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Calque

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A literal, word-for-word translation or borrowing of a phrase from another language.

Detailed Definition
A Calque (or loan translation) in poetry occurs when a phrase or idiom from one language is translated word-for-word into another, preserving the original structure; poets may use calques to import foreign conceptual nuances or create estrangement effects, as in Ezra Pound’s adaptations of Chinese ideograms or modernist experiments that challenge English syntax through Latinate constructions.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Flea market” is a calque from French “marché aux puces”; “Beer garden” calques German “Biergarten”; In poetry, Heaney’s “bogland” calques Irish landscape concepts into English; Calque in translation: rendering Japanese “mono no aware” as “pathos of things”; Modern poets use calques to enrich English with foreign sensibilities.
Additional Notes
Loan translation borrowing structure from another language (e.g., "flea market" from French). Common in multicultural poetry. Tip: Recognizes phrases that feel "foreign" despite English words.
Also Known As
loan-translation loanword
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