favorite words, or something like

[redbird]

alexseanchai pointed me at angelofthenorth's cafe post for language learners, and this session's conversation-starter is favorite words.

I said that my favorite French word was pampelmousse, and then got to thinking about favorite words in other languages that I know enough of for the question to make sense (I don't have a favorite word in Japanese, for example).

My first thought for Spanish was "fue," because that needs at least a little context to translate. Standing alone, it's either "I was" or "I went." (Present tense doesn't have that odd homonym: "soy" is "I am" and "voy" is "I go.")

I don't have a favorite English word, for the opposite reason from why I don't have a favorite Russian one: it's my native language, there's a world of choices, and in most moods it would be about meaning, and I might say "library" or "tea." Words as words, at the instant I'm thinking of dialect/borrowings: mensch and bodega are from my home dialect, "shroff" I saw in Hong Kong (I think it's from Hindi, not any of the Chinese languages. And "stoop," which is standard English as a verb, but non-New Yorkers have been puzzled by "we were sitting on the stoop."