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I’m always wary of these lists, because if you search for the languages you know you always see that most of them are actually translatable and/or rare expressi
by hk__2 5y ago
I’m always wary of these lists, because if you search for the languages you know you always see that most of them are actually translatable and/or rare expressions that nobody uses.
- Hamuko 5y agoThe problem with this list in particular is that it's composed of user submissions on Reddit, where people probably only know their language + English + maybe a third language. For example, "björntjänst" under Swedish. If you actually check the Reddit post, you can see that people have posted "niedźwiedzia przysługa" (Polish), "Bärendienst" (German), "medveđa usluga" (Serbocroatian) and "bjørnetjeneste" (Norwegian) as the literal same word. I can also confirm that the Finnish "karhunpalvelus" is also a literal one-to-one translation.
- bee_rider 5y agoAlso for any expression/phrase/word there will be a set of languages into which it will easily translate, and a set of languages into which it will not.
- School-Cotton 5y agoAlso, a lot of the French ones, like “joie de vivre”, have been borrowed into English verbatim. “Joie de vivre” is indeed translatable into English, and the translation is just “joie de vivre”. To claim otherwise would be like saying that the concept of chile pepper can only be expressed in Nahuatl.
- awb 5y ago> “Joie de vivre” is indeed translatable into English, and the translation is just “joie de vivre”. I’m a native English speaker and I’ve never heard of the expression “Joie de vivre”, so I don’t understand how “Joie de vivre” is the English translation of “Joie de vivre”.
- School-Cotton 5y agoWell, that’s unsurprising; nobody can know every expression in any language, even their native one. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joie%20de%20vivre https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joie%20de%20vivre
- awb 5y agoSurprising to me. I’m an avid reader of books and news and movie watcher and I’ve never heard this phrase once. I also took 3 years of French, went to a 4 year college and I’ve reviewed lists of foreign phrases commonly used in English with my kids, all while somehow dodging this phrase for ~40 years!
- throwaway98700k 5y agoIt’s as common as je ne sais quoi or deja vu or ennui. This one’s on you. Here’s a helpful list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_expressions_in_English https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_expressio...
- 5y ago
- Natsu 5y agoOr you have to untranslate them to figure out what went wrong, like "craunch the marmoset" - https://sesquiotic.com/2016/05/02/to-craunch-the-marmoset/ https://sesquiotic.com/2016/05/02/to-craunch-the-marmoset/
- jonshariat 5y agoI remember growing up in a 2nd generation home and with many immigrant friends, people would always say "Oh there isn't a word for that in english, its very unique" and then I would tell them the word which was usually not a common word but required some vocabulary knowledge. English is also the largest with over 200k words. Not to say there isn't words like this just that it takes deep vocabulary knowledge in two languages at the same time to know.
- y4mi 5y agothere are a lot of words that dont map directly onto another word. heck, i'd argue that most abstract words are just close-ish approximations, which can be used to convey the same thing, but are also useable in different contexts with significantly changed meaning. Take yesterday's wordle for example: tangy. few languages have something that maps onto exactly this meaning. Its still easy to translate it with a sentence, but its likely going to be more than one word. And the chosen translation will likely change significantly depending on the context the word is used in.
- jonshariat 5y agoYup. There are words like this. My point is that there are also a lot of mistakes because you need to know both languages vocabulary to know if its true or not.
- qqii 5y agoHaving checked my own language I'd describe the list not as being unable to translated outright, but of susinct ideas that are not normally expressed in English. A literal or detailed and contextful translation does not express the same "feeling" as in the native tongue, which you could argue as a what is impossible to translate.
- qqii 5y agoAlso, taking the website name literally leads to a very boring time. If we define translatable as having a surjection between languages then many commenters have shown examples of even the most difficult to translate phrases explained in a blog or article. Instead the subreddit's description[0] is a far better description, and the discussion on each phrase about possible translations or similar ideas in different languages is a lot of fun! [0]: Post quirky and niche words/phrases from foreign languages that can't easily be translated.
- timeon 5y ago> feeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connotation
- qqii 5y agoThank you.