I think that if you look at the content of a comprehensive dictionary between two languages, exact correspondences come up a heck of a lot.
There are a lot of words for concrete things, like the example you gave. But also specific words for abstractions.
I suspect, for instance, that Korean has a word for communism which has that one specific meaning.
I think the article is not so much getting at the unfamiliar plant names or cultural things like names of foods.
But for instance verbs. In English you can take a nap, take a wife, take a stand, take a leak, take someone somewhere, take the money and run, ... In another language, you need different verbs for these. But some of those verbs in that language also have multiple meanings. If we pin down the specific usage frame, like "take a nap", there is a specific translation that fits. This doesn't involve geographic or cultural items; everyone everywhere takes naps.
Verbs are often like this because they involve metaphor a lot.
Nouns also involve metaphor, often when some less common objects are named after common ones. E.g. mouth is a body part. Skirt and sleeve are parts of clothing. A river can have a mouth in English; maybe it would be funny in another language. Technical objects can have skirts (protective guards) or sleeves (sliding casings). Maybe in the foreign language you cannot use those clothing words for those objects without sounding funny.
"We follow through" could work for cumplimos. I suspect that it may be a word that is used often in ads? So in the translation you have to lose exactness and map hackneyed to hackneyed, same sort of thing to the same sort of thing. E.g. "we go the distance" or whatever.
There are a lot of words for concrete things, like the example you gave. But also specific words for abstractions.
I suspect, for instance, that Korean has a word for communism which has that one specific meaning.
I think the article is not so much getting at the unfamiliar plant names or cultural things like names of foods.
But for instance verbs. In English you can take a nap, take a wife, take a stand, take a leak, take someone somewhere, take the money and run, ... In another language, you need different verbs for these. But some of those verbs in that language also have multiple meanings. If we pin down the specific usage frame, like "take a nap", there is a specific translation that fits. This doesn't involve geographic or cultural items; everyone everywhere takes naps.
Verbs are often like this because they involve metaphor a lot.
Nouns also involve metaphor, often when some less common objects are named after common ones. E.g. mouth is a body part. Skirt and sleeve are parts of clothing. A river can have a mouth in English; maybe it would be funny in another language. Technical objects can have skirts (protective guards) or sleeves (sliding casings). Maybe in the foreign language you cannot use those clothing words for those objects without sounding funny.
"We follow through" could work for cumplimos. I suspect that it may be a word that is used often in ads? So in the translation you have to lose exactness and map hackneyed to hackneyed, same sort of thing to the same sort of thing. E.g. "we go the distance" or whatever.