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  • Published: 1 November 2007
  • ISBN: 9780141919195
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

Toujours Tingo

Extraordinary Words to Change the Way We See the World



Let Toujours Tingo take you on a tour of the world's most wonderous words...

Why would Germans accuse you of being like the donkey getting cross with a rabbit? Who would a Spaniard tell to go and fry asparagus? And when might the French claim they are without a radish?

Furthering your knowledge of the world’s unusual idioms, Toujours Tingo will also explain how ordering ‘lamb’ in Ethiopia may see a cow delivered to your table, and how politicians in Sweden may be encouraged occasionally to göra en hel Pudel (‘do a full poodle’) with some humble apologising. Covering such wide-ranging linguistic necessities as arguing, raising children, working and dining out, and filling all those gaps that English leaves thoughtlessly unplugged, this book’s charm would – for Russians at least – be eziku ponjatno (obvious even to a hedgehog).

  • Published: 1 November 2007
  • ISBN: 9780141919195
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

About the author

Adam Jacot de Boinod

Adam Jacot de Boinod's interest in foreign languages was first aroused when doing research for the BBC programme QI and subsequently developed into a full-on vokabulyu (Russian - passion for foreign words). While searching through 280 dictionaries, 140 websites and numerous books on language, he developed an undoubted samlermani (Danish - mania for collecting), became close to being fisselig (German - flustered to the point of incompetence) and narrowly avoided karoshi (Japanese - death from overwork). He is now intending to nglayap (Indonesian - wander far from home with no particular purpose).

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