Tricky Words in this week‘s OVI

Differentiation and diversification. My usual advice for translating words from Latin which look similar in Slovak and English is to assume that they have different meanings. This works for more common words like nervózny (irritated), aktuálny (current) and ambulancia (surgery), penzión (guest-house), TV program (channel) and eventuálny (potential), but when the words are really long and not so common, they probably mean the same after all. But then the tricky part is knowing what they mean in any language (v hociktorom jazyku). Maybe we can start with the basic ideas: different means odlišné and diverse means rôznorodé, and then the long English words mean making something different or diverse.

Andy’s Wordshop

More about differentiation and diversification. If we’re talking about a steelmaking company, then there are two things which are important to ensure. The first is that the company does not “put all its eggs in one basket”, which means that it does not focus on a narrow range of specialized products, because if the market for those products weakens, then the company will be in trouble. Instead the company should branch out and make a wider range of products to protect its overall sales. This is diversification. On the other hand, it’s also good for the company to make different products compared to its competitors (konkurenčné firmy) and be more successful on different markets. This is differentiation.