Untranslatable Words
Untranslatable Words donderdag 9 december 2010 23:28 Here's an article that caught my attention: 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World. Being a Swiss-German in NYC there are a few instances where I wish I could use certain Swiss-German words when speaking English and vice versa. Here are a few of the untranslatable words that caught my eye in the article.
Torschlusspanik German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”
Tartle Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you've forgotten their name.
Prozvonit Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”
Dépaysement French – The feeling that comes from not being in one's home country.
Torschlusspanik = Middle-life Crisis in American English.
“lagom” Swedish word without corresponding translation in english. It means “not too much and not too little” and is of course very relative to the person saying it.
When I was in Freiburg and Switzerland, I often heard 'kip' e.g, “Kip das Fenster,' for windows that both swung open and titled. Many dormitories have windows like this and I often found myself wanting to say, “Hey, kip the window.”
Another one is Chuchaqui in Latin America (Quechua/Spanish). It translates are hungover, but it also can mean to be getting drunk. One can be totally chuchaquied from last night or go get chuchaqui.
'Fika' is another notable, from Swedish.
Prozvonit in Italy is “uno squillo” and in english is “one bell”…
Shallow – in french, we just have 'not deep', which has bothered me ever since I learned the word shallow,
The actual translation for Torschlusspanik would be last-minute-panic
Fingerspitzengefühl = feeling in the tip of the fingers (a metaphor for ….hmmm…it is really hard to translate, … for intuition-driven knowledge)
Sinnbild
Pittermesser = a small knife for peeling e.g. vegetables
halt (“Das ist halt so”) = an avoidable fill-word that cannot explained to foreign-speakers
I've always been fascinated by this type of thing. I remember in high school, a German foreign exchange student asked me, “What is the word in English for the back of a chair?” That was the first time I considered that having words for things (or not) can actually shape the way you look at the world.
“Eselsbrücke”, which is “donkey bridge” when literally translated. I guess you could translate it to “memory aid”, but that doesn't do it justice.
I think “Heimweh” is a pretty popular one. Longing for home was invented by swiss soldiers In portuguese we have the word “Saudade” which is “The feeling of missing someone”. =)
Portuguese “dar um toque” just means “to get back (to someone) later”. It is a very old expression, way before mobile phone were ever possible in Brazil. I wonder if it is also an old expression in Spanish that just took on a new life …
Most words used in English which are direct borrows don't have good translations: genre gestalt zeitgest
There's also the now-famous “Ubuntu” from Swahili which means “I am because we are”, or something.
Danish word “arbejdsglæde”, (happy at work) made famous by Alex from http://positivesharing.com
saudade … a beautiful … melancholic melodious brazilian word … meaning the longing … the homesickness … the wanting to be there … there isn't a word like it in neither english … nor german, french, italian or spanish … saudade da santa terra … homesickness … longing for the hallowed land and beaches of brazil!
Coincé, a French word for uptight, but far more effective than uptight. Also, “glok” which sort of means lame/boring in French, but again, there;s no real English word to fully describe it.
Czech and Slovak “pohoda”, “pohodicka” – a noun that means the state that is exactly the opposit of stress. Usually involves just hanging out and enjoying the fact of being alive. One can “make it”, “have it”, alone or with friends… or it can just “be there (or here)”. Not translatable into American English. I wonder why.
The Malay word “Sayang” has no equivalent word in English to describe a common emotion in Malaysia. it is affection, love, sorrow and pity all at the same time. Kind of like being happy and sad at the same moment. In saying goodbye to some one dear you may feel sayang. Happy to know and love them, sad that you will never see them again.
French “L'esprit de l'escalier”, which describes the feeling one gets when thinking of the perfect comeback only after leaving. “I should have said…”
La ach hatem in arabic means “laundry”, but like a child's laundry. We don't really have a word for it.
“Nya gung bay chuk tai” in a certain Chinese dialect means “Your grandfather got butchered by a burglar!” The expression means, “What a rip-off!”
sayang (malay) , saudade (brazilian), dor (romanian).. we all think that these words are untranslatable even if they point in the same direction . Yet we all “feel them” regardless of language. We are much more the same than we may to want to imagine
Kantönligeist. Perfect word to describe many aspects of Switzerland to foreigners. If they would only understand it.
I also like lädele. It's meaning is somewhere between shopping and window shopping.
“Dépaysement” – it is also the feeling of well-being experienced by not being home.
French, the word “spleen” refers to a state of pensive sadness / melancholy. Don't think there is an equivalent in English…
It took me a while to understand 'glok' – glauque is the spelling, K are excessivelly rare in french. Lame boring would a way of translating it, but it's more like a place/Thing/situation that feels wrong in a sad and disguting way.
fremdschämen – to feel embarrassed for someone else
