> Try it if you speak another language and read both the translated version and the original of a great work of literature and you'll see what I mean. Agreed.

> Try it if you speak another language and read both the translated version and the original of a great work of literature and you'll see what I mean. Agreed. There's an even simpler way to experience this: jokes and puns. Often times, they are untranslatable because their literal meaning is nonsensical and all of its expressiveness comes from timing/context, play on words and/or a local cultural references. By the time you've explained a joke, it has already lost its effect. There's a curious story among diplomatic translators where in a live diplomatic meeting, one of the parties blurted out a joke and the interpreter, attempting to accurately set the mood, translated it as "X just blurted out an untranslatable joke, please laugh heartily"!