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Comment by tricolon | Hacker News Reader

I'd never seen the word "subvention" before. Today I learned it's another way to say "subsidy".

It's a europeanism. In both French and German (and probably other EU languages) the word for "subsidy" is something like "subvention" so native speakers of these language often reach for an unnatural word in English.

Btw other examples include "actually" which is used to mean "currently", and "eventually" which is used to mean "maybe".

Personally I'm torn whether to consider this incorrect use of the language as it is quite widespread. Maybe it would be better to consider this as the emergence of a new dialect.

You are correct.

I actually double checked the word "subvention" on google to see if I'm not misspelling it and the results said I was correct. But yes, I used that word because it was direct translation from my language.

Other examples you gave are also correct.

Engrish is hard.

EDIT: as a kicker I will add that while working for BigCo I was resposible for taking care of colleages coming from abroad and the very first thing I was telling them after saying "hello" was "do not ever ask anyone how are you". ;)

It's probably a new dialect if speakers of it understand each other, and also understand when usages of their dialect are wrong.

European flavored English has existed for a while though since the existence of the EU as an institution has required a lot of English learning and writing as one of its official languages.

English being just one of the official EU languages would not have mattered much. No one is picking up Portuguese or Polish, even though they are also official languages and have been for a long time.

The important fact is that English is the lingua franca of both trade and administration in the EU. People sometimes still learn some French and German, but the vast majority of international EU discussions are in English, both in the EU bureaucracy and in business circles.

oh, and to add to your vocabulary - the word pathetic, especially around Elbonia, can be used with the intention of saying something is full of "pathos".

Are we just lying for fun now?

No it's only HNers and their lack of humour. It's a joke and the hint is "Elbonia".

One thing that throws me off even after a decade in Finland is people saying “we are ready” or “you are ready” when they mean “done”.

Dinner is ready when it is done. I'm sure there are others in English as well.

Yeah, a thing can be ready to be used/eaten/etc. What confuses me sometimes is, for example, a doctor writing some notes on their computer and then saying to me "now you are ready", meaning that we're done and I can go.

In that context, my response would be "ready for what?"

Dinner being ready, my car being ready (at a mechanic), things like that have proper context that being ready means being done.

I'm an English as single language pleb though

Yep it’s “subvención” in Spanish.

> the word for "subsidy" is something like "subvention" so native speakers of these language often reach for an unnatural word in English.

A Google search for subvention turns up government publications from UK, India and South Africa.

Yeah it's a real word but it's not commonly used by native speakers.

"Eventually" is the worst false friend I think. Because in english it implies certainty while in latin languages it only implies possibility. But since the meanings are so close, it looks legit in context 90% of the time.

"Actually" does look out of place when used in english with the latin meaning so it's safer.

Some already consider this a new dialect. It's called Euro English[1]. There are some more examples in that wikipedia article. Not just synonyms, but grammar as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English

Interestingly, it has kind of spread into standard Irish English now, as well. Used very frequently when talking about government subsidies.

I'm really sorry, engrish is really hard

here's a list of words that will help you communicate better with Elbonians:

  sympathetic - pleasent
  pathetic - exalted
  eventually - alternatively
  actually - currently
  lecture - reading
  fabric - factory

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