
Show HN: Words that don't translate - stephsmithio
https://eunoia.world
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stephsmithio
Recently, I’ve been running into more words that only seem to exist in a
single language. Words like kaizen, ikigai, and karoshi in Japanese…or, lagom
and fika in Swedish, which are not directly translatable to other languages.

As I have learned more about these “untranslatable” words, I’ve found that
they often give a glimpse into that particular culture which I think is pretty
cool. I wanted a way to discover more of these words, and even compare them
across cultures.

So today, I built this searchable web app of words that don't translate (as
part of the 24h startup challenge).

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DictumMortuum
I speak Greek.

Ανάγκη = need/necessity. Φιλοξενία = hospitality. Πνεύμα = spirit. Ok, it may
mean breath, too, but only in songs or poems. If might raise some eyebrows in
everyday speech. Usual word for breath = ανάσα or more uncommonly, πνοή.
Σωφροσύνη = prudence? That's the only one that doesn't translate perfectly.

For words that really don't translate (to English at least) look up καημός,
παλικάρι, μεράκι .

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stephsmithio
Gotcha. That's helpful to know and I'll edit it.

Thank you for the suggestions as well. Will add them to the database!

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manx
I actally thought of creating such a list myself a few days ago. Very nice to
see this here!

One improvement I immediatly thought of: Usually you cannot say/know that one
word cannot be translated to ANY other language, because nobody knows all
languages. But what you actually can know is that a word in one language does
not exist in one other language. You know that if you speak these two
languages. So storing triples makes more sense, I think.

Example: Because I speak german and french, I can surely say that the german
word 'satt' (meaning: not hungry anymore) does not have an equivalent in
french. But I have no idea if it exits in japanese. Someone else knowing
german and japanese has to fill this gap.

There are also duplicates in your Database like 'Kummerspeck'.

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stephsmithio
Thank you! Yes, I've had this feedback since launch that some people are
finding words that do indeed translate to a few other languages. I'll think
about how to edit this. Thanks for calling out the duplciates1

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jansan
In Japan I learned the word "fukujoushi", which the dictionary translated as
"death during sexual intercourse (with a woman)". The last part really cracked
me up.

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stephsmithio
Oh nice! I feel like Japan has the best words. I'll add this one in.
Interesting that the gender was specified.

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xdrosenheim
Not really sure what you mean with "that don't translate". Is it ANY other
language? Because then the Norwegian "Avspasere" has a Danish translation
"Afspadsere" as seen in The Danish Dictionary:
[https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=afspadsere](https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=afspadsere)

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stephsmithio
I've been hearing that more and more. I think it's fair. What I was going for
is words that can't really be described by another word. If you were to
translate them, you'd end up saying multiple sentences. It seems like similar
languages like Danish and Norwegian have some similar words.

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nordify
I don't know if all the words in this list qualify. Some of them exist in
other languages as specific words as well.

For example:

Fremdschämen To be embarrassed by something somebody else did German

Myötähäpeä in Finnish (alongshame when literally translated)

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stephsmithio
Great point! I've heard this from a few people so I'm debating adding a column
for languages where that particular word _does_ actually translate.

