Language Trainers Blog

When it comes to personality, some people seem to have been put on the planet to make life easier for everyone else:

 
Cooperar: (Spansih, Central America) to go along willingly with someone else to one’s own disadvantage. 

Abozzare: (Italian) to accept meekly a far from satisfactory situation. 

Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) someone who is ready to forgive any abuse the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time 

Flattering
 
Vaseliner: (French) to flatter (literally, to apply Vaseline) 

Happobijin: (Japanese) a beauty to all eight directions (a sycophant) 

Radfahrer: (German) one who flatters superiors and browbeats subordinates (literally, a cyclist) 

Fawning 

The Japanese have the most vivid description for hangers-on: kingyo no funi. It literally means ‘goldfish crap’ –a reference to the way that a fish that has defecated often trails excrement behind it for some time.