a wealthy, powerful person.  

So you might say that Elon Musk has become a  tycoon in the space industry. This was something  

that 50 years ago might have been shocking that  an individual could become a tycoon in space,  

in the space industry, but that's what's happened.  He is a tycoon, a wealthy, powerful person in  

that industry. Or you could say, "That the oil  tycoon used his money to help other people." 

Maybe he started a charity or he donated some  money, but this is someone who's wealthy and  

powerful in the oil industry. The oil tycoon. The  next two foreign words that are commonly used in  

English are from Hindi or Urdu. The first one is  loot. Loot. This is some kind of goods or item,  

usually it's personal property that's taken by an  enemy. We can use this in a more serious sense or  

we can use this in a lighthearted way. But in the  serious sense, we could say that the soldiers took  

some loot when they invaded the city. So they took  some private property when they invaded the city.  

But in a lighthearted way, we might say that, "On  Halloween, I looted my son's Halloween candy."  

So in this case, I am invading my son's Halloween  candy and I'm stealing some maybe when he's  

sleeping or something like that. But we use this  to talk about taking someone else's thing. But in  

this situation, it's a joke, it's lighthearted. I took my son's Halloween loot. That's a noun,  

or as a verb, I looted my son's Halloween  candy. The next word is pajamas. Pajamas  

are clothes that are comfortable and you wear  them at night or lounging around the house.  

So you might say, "Since the pandemic began, we  all have been wearing pajamas much more often."  

Or you can say, "I was so tired that I forgot  to put on my pajamas before falling asleep." In  

English, we sometimes reduce the word pajamas to  PJ's. So for me, that's what I say. I say, "I'm  

going to put on my PJ's." And sometimes for little  kids, we say jammies, this is only in reference to  

clothes that little babies wear to bed, or maybe  little kids wear to bed. We might say, "It's  

time to take off your jammies and put on your  normal clothes." For me, this isn't a word that  

I use, but I know a lot of parents use the word  jammies. So it is pretty common in the U.S. 

The next two foreign words that are  commonly used in English are from  

Yiddish. Yiddish. And the first one is glitch.  Glitch. The word glitch is a sudden, but temporary  

problem or malfunction in some type of machine.  So we might say, "My computer had a glitch and it  

suddenly shut down." Well, maybe the next time you  turn on your computer, it's going to work fine.  

And you're going to wonder what happened. Oh,  no, is that going to happen again? But it was  

just a temporary malfunction in your computer.  Or we could say, "Because of the website glitch,  

I was able to receive a special discount." In  fact, this was true for me. There was some strange  

website glitch when I was booking our wedding  location when my husband and I got married.  

They were changing their website to  a new format and when I called them,  

they said one price and then when I looked on the  website, it said another price that was double. 

But when I asked them, which is the correct price,  they said, "Well, if we told you the cheaper  

price, then that's the price." So even though the  website showed a higher price, because there was  

this glitch, as they were updating their website,  we got to have that wedding location for half the  

price. So this was a glitch that worked out in our  favor. The next Yiddish word is klutz. I used this  

word earlier in my story at the beginning of  this lesson. A klutz is a clumsy person who is  

tripping all the time. So we might say, "My friend  is such a klutz. She falls up the stairs." This  

takes a special type of skill to fall up the  stairs instead of falling down the stairs.  

Or we could say, "The waiter was such a klutz  and dropped all of the drinks on my lap."  

Not a good situation. So the waiter was clumsy and  tripped and spilled all of the drinks on my lap. 

This is never a positive thing, it's always  used in a negative way. The next foreign word  

that we use in English comes from Portuguese. And  it's the word lingo. Lingo. Lingo is a specific  

type of vocabulary that different fields use.  So for example, in the English learning field,  

we often use words like the past perfect tense  or phrasal verbs. And if you're learning English,  

maybe you're familiar with that type of lingo.  But if you an American on the street, "Tell  

me about the past perfect tense," or, "Oh, you  used a nice phrasal verb." They'll probably say,  

"What?" Because they're not familiar with that  type of lingo in the field of learning English as  

a second language. So maybe your field at work has  a similar type of lingo. If you're an engineer who  

works on, for example, on engines, car engines,  well, you have specific types of vocabulary that  

you use in that field and other people are  not really going to understand it easily. 

So we might say, "Once I learned some mechanical  lingo, I was able to describe my car problem to  

the mechanic." This is the specific vocabulary  about cars. And if you would like to increase  

your mechanical lingo about cars, I made this  video up here about 100 car vocabulary words.  

These are words that are used in everyday  English. They're not super technical,  

but if you need to describe a problem about your  car, or you just want to learn more vocabulary,  

I highly recommend checking it out. Another way  we can use the word lingo is to give some advice.  

We might say it's best to avoid lingo  when talking to people outside your field.  

So if you are a professional skier, for  example, or you're just really into skiing,  

there's probably some specific lingo about the  skis, the poles, the movements, the different  

terms related to skiing. And for me, I have never  been skiing on snow, so I know nothing about this. 

If you told me about skiing in a very  technical way, my eyes would glaze over  

and I would probably be lost very quickly in  that conversation because I'm not familiar  

with the lingo in that sphere or in that field.  Our final two words from a foreign language that  

are used in English come from Greek. This ancient  language, Greek. The first word is anonymous.  

This is a nice long word, but you can pronounce  it nice and clearly with me, anonymous, anonymous.  

And this means that we don't know who did it. It's  unknown. So you might say, "The poem is famous,  

but the author is anonymous." We don't know  who said it or who wrote it. Or you could say,  

"An anonymous person left a nice note on my car."  An anonymous person, so it's an unknown person.  

I don't know who it is, but they wrote a note  and put it on my car. An anonymous person. 

The final word in this lesson and our second  word that is taken from the Greek language and  

used often in English is kudos. Kudos. Kudos is a  praise or achievement for doing well. So we might  

say, "My boss gave me kudos for my presentation."  He's not physically giving me something, but he  

says, "Great work. I'm so glad that you organized  this. It was very clear. That was really helpful."  

He is praising you for your presentation.  He is giving you kudos. We sometimes use the  

word kudos directly in exchange with the word  congratulations. So we might say, "Kudos to the  

team that won the championship. Congratulations  to the team that won the championship," or,  

"Kudos to the team that won the championship."  So how did you do? Did you know these 22  

common foreign words that are used in English? Please don't let this lingo intimidate you.  

With practice and a gung-ho attitude,  you will feel less like a klutz  

and more like a linguistically savvy genius,  worthy of all the kudos. I hope that this lesson  

was useful to you. If I missed your language, let  me know in the comments a word in English that is  

from your language. I would love to learn more  and we can learn from each other. Well, thank  

you so much for learning English with me, and  I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson  

here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is  to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming  

A Confident English Speaker. You'll learn what  you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.  

Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel  for more free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.