The title of this post is based on a saying in English, "to call a spade a spade." This means to say things directly, rather than using euphemisms or not saying what you really mean. However, I am using this saying to show how words can have different meanings in different languages. Most of the languages I know are Indo-European, that is to say they derive from a single parent language called Proto-Indo-European, which was spoken as a single language about 4500 years ago somewhere in modern-day Ukraine or Turkey. Its speakers then spread as far as India in the East and Ireland in the west. You can even listen to a reconstruction of that original language here . Native speakers of Indo-European languages account for almost half the world's population (3.2 billion people). The relevance of all this for language learning is that when I, for example, as a native speaker of English, learn, say, Italian, then lots of the words will be familiar. The numbers will sound th...