Stephan erklärt die verschiedenen Bedeutungen des englischen Ausdruckes “mean” was eigentlich mehr als nur ein Wort ist, wie das so oft der Fall ist bei englischen Wörtern. Einige Fettnäpfchen werden auch vorgestellt. @loquidity4973
What does it mean, to be mean? I mean, when there is no meaning in the flood of words of certain people, may I be allowed to call them ignorant politicians? I moan I hob reat.
In Russian there is the word "мнение" /mnénie/ ("opinion"). It derives from the verb "мнить" /mnit'/ (to imagine, to fancy, to consider), which probably derives from the pronoun "мне" /mne/ (Dative & Prepositional from "Я" /ya/ ("I"). The suffix+ending "ение" /enie/ means the same thing like English "ing" or "ence" or German "ung" in nouns (but the gender is neutral, unlike german feminine). "Он мнит себя героем." /On mnit sebyá geróyem/ = He fancies himself a hero. = Er hält sich für einen Helden. "Он мнил себя русалкой." /On mnil sebyá rusálkoy/ = He fancied himself a mermaid. = Er stellte sich vor, eine Meerjungfrau zu sein. "Я мню себя феей." /Ya mnyu sebyá féyey/ = I consider myself a fairy. = Ich betrachte mich als eine Fee. "Ты мнишь меня гномом." /Ty mnish menyá gnómom/ = You think of me as a gnome. = Du hältst mich für einen Gnom. These phrases were translated by Google Translate, I don't know why the same verb was translated differently.
Excellent commentary and comparison! Thanks for sharing! Yes, my research into the etymology of MEAN and MEINEN have shown that they both go back to a very old Indo-European word, so it's to be expected that Russian has more than one related word as well. Google translated these words differently mostly because German has several ways of expressing roughly the same idea.
