
Words that don't translate into English - tintinnabula
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/27/10-of-the-best-words-in-the-world-that-dont-translate-into-english
======
zimpenfish
Language Log have been demolishing this ludicrous nonsense for over a decade
now[1]. You'd think people would learn.

[1]
[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2741](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2741)

> But what is the notion of untranslatability here? It seems to have been
> confused with "lack of an exact one-word equivalent". Who on earth ever
> argued that translatability only exists when source text words are mapped
> bijectively to target words, each with exactly the same shade of meaning as
> the corresponding source word? Does French jeune fille fail to translate
> English girl, and ne … pas fail to translate not? Does English fall down
> fail to translate French tomber, and look at fail to translate regarder?
> What kind of madness is this?

~~~
paganel
Nothing was "demolished", nothing can be "demolished" in this regard, as many
of the people who speak and read two or more languages fluently will attest.

For one thing, many of the swear words/expressions cannot be translated, not
even by using more than one word/a few words, there are languages where one
can fill entire books with swear-words/expressions (one of them is Romanian,
which I speak natively, I've heard the same thing about Russian or Hungarian)
and there are languages where swear words/expressions are a lot less diverse
(English is the example I know best).

Of course, one can try to naively translate the "băga-mi-aș pula în morții
mamii tale!" into the English "I will insert my dick into your mother's dead
people", but this naive translation doesn't (can't) catch the word inversion
"băga-mi-aș" (from "mi-aș băga") which makes the whole action sound a lot more
dynamic and direct in Romanian, plus the word "pula" has a lot more meanings
and context in Romanian compared to the simpler uses of "dick" in English, and
last but not least the Anglo world seems not to care about one's dead people
as much as we Romanians do (and I think we're not the only ones), and as such
mentioning some other person's dead close relatives in a derogatory way is
seen at most as quaint (while "morții tăi!"/"your dead people!" in Romanian is
oftentimes used as a swear expression all by itself, I know I use it
frequently).

And this before we get to all the diminutives/suffixes that can be added to
any word that is part of a swear expression (and not only) in a language like
Romanian, a feature that is absent from most of the English language. For
example the mentioned above example can very be easily changed into:

> "băga-mi-aș pula în morții mămițicii tale!"

with the "mamii" to "mămățicii" change (basically from "your mother" to "your
little mother", where "little" actually means "more loved"/closer to the
person being addressed) giving the whole swear expression a new other, even
more personal feeling.

~~~
rootbear
My Hungarian friend has often complained about how poor English is in
comparison to his native Hungarian as a language for swearing. From your
example, I'd say Hungarian swearing is stylistically similar to Romanian.

He also told me about his favorite untranslatable Hungarian word, "bezzeg",
which has to be handled on a case-by-case basis when translating into English.

~~~
horsawlarway
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZkb4TPI-
Lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZkb4TPI-Lo)

------
jbay808
_Shoganai_ translates very easily into the English phrase "it can't be
helped", with very little lost in the translation.

By contrast, I think a great, useful Japanese phrase that I wish we had in
English but is very hard to translate is _otsukaresama_ (お疲れ様) and its
variants. It's what you say to someone at the end of the work day, or after
finishing something challenging like a hike, or just to acknowledge that some
task is being put away for now.

The closest thing might be "good job", or "good work". But _otsukaresama_ has
no implied assessment of someone's performance. Which is good, because it
means anyone can say it - a peer, family, superior, junior. You can say it to
be comforting even after someone gives up for the day having failed to solve a
problem, where "good work" might sound sarcastic. A literal translation might
be "with respect to the tired", or something like that.

~~~
ithkuil
Would "let's call it a day" come close?

~~~
jbay808
That works well for some uses, but you sort of both have to be colleagues, and
finishing up at the same time to use that. You can say "otsukaresama" to your
colleague who is leaving before you to pick up their kids, or to your spouse
when they get home from a long day, so it's a bit more flexible. It's just a
nice, non-judgemental way to acknowledge someone's efforts.

~~~
kqr
Does it have to be a single word or phrase for all uses?

That's the thing I fail to understand with these words/phrases that are hard
to translate. Sure, if you need to work it into a pun or joke you almost by
definition need to have a single word for two different situations, but for
everyday life, I don't understand why not two or three similar phrases
suffice, one for each context.

~~~
jbay808
No, it can have multiple translations...

It's just that, I've had times where I'd have a strong urge to say
_otsukaresama_ to someone, and trip over myself for lack of any appropriate
way to say it. Usually those would be cases where none of the translations
listed here work; not "let's call it a day" because I'm still working, not
"good effort" because it's clear in the context that I have no knowledge of
their level of effort and anyway that sounds like what a coach would say after
practice. It just sometimes doesn't have any good translation.

------
awillen
I've always found the idea of words that can't translate to miss the mark,
especially in the context of articles like this that provide a translation.
It's really just that we don't have a singular corresponding word, not that
they can't be translated.

It's kind of like how people say Eskimos have 50 (or however many words for
snow). Any word they have for snow can be described in a corresponding way in
English using adjectives, but for them it makes sense to boil down each of
those concepts to a common word, since Eskimos have a more frequent need to
describe snow than most English speakers.

What's interesting to reflect on is why some cultures need a singular word for
something while others don't. It's why I love the word schadenfreude - not for
what it means, but for the fact that Germans so readily identify with the idea
of taking pleasure from another's misfortune that they coined a word for the
term.

~~~
precisioncoder
After living abroad for 10 years I think one of the biggest things I've
learned is that translations don't quite work. The problem is the context and
emotional framework in relation to the words.

For example "Viel Glück" can translate to "Good Luck" but what exactly is
meant from this and how someone feels about me wishing it to them is quite
different from Canada where I grew up.

At home it's a polite and kind of nice way to wish someone luck in what
they're doing. Here it's often seen as a little sarcastic or teasing as
there's a tiny culture implication that it means they didn't prepare enough.

There are massive amounts of this context or slight shading around the words
which can completely change the contextural meaning of an exchange without
changing anything about the literal translation.

Also, as to schadenfreude I really don't think German people identify with the
idea of taking pleasure from another's misfortune. In fact most of the German
speakers that I know would feel quite hurt or offended by the insinuation that
they take pleasure from other's misfortune. It's more an acknowledgement that
it happens, and a way to bring it into the conversation than something anyone
would be proud of or want to do. Interestingly enough it's one of the most
common borrowed words in English from German and is helpful to describe many
situations. (Edit spelling)

~~~
silvester23
> Here it's often seen as a little sarcastic or teasing as there's a tiny
> culture implication that it means they didn't prepare enough.

I have always thought the same thing about "Good for you" which I think would
commonly be translated as "Schön für dich". You cannot possibly say that
without sounding sarcastic.

Regarding "Viel Glück", I usually use "Viel Erfolg" when I'm being sincere.

~~~
esotericn
"Good for you" I think sounds ridiculously sarcastic in British English, fwiw.

~~~
jgwil2
Even in American English you would have to be incredibly chipper and sincere
for it not to sound sarcastic.

------
esperent
I've read multiple articles like this, and always find them interesting. These
words, of course, can be translated to English. They just can't be translated
to a single word or phrase, but must instead come with a couple of paragraphs
explaining their cultural significance. I've never seen articles going the
other way, however. What are some examples of English words or phrases that
are so loaded with cultural significance that they are difficult to translate?

~~~
lhorie
I don't know about other languages, but when a friend asked me this question
for portuguese a long time ago, I came up with "pet, "firetruck" and "sitcom"
as examples. The first two translate to a noun plus an adjective ("animal de
estimação" and "caminhão de bombeiro", respectively) and are not that
interesting, but the last one has no translation whatsoever as far as I know,
primarily because the very existence of sitcoms is sort of predicated on high
variety of TV channels, whereas in smaller countries, there usually is only
one or two very dominant ones.

~~~
xioxox
The UK has had sitcoms on the radio since the 50s and TV since the 60s, when
there weren't many channels. I think it's more down to what the controllers of
the channels want to put on it. Sitcoms can be extremely popular - Only Fools
and Horses was watched by around 40% of the UK population at its peak.

~~~
lhorie
Oh, that's a great point, I hadn't thought of that

------
namelosw
The one thing I love about Chinese is, it's just like English use the
canonical 'the' instead of German 'der/die/das' \- it rarely classifies
things.

For example, 'someone is doing something' would be like 'someone current do
something' in Chinese. There's no 'ing' postfix, instead, you add 'current' or
'now' only when it matters.

There's almost no redundancy of information, thus there are fewer chances to
specify illegal statements. When Chinese find out Finland or German native-
speakers sometimes also make grammar mistakes when speaking their own
languages, it was mind-blowing...

Sadly, I'm not sure if it is influenced by other languages, there are more and
more classifiers in modern Chinese:

1\. Though gender is not classified by oral Chinese language, it was
classified in the modern written Chinese language.

2\. The infamous quantity classifications as the article mentioned. Non-native
speakers would find these pretty hard to remember. A 'tiao' of fish, A 'duo'
of mushroom, doesn't really exist in the old Chinese, they were just a fish or
a mushroom. It was only mandatory when it's needed, like a bunch of fish.

~~~
fiblye
> A 'tiao' of fish, A 'duo' of mushroom, doesn't really exist in the old
> Chinese

I'm not sure about those words specifically, but counters/classifiers in
Chinese go back centuries and beyond. Linguists will often say Korean and
Japanese are language isolates, but quite a bit of their grammar heavily
inherits from Chinese in some way with little to no change. They use
oftentimes identical classifiers in the same way even when referring to one
object.

e.g., 個/个 is ge/gae/ko in Chinese/Korean/Japanese respectively. They're used
for catch-all classifiers. 台 is tai/tae/dai and used to classify machines.

~~~
namelosw
You're right about the counters/classifiers do exist in ancient Chinese.

If there no classifiers there would be no straight forward way to specify if
it's "a cup of water" or it's "a bucket of water".

With that being said, there's not many usages of catch-all classifiers, unless
it is stretched to balance the number of characters in poems. Usually, there
would be no classifier if there's no ambiguity:

"一人一桌一椅一扇一抚尺而已" \--《口技》("a man, a table, a chair, a fan, a fuchi and that's
all") -- 'The beatboxing'

The classifies usually are used in listing of things, and they would be
postfixes, instead of being used as prefixes like in typical ways:

"...金碗二对，金抢碗二个，金匙四十把，银大碗八十个..." \-- 《红楼梦》 ("...golden bowls: 2 pairs, golden
qiangwan: 2 units, golden keys: 40 grasps, large silver bowls: 80 units...")
-- 'The Dream of the Red Chamber'

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
As a Chinese learner, this is really interesting.

The question is, if ancient Chinese had solved the problem in a more
straightforward way, why did it then evolve to the more complex form where
classifiers are mandatory?

Typically languages tend to evolve to be simpler.

~~~
namelosw
Frankly, I don't know the answer. Here is some common knowledge for Chinese
you might be interested in, and possibly remotely related to this issue. But
I'm by no means an expert, so please take a grain of salt.

> why did it then evolve to the more complex form where classifiers are
> mandatory?

Simple is not necessarily easy. The ancient Chinese is compact but not easy to
learn.

The Chinese, especially the literary/classical Chinese[0] (as opposed to
vernacular Chinese[1]) was very scholar oriented. It's pretty bizarre to the
rest of the world because historically the government and scholars actually
have strong influences and even controls over the language itself.

There were even many times like 'Hey, you know what? We believe the language
is not good enough, and we're going to fix it!', and officers and scholars
were assigned to refactor the language. The recent one leads to the
traditional and the simplified Chinese diverse from each other. According to
the legend, Cangjie[2] invented the Chinese characters, and it more or less
becomes traditions, or at least the legend could help the government claims to
refactor the language.

The ancients scholars tried to make the language compact and precise. However,
the cost is the language is pretty cryptic. If you know a lot of idioms
(usually 4 syllables), you would find they don't really make any sense unless
you know the whole historical events/stories behind them.

Scholars from Korea, Japan, and Vietnam knew and love Chinese. Many of them
tried to evangelize the language to their own people. But they never made it
to the average people, though the were many strong influences till the modern
days.

> Typically languages tend to evolve to be simpler.

Also, interestingly, the redundancy of the Chinese language actually largely
increased over time. My personal take is it tends to be easier rather than
simpler.

Some linguistics split Chinese into 3 periods: the old Chinese[3], the middle
Chinese[4], and the old Mandarin[5] (the translation is 近代汉语 - is 'the near
modern Chinese' if we translate it directly back to English). The middle
Chinese period starts from the Northern and Southern dynasties (start from
420) to the Tang dynasty (end at 907).

In the beginning, during the old Chinese period, Chinese people tend to create
new characters/syllables over new words (which might combined characters). And
that's why the Chinese have so many characters nowadays. But the trend is not
sustainable. To be frank, Chinese people may remember thousands of Characters,
but they might not remember hundreds of thousands if the trends persist. Also
from the syllables perspective, there would be not enough combinations.

So the middle Chinese period, the trend stopped and people started to combine
two characters/syllables together for a word, this is especially common in
vernacular Chinese. The vernacular Chinese during the middle Chinese period is
actually pretty close to the old and modern Mandarin.

Also, Chinese people more or less having OCD on making characters/syllables in
the same length so they would sound perfect, especially look perfect (Yes!) -
poems usually have 5/7/9 syllables for each sentence. Words and idioms usually
consist of 2 or 4 syllables. If a lot of words are made with 2 syllables, they
rather make them all 2 syllables.

So the original common words would have a lot of redundancy, for example,
房(house)屋(room), actually refers to 房(house).

Back to the original question, my personal guess is there was no standard way
of classify things, once classifier was more and more useful (because there
were going to be more 'cup or bucket' issue as the society develops), the OCD
Chinese people want to add fallback so it can make the expression balanced
just like how they squeeze sentence 5/7/9 and words to 2/4 syllables. So it
would be like 'two pairs of gold bowls, and forty grasps of golden keys'. But
that's only my guess :)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese)
[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese)
[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mandarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mandarin)

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Even if you are not an expert you are much closer to it than I am, and I found
your information very insightful! Thank you.

------
beefsack
It's not just lexicon, but sometimes also syntax which doesn't translate
cleanly.

Japanese has a really interesting piece of syntax in the ditransitive
adversative passive, which is similar to the English passive construction but
with a second object which can be used to denote that someone was adversely
impacted by it.

There is an example on Wikipedia[1], it's definitely a difficult thing for
native English speakers to get used to.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice#Adversative_pass...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice#Adversative_passive)

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Can you give an example? Google is drawing a blank for that.

My favorite piece of Japanese syntax is that adjectives can be conjugated for
tense and conditionals, meaning that "It was delicious" has to be expressed as
"It is delicioused" ( _oishikatta desu_ ) and you can say "if it had not been
red" with a single word ( _akakunakattara_ ).

~~~
beefsack
I found an example, which I've added to the parent post.

------
andrewnc
One of my favorites is the Tagalog word "daw" pronounced "dao".

You put it on any phrase where you don't accept the burden of truthfulness.

"mom said dinner is at 6 daw"

If it's not at 6, that's too bad, not my fault.

It's so fascinating culturally and really fun to use.

~~~
pseingatl
Same as Arabic "inshallah," Spanish "ojalá."

------
franciscop
Ah I was hoping for some different ones in Spanish. I've got a running joke
with my American friends: "if I say I'm taking a siesta it feels like I'm
being lazy, but call it a power nap and suddenly you are a young energetic
entrepreneur even if they are the same"

We also have five named eating events, here with their times:

\- Desayuno (8-9): breakfast

\- Almuerzo (11-12): second breakfast? Normally a sandwitch or light snack.

\- Comida (2-3): lunch

\- Merienda (5-6): third breakfast? tea party? It's an evening snack, mostly
eaten by kids

\- Cena (9-10): dinner

~~~
082349872349872
Our germanophones are boring but punctual: their extra meals are Znüni (the
9am) and Zvieri (the 4pm). As far as I'm concerned, it's a oxymoron to eat
merienda according to a clock...

------
chanux
I once had to ask a friend whose first language is English, if there is one
word to convey 'feeding someone a liquid'. Because one of my friends asked me
and I didn't know.

In Sinhala[1], my mother tongue, there's a word for that. Povanava (poh-vur-
nuh-var) පොවනවා.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_language)

~~~
Sharlin
In Finnish as well: _juottaa_ is formed from the verb _juoda_ , ”to drink”,
but interestingly it is just a case of a _general grammatical construction_
that allows one to turn any verb from ”to do something” to ”to make/have one
to do something”. You can even apply it recursively to verbs thus formed, so,
for example, _juotattaa_ would mean ”to have someone else feed
someone/something liquid”! In principle the grammar allows arbitrarily long
constructions, but in practice double applications are already rare although
perfectly understandable.

------
Mobius01
Interesting. Where I come from in Brazil, “sobremesa” is used to describe a
dessert, direct translation.

I’d also add the Portuguese word “saudade”, which is a sense of yearning or of
missing someone/something - often hard to convey in English.

~~~
frosted-flakes
How does "saudade" differ from nostalgia?

~~~
perl4ever
How does nostalgia differ from wistfulness?

~~~
frosted-flakes
Wistfulness is a general feeling of sadness and yearning towards something not
present, whether or not you've experienced it before. "He was wistful about
the life that could have been his if only he'd said 'yes' when he'd had the
chance."

Nostalgia is a distinct feeling of want for something in your past, often from
your childhood. "His nostalgia for the video games of his youth coloured his
perception of how bad they really were."

Since you brought it up, and now that I've thought about it for a while,
"wistful" seems like it might be a better fit for "saudade", but I'm sure that
that word has all sorts of meanings that wistful doesn't have.

------
arexxbifs
My native tongue is neither Finnish nor English, but wouldn't "sisu" be
translatable as "grit"?

~~~
johan_larson
"Grit" is a good translation.

English-speakers who try to translate the word usually try something like
"courage" or "guts", which isn't quite right. "Sisu" is not really about
daring; it's more about tenacity and capacity to endure hardship. "Grit" is
better.

------
eythian
The "polderen" one is a bit weird, but I think if I said "poldering" everyone
where I live (the Netherlands, but I'm from an English speaking country) would
know what I meant.

The Dutch term for the process is "poldermodel", and in English we use "polder
model", and everyone here knows it. Basically, once you've told someone
"people meet and hash things out until a consensus is formed" then the English
term is stolen fair and square.

The actual Dutch term is pretty recent, from the 1980s or so I think.

~~~
082349872349872
If the English equivalent to "meet and hash things out" is "stolen fair and
square", that might explain a lot about the Empire :-)

------
umvi
I think a more difficult Italian one would be "proprio". It's sort of like
"proper" but the exact meaning seems difficult to pin down and depends on the
context.

~~~
perl4ever
Given that a lot of ways of using it seem to parallel "own", consider a
sentence that is said to use it to mean "proper":

"Non è questa la sede propria per parlarne"

The original source translated it as "This isn't the proper place to discuss
it."

You could say this means "This is not the place that _belongs_ to talk about
it". That's stilted English, but in my opinion, better than proper or
appropriate, it captures the relatedness of "own" with the different senses of
something belonging. The word "proper" confuses things because it is spelled
more like the Italian word, but functionally it's more specialized.

I went and read about this because "proprio" made me think of the English word
"proprioception" which was coined in the early 20th century based on the Latin
"proprius" meaning "own". And then French "propre" comes to mind.

~~~
scoutt
You can also say something like "sei proprio uno stupido" which means "you are
actually stupid".

~~~
toyg
Also "precisely". "Questo è proprio quel che serve" -> "This is precisely what
we need"

~~~
jaclaz
Or - reversed - "non proprio" means more than anything else "not exactly"
(meaning something that is similar, almost, but not quite what was expected)
BUT "non è proprio il caso" means "absolutely not" or "definitely not".

Nuances in languages are tough.

------
Udik
Some journalist invented a few years ago that there is this mysterious,
untranslatable Italian expression "bella figura" (or its opposite, "brutta
figura"). Which in fact simply means "good impression"\- as in "let's make a
good impression". This article goes at it again. It even translates it
correctly when presenting it in an anecdote, but then reverts to a literal,
wrong translation to make it sound more exotic.

~~~
ithkuil
That's because the article attaches to it a special aura of "italianess" as if
Italians were obsessed by their looks in a unique way (which might be true or
not, but I don't see how this translates to the untranslatability of the word
itself, rather than just being the side effect of capitalizing a trope)

~~~
jaclaz
Also, bella (o brutta) figura is in Italian much more related to
behaviour/politeness/education/culture, than to appearance.

Though you can say that something (or even someone) "fa figura", if it looks
better than what it is really made of.

------
pathsjs
The least translatable idiom from Italian in my head is "Ti voglio bene". It
_could_ be translated as "I love you", but that loses a lot of nuance. The
literal translation of "I love you" is "Ti amo".

So in Italy you have two different expressions that are rendered by the same
one in English. But the two are very much not interchangeable. "Ti amo" has a
romantic connotation, whereas "Ti voglio bene" does not. What's more, you can
_also_ use "Ti voglio bene" in a romantic context, to mean that you love the
other person, but not only from the point of view of a romantic relationship
though. In a romantic relationship, especially between younger people, it can
happen that one says "Ti voglio bene" well before "Ti amo", which has a
heavier implication. On the other hand, "Ti voglio bene" can be used with a
sibling or a friend, often abbreaviated TVB, whereas "Ti amo" would not be
used in this context. As you can see, it is quite difficult to even translate
the difference, but it is something well present in the head of italian
people.

~~~
toyg
TVB is weak, got to be at least TVTTTB ;)

------
nanna
Anyone serous about philosophical concepts should have the incredible
Dictionary of Untranslatables (2014) on their shelf.

[https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691138701/di...](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691138701/dictionary-
of-untranslatables)

It's an updated translation of Vocabulaire Européen des Philosophies (2004)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I would say it is not so much that the words don’t translate into English as
the words encode cultural experiences and emotions that many English speakers
haven’t experienced.

And I think this is true even in words in the same language. For example
“police” means something very different emotionally to a young, urban, black
man than an older, suburban white woman.

I think there is a food analog as well. There are some foods that I don’t
think anyone can cook as well my mother. Objectively, if you tested my mom’s
version of the food against in taste test with - 100 people versus a
professional chef, most people would pick the chef’s version as tasting
better. But for me, the exact smell and taste of my mom’s version brings back
those emotions of happiness and closeness from when we would eat the meal
together as a family growing up.

So I don’t think it is so much differences in language, but differences in
experience.

------
rurban
The Austrian equivalent of the Dutch "polderen" is "Sozialpartnerschaft". Also
not translatable to English. It's consensual backroom politics between the
classical antagonists, industry vs labor unions. It does exist in Ireland
also, called "social partnership" or better "Pairtíocht sóisialta", but this
not what it is. In Germany it's called "Social Dialogue" but this is far from
the Austrian, or Dutch or Irish model.

See for example the translation attempts at [https://www.linguee.com/german-
english/translation/sozialpar...](https://www.linguee.com/german-
english/translation/sozialpartnerschaft.html)

------
ithkuil
A nice Italian word that might be hard to translate is "ni" which means "yes
and no" (literally first letter of "no" and second letter of "si", which means
yes).

Often I hear English speakers use the answer "It depends." where an Italian
would use "Ni."

~~~
decentralised
We use a similar word in Portuguese: nim (n for nao/ no and im for sim/yes)

~~~
Anarch157a
I never heard it here in Brazil, is it a thing in Portugal or in parts of
Brazil other than the South/South East ?

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LoSboccacc
bella figura has little to do with appearance, is a combination with tact and
etiquette, and is mostly used sarcastically anyway.

oh and the exact translation is good impression, which can also can be used
sarcastically in the same way.

so at least my language section was poorly written and poorly researched.

~~~
someoneiam
Yeah, I really don't get how they arrived to that conclusion. The meaning of
bella figura is good impression, it really isn't ambiguous at all.

~~~
toyg
_> I really don't get how they arrived to that conclusion._

It's a cliché in UK. They correctly diagnose the Italian obsession with high
standards of appearance, but they liberally use "bella figura" to describe it
in contexts we would not consider as such.

For example: when dressing to go buy a bit of milk, we wouldn't describe it as
an activity that requires "bella figura", we just don't want to look like
homeless people and our "not looking homeless" is at a certain standard; but
they would say that, by dressing appropriately, we are paying attention to
"bella figura". That's because people here can go VERY low on standards of
appearance in circumstances like that, while we just won't.

~~~
LoSboccacc
but that section is singed

> Angela Giuffrida in Rome

which makes the whole thing extra weird because even if she might not be aware
of a direct translation being available she should know how it's used in
italy.

it's perfectly fine for a finely dressed gentleman to spill a drink on his
wife's boss on a party, which is a perfect occasion for a "proprio una bella
figura hai fatto" > "yeah, such a good impression you made" and it's so common
of an usage I can't fathom how it got related to fashion in the article part
she penned.

~~~
jaclaz
Sure and "figura" can also be "self standing" negative/sarcastic, i.e.: Ha
fatto una figura ... means that he/she did a terrible impression.

And a (negative) figura can be "brutta" (literally ugly) but also "caprina"
(caprine).

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altacc
For anyone who's interested in these I have a book that I like to flick
through occasionally: They Have a Word for It by Howard Rheingold

My favourite is Yugen - a Japanese word that encapsulates awareness and
appreciation for nature and the universe.

[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/424092.They_Have_a_Wo...](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/424092.They_Have_a_Word_for_It)

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toyg
Beyond philosophical debates on untranslatability, I think it's just nice to
note specialized words that have no direct single-word equivalent in others.

Some of my favourites are the Italian verb _apparecchiare_ (setting up the
table before a meal, adding cutlery etc) and its opposite _sparecchiare_. To
have precise words for this activity signals a culture focused on food and
urbanity, which the Italian one definitely is.

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willyt
It must be a minefield for French people learning English as we have
incorporated a so many french words and assigned more specific meanings to
them. I might have this example wrong as I don't speak much french, but there
must be quite a few like this:

English -> French

Body 'A human body (alive or dead)' -> Corps

Corpse 'A dead body' -> Cadavre

Cadaver 'A dead body prepared for burial or medical research' -> ?

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aloukissas
The most common Greek word that doesn't translate in other languages is
"filotimo" (φιλότιμο). More than a word, it's a virtue that's at the core of
our culture. You can read more here
[[http://helleniccomserve.com/filotimo.html](http://helleniccomserve.com/filotimo.html)]
and elsewhere on the web.

------
elijahparker
Something I appreciated about Indonesian which doesn’t translate well to
English (or many other languages that I’m aware of) is their two forms of
“we”, inclusive and exclusive. “Kami”, excludes the one being spoken to,
“Kita” includes them. In English this difference is typically only implied by
context and can be ambiguous.

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pezezin
Regarding Spanish language, I'm surprised that they didn't include "estrenar",
that means to use or show something for the first time. Sometimes it can be
translated as "release" or "launch", but there is no single English word with
the same range of meanings.

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photonios
I was expecting the Dutch word "gezellig" to be on the list. I found
"polderen" instead. Interesting, "gezellig" is much more used in day to day
life than "polderen". I am not even sure most Dutch know what it means.

~~~
Cthulhu_
It's a word that's hard to explain, but everyone does know what it means - it
invokes a feeling, memories of specific moments, that kinda thing.

I'm glad "swaffelen" didn't end up on the list though.

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notamy
If you're interested in this, you may enjoy the subreddit r/DoesNotTranslate.

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lihaciudaniel
Seems like it didn't made he list unfortunately :
[https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dor#Romanian](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dor#Romanian)

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cycomanic
I suspect one of the most common German words without translation is "Ansatz"
as used in math. I find these specialised/technical wordsand their usage in
very specific field quite interesting.

~~~
billfruit
Is there a simple descriptive English equivalent to eigen-?

~~~
cycomanic
Good point, self or own are both similar but not quite the same.

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pachico
Here's one I find interesting from Swedish: knullrufs: (slang) sex hair,
disordered hair that comes from having sex.

Some times, it's possible to say a lot from one single word.

------
d_silin
Fun fact that always amused me - Russian language has the word for a stronger
flavour of "hopelessness/despair":

безнадежность->безысходность

Roughly translated as "endless despair"

~~~
vbezhenar
"Exitlessness". Not sure if that sounds English...

~~~
eythian
It's not really a usable English word. But "[feeling of] no way out" is
perhaps idiomatically close.

------
kazinator
France: bon apetit (dig in?)

Japan: yoroshiku onegaishimasu, tadaima, itadakimasu, genki, otsukaresama
deshita, ganbatte ne, ...

Laughable subtitles for all these, every time.

------
m463
I was watching an episode of Arrow and one of the characters said "There is no
Russian word for optimist"

quick web search says there might not be a native word?

~~~
fuoqi
Well, English does not have a "native" word for optimist either.

------
rmsaksida
I'd say "cunning" is a decent approximation of "esperto". An odd choice for
Portuguese...

~~~
herval
It can be cunning, but it can also be smart, knowledgeable or clever,
depending on tone and context. And can also mean “paying attention” (in parts
of the country - “tá esperto”). I believe the original meaning is closer to
knowledgeable (from “expertus”)

------
irrational
It turns out the sobremesa is the perfect word for my own definition of hell
on earth.

“few pleasures are greater than sharing a table and then chatting nonsense for
a hefty portion of what remains of the day.”

The author must be a masochist if they think this is pleasurable.

~~~
technothrasher
I generally wouldn't go for such nonsense either, and I typically share the
usual US sentiment at a restaurant of getting in, getting fed, and getting
out. But I have to admit that on a trip to Spain a couple years ago, where our
two guides for the day had booked us a table at a little restaurant for lunch
and I then insisted they come eat with us, before I knew it 2pm became 5pm
from us just easily talking about nothing. It was actually quite lovely.

~~~
rswail
I remember a week of work in Madrid, where a Spanish company, a US company and
an Australian company were working together on a bid for a job.

The US people suggested breakfast meetings at 7 in the hotel. The Spanish and
Aussie people flatly refused.

The Spanish wanted lunch from 2 until 4, the Aussies preferred 1 until 2, the
Americans 12-1.

Dinner was 7 for the Americans, 8-9 for the Aussies, and 9-12 for the Spanish.

We didn't win the bid, but as an Aussie, I much prefer the Spanish daily
schedule.

------
JacksonGariety
Is there a word for ostensibly punctilious lists that somehow also epitomize
cultural diversity?

------
tomaszs
Missing word: załatwić from polish language.

~~~
Leszek
"Sort out" is a pretty solid translation IMO

~~~
tomaszs
To sort out is equivalent of uporządkować or zająć się czymś. Załatwić is
something different.

~~~
Leszek
"Uporządkować" can be "sort out" too, though I'd more often translate it as
"tidy up"; "zająć się czymś" is roughly "take care of something", maybe you
could use "occupy yourself with something" if it's more in the time-wasting
sense.

I stand by "sort out", or even just "sort" as a good translation for załatwić,
especially in British English, where I would use "sorted" as a single word
sentence similar to "załatwione". There's other possible translations too, I
could e.g. imagine using "score" when it's specifically about obtaining
something physical, or "get it done" if it's about expediency or perseverance;
if anything there's too many ways of translating it!

~~~
tomaszs
Everything makes perfect sense. But i find sort to have different culture
meaning in english than załatwić in polish.

When someone sorts something out, he goes and solves something with available
methods.

When someone goes "załatwić" something, it means he solves something that is
impossible to solve or gets something that is impossible to get.

To sum it up, i think english vocabulary for sorting something out synonyms
ends at some point english speakers can not pass. And than "załatwić" kicks
in.

~~~
Leszek
I guess, and I say this as a native speaker of both languages, agree to
disagree ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
tomaszs
As a native speaker of polish language and a person who learns english for 20
years and actively uses it every day with native speakers - i can say the same
:) agree to disagree

