Spanish Translation
Un idioma nunca es suficiente.
Are Zunge and Sprache synonyms?
Not really. Maybe in some poetic contexts.
On tatoeba, there are comments about the confusion.
The german sentence is originally a translation of a french sentence: “Une langue ne suffit jamais.”
Maybe the translator added two german translations, one for each possible interpretation of the french, because french “langue” can mean either.
The spanish version is a translation of another sentence (that got deleted) that probably was unambiguous.
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In Game of Thrones, the author uses “common tongue” as name for the language spoken by the people in his books.
In English, you can also use “mother tongue” as a synonym for your native language.
So maybe in English, language and tongue can be used synonymously. Perhaps in French too, as @pitti42 found out.
But in German, I’ve never heard of “Zunge” being used when you mean a language.
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But in German, I’ve never heard of “Zunge” being used when you mean a language.
Yes, me neither.
There is a famous quote from Winnetou (or westerns in general?):
Das Bleichgesicht spricht mit gespaltener Zunge. - The paleface speaks with a forked tongue.
But this is also literally referring to the tongue, not language.
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Yes, in that context have I heard it being used. It’s a figure of speech for lying.
I’ve never heard someone say “Ich spreche Deutsch, Englisch und Spanisch. Ich spreche drei Zungen.”
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