To Royaldevon: english words

[jmdias]

BEV

in portuguese when we have a female friend she is named (amiga) and when we have a love or sexual relationship with a girl she is named (namorada). but in english I was taught you use the same word for these two women. how you can identify I am talking about a real friend or a lover ?

take care

jorge

[emka]

Hi Jorge and Bev,
The English language is very unprecise. We can see it in the word "friend". Is it he or she? You can add "girlfriend" or "boyfriend", but is it the same? What is the relationship? It can be someone we have known for 50 years or friend from the Internet whom we have never met and most probably never will.
If it is not explicitly given, there is no way to know what is the gender of the person. It is a problem in translations because in Polish it is grammatically necessary information.
Best regards MAlgo

[Royaldevon]

Hi Jorge,

This is a tough one, especially as languages are made from a base and a mixture of other languages, along the way.
In English, a friend is someone you like to associate with, either gender.
If you add a gender, girlfriend or boyfriend, there is usually a romantic attachment. If you have a loving or sexual relationship then that person becomes your lover. But, you know, we English are very discrete and would not necessarily tell many people about the lover relationship.
If the romantic attachment becomes official and the couple become engaged, then there is a gender difference, fiancé or fiancée. Obviously borrowed from the French!

Oh isn’t life complicated!

Have a lovely w/e, Bev 😊