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Untranslatable
- space_ghost 3y agoI like the idea, but the "see what people have added" button on the landing page links to the new-entry page instead of the explore page.
- yorwba 3y agoThe explore page is here: https://untranslatable.co/pages/explore https://untranslatable.co/pages/explore
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- phito 3y agoOh I assumed I had miss clicked
- muhammadusman 3y agohappened to me as well, might just be linked incorrectly.
- not-my-account 3y ago'tis <div class="col-xl-auto py-2 justify-content-end"> <a class="bttn btn-main-light align-self-end" href="https://untranslatable.co/submissions/new">see what people have added</a> </div> <div class="col-xl-auto py-2 justify-content-start"> <a class="bttn btn-main-dark align-self-start" href="https://untranslatable.co/submissions/new">add something</a> </div>
- IlliOnato 3y agoCopy-and-paste, I guess.
- justsomehnguy 3y agoAlong with 1.16MB photo down there.
- denysvitali 3y agoThis is probably a translation mistake :-)
- amarainn 3y agoYou are absolutely right! I've been making updates to the homepage and this was an oversight, I will fix it as soon as possible. Thanks for pointing it out! For what it is worth, you can visit the explore page through the menu or at untranslatable.co/explore
- davidw 3y agoThe Italian ones are real, but a bit less 'urban dictionary' than phrases that have been around for a while. Probably just needs more contributors though.
- bvanderveen 3y agoA mechanism for filtering by language or searching by keyword would be nice.
- alexwhb 3y agoLove the idea of this. Hope it takes off
- rob74 3y agoCool idea, but definitely needs some more content - the "explore" page shows 103 pages with 20 entries each = ~2060 entries, which is a good start, but not really comprehensive I would say. Seems to have had a flurry of activity in 2020, then nothing, then a single new expression added this month?
- input_sh 3y agoFurthermore they don't seem to do any sort of checks to make sure the same entry isn't added multiple times. Didn't take me long to spot three entries for the same phrase: https://untranslatable.co/pages/explore/?q%5Btitle_or_language_or_alternatives_or_literal_translation_or_explanation_or_category_input_name_or_example_original_or_example_translation_or_synonym_cont%5D=Vukojebina https://untranslatable.co/pages/explore/?q%5Btitle_or_langua...
- amarainn 3y agoThis is because I don't think the same thing being added multiple times is a huge issue. The same word can have multiple meanings, slightly altering meanings, or some people are more extensive in their description than others. I think that is a feature of a crowd-sourced dictionary - you get to see how people describe it instead of one curated description. At the end of the day, it's up to the user to see which description they find most compelling, helpful or useful.
- amarainn 3y agoYou are right, the website needs way more entries. I work on this project while also working full-time, but one of my biggest wishes has been to invest more time into getting people to add more entries. That being said - entries are not organized by the latest addition, so there are more entries from the past few years.
- blondin 3y agosaw the expression "que sopa?" and thought about all the verlan french rappers brought into the french language. most of them will never make it into the french dictionary.
- stcredzero 3y agoDuring my last trip to Fujian China, I became fascinated by the Mandarin word that sounds like, "schma." My wife was born there, and she had told me it meant, "what." But this time, I was really listening to how the word was being used, and it occurred to me, it was being used somewhat like "donc" in French. (Which my French teacher in high school told me was untranslatable.) When I realized, that, my reaction was, "What!?" After our trip, I became obsessed with the word for receipt: "fapiao." I thought my inability to tell the difference in the tones was hilarious, but now she refuses to say the word in front of me at all! This is also hard for me to understand. As far as I'm concerned, she's pretty much just saying, "ma" to me 4 times in a row! There's a difference, but it's very difficult! Why is my befuddlement and amusement at that so annoying? There's this Taiwanese comedienne who was talking about being annoyed at her western boyfriend not being able to tell, so apparently that's a thing.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y agoThis is curious to me. As a Westerner and speaker of a non-tonal language that started learning Chinese already being an adult, I never had any difficulty telling the difference between the tones. I did have difficulty with other sounds of the language (e.g. telling "x" from "sh" or "q" from "ch") - hell, I even have difficulty with English sounds, for example, to this day I need to pay an inordinate amount of attention to tell "eyes" from "ice" and there's no way I'll successfully pronounce them differently in regular real-time conversation. But the Mandarin tones? I find the difference obvious. I wonder if being a music aficionado, having played an instrument, etc. helps with the tones.
- stcredzero 3y agofor example, to this day I need to pay an inordinate amount of attention to tell "eyes" from "ice" I just find that obvious. Wherever I've been in the US, "eyes" is drawn out, but "ice" is short. (Think of imitating a southern accent for "eyes.") The only people I've ever heard saying "eyes" so it sounds like "ice" are native German speakers and other Europeans. (My wife learned German for her Chinese/German comparative lit degree, so the way she says certain things in English sounds menacing to me like how a WWII German movie character says, "We have ways of making you talk!" In particular, when she says, "Your handwriting...looks like WORMS!") I wonder if being a music aficionado, having played an instrument, etc. helps with the tones. I've been playing traditional music for almost 40 years, and I even qualified to compete at what's basically the world competition once. I think it matters most what one got used to as a child.
- karaterobot 3y agoThis is pretty neat. I expected it to immediately have descended into the same hell as Urban Dictionary, but it actually seems useful. I appreciate that it tells me who uses a term and where, and I especially like being able to click on those labels to explore more terms in the same category—I wish there were a way to see all those categories and choose between them (if there is, it isn't obvious to me).
- cobertos 3y agoVery interesting they were funded partially from Kickstarter! 292 backers at 10k€. I assumed you needed quite the following for Kickstarter to work... And it looks like they do. 49k followers on Facebook and 16k on Instagram. Not sure how far back these go, but looks like very "shareable" content, where they would take I translatable words and make little funny pictures or memes or other intriguing things and post them. Lots of interaction comments/reaction-wise Timeline-wise this was backed on Kickstarter in 2020. Site launched in summer 2020. The creator was very active on Kickstarter working on communicating and updating the community with what was going on (until the end there). Also seems to have a Patreon, and worked itself into other places like https://github.com/theimpossibleastronaut/awesome-linguistics https://github.com/theimpossibleastronaut/awesome-linguistic...
- tasuki 3y agoThere's only 2000 entries so this isn't very useful right now. With the kickstarter at 10k€ that's 5€ per entry - quite expensive. Otoh the creator learned to program specifically to create this website, so I guess well done her!
- wrboyce 3y agoYeah, well done for crowdfunding some education for herself hah. Fools and their money.
- replwoacause 3y agoThis is a cynical take.
- cobertos 3y agoSounds more like the community of people in this interest group/hobby had an interest and she was just stewarding their desires. And her and the communities values ended up aligning. Like a contractor/contractee relationship
- hashtag-til 3y agoTrolls and their comments. Even if it is like you say, it is a remarkable achievement to be able to convince people to invest in your idea.
- istrice 3y agoDid my part, added an Italian expression :)
- lovegrenoble 3y agoHow can we choose the language? The UI is not friendly...
- ugjka 3y agoThe UI is totally broken
- atomjames 3y agoLots of people on here have web dev experience. Maybe someone could offer to help.
- RedNifre 3y agoYou click on one of the languages on a random post, then change the language in the URL to the one you like.
- fivre 3y agoi particularly like that hacking the URL query parameters is apparently the only option for navigating the country and language categories, but those query parameters are at the end of the URL, usually past the edge of the URL bar field they're past the end because the first parameter is a giant "authenticity token" base64 blob. you'd think this is maybe important, but removing it doesn't appear to affect the request at all
- Biganon 3y agoWhen I go to https://untranslatable.co/pages/stats#countries https://untranslatable.co/pages/stats#countries (which is weirdly hidden at the bottom of the page), I cannot open the "Languages", "Countries" or "Latest entries" sections. Therefore, I have no idea how to see slang from one specific country.
- Hamuko 3y agoThe "see what people have added" button on the front page is also broken. Doesn't seem like a particularly well made site.
- amarainn 3y agoI have been having some javascript issues that I need to work on (I am currently traveling), but you can find slang by language by simply typing the language or country in the search bar, or when you have found an entry by clicking on the language or country you are interested in! Hope this helps, and I'll try to fix these issues asap.
- LaurenSerino 3y agoBad UX, great idea. Cursing in other languages is my prime influence for learning them.
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoWhat is difference/upside compared to urbandictionary that has fit its role quite well up to now? https://www.urbandictionary.com/ https://www.urbandictionary.com/
- emmanueloga_ 3y agoI think the main difference is that it’s multilingual
- FireInsight 3y agoI just searched for non-english slang on UD and found two definitions instantly. I think it's safe to say that the internationalism is at least not prohibited.
- Freak_NL 3y agoFor any digital crowdsourced dictionary to be useful and viable, step one is to have an open license to prevent contributors from being turned off by the thought of contributing their efforts to what might eventually just end up as commercial as Urban Dictionary. This project makes no mentioning of licensing at all though. That shouldn't be an afterthought.
- Aachen 3y agoI was already looking for a bug tracker to fix the swallowed newlines and blank lines after submitting... I'm so used to open source now, it somehow surprises me not to be able to find at least a public bug tracker even if I can't directly submit a simple fix. One can share "feedback" via Google Docs, though :') yeah, no thanks Now that you point out the data license, yeah, this project will definitely be dead within two years. No sustainable license and not interesting enough to revisit daily like Mastodon, so it will neither build a community nor a sustainable dataset. It's simple enough that part time support will let it survive in the background for a while, but colour me surprised if the author hasn't fully moved on come 2026
- akoboldfrying 3y ago>For any digital crowdsourced dictionary to be useful and viable I'm pro open licenses, but you're overstating things. The sheer usefulness and viability of Urban Dictionary attests to the fact that most people don't actually care about licenses.
- lucideer 3y ago> The sheer usefulness and viability of Urban Dictionary attests to the fact that most people don't actually care about licenses. Urban Dictionary is indeed extremely useful, but I think making this out to be evidence that people don't care is oversimplifying things. As useful as it is, it's still pretty clear that the licensing (along with a few other lacks, open moderation, etc.) severely holds it back from being as comprehensive & accurate a source as it could be. It achieves usefulness through sheer volume: the vast majority of entries on it are nonsense, there's just so many that there are diamonds to be found in the rough.
- SamBam 3y agoSo this is international, but is the aim for it to be used by an international audience? e.g. if a Brazilian were lamenting the fact that UrbanDictionary is in English, is this site for them? Because right now when I explore the entries, all the definitions are in English. Is this the intent? So it's for English people to find out what international slang words are? I feel like it would be good to be really clear about your audience. Maybe one option would be to allow the writing of definitions in multiple languages. Then a user could look up a word, and see all the definitions and find the definition in their language.
- Tijdreiziger 3y agoThe fact that it’s in English doesn’t preclude its use by the non-English. For example, I (a Dutch person) just found out about some Brazilian and Panamanian slang. Presumably, a Brazilian or Panamanian person could also find out about Dutch expressions (I saw some Dutch entries). So the target audience, to me, is quite clear: people from around the world, who are interested in other languages and cultures.
- amarainn 3y agoIt is indeed for an international audience - language learners or people who are generally interested in learning about other languages and cultures. There are various slang dictionaries for specific languages or countries, but as far as I could tell there were none taking slang from different languages and explaining it to foreigners. Adding definitions in different languages would make the moderation process quite a bit more complicated, and it would also defeat the purpose of explaining slang to an external audience.
- moritzwarhier 3y agoThis project and landing page succeeded in provoking interest. And when I visited, the "explore" link worked :) guess it was fixed recently. Would love for this to grow!
- MarcScott 3y agoSpotted this one: "Not here to fuck spiders" Asked an Ausie mate if it was real, and he confirmed he uses it often, as in: "Look mate, we're not here to fuck spiders, might as well just crack on."
- IlliOnato 3y agoI've seen it too and... LOL! :-)
- wrboyce 3y agoLove the idea but the UX needs some serious attention.
- jusgu 3y agoCool but why does clicking both “see what people have added” and “add an entry” link me to the same page to add an entry? Is there no way to view the collection without adding an entry?
- Tijdreiziger 3y agoIt seems like a bug, if you click ‘explore entries’ in the hamburger menu at the top, it works
- jasmas 3y agoSo Urban Dictionary clone, but English seems to be the second language in this case. Is licensing the draw or the differentiator? I don't think the message on that is clear.
- resolutebat 3y agoThis seems far less comprehensive, open and trustworthy than Wiktionary.
- keepamovin 3y agoI guess Cantonese should have a large contribution to this!
- dfee 3y agoUrban language is vulgar. Seeing “inclusivity” as a value gives me pause to the usefulness of this endeavor. As I’ve gotten older (many years past high school now), I care less about finding and sharing vulgar terms with friends. But, when I come across language on social media that I don’t understand, I want a guide. Fail me that, and I won’t return. Pull the ten most common (but missing) definitions from Urban Dictionary daily and provide a clean room definition. That would serve as a good litmus for the sorts of censorship we could expect.
- remram 3y ago"Inclusivity" doesn't mean "we don't define swear words". In fact it's specifically explained here as meaning "allows entries in any language, from any dialect".
- IlliOnato 3y agoI think, in context I could guess the meaning of "Not here to fuck spiders" in Australian English. But I don't think I could guess the meaning of "0800" in Brazilian Portuguese... :-)
- cookie_monsta 3y agoFwiw, as an Australian I have never heard that one but, yeah - there's enough context there to figure it out. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some spiders to wine and dine
- jackyard86 3y agoI was daydreaming (just a really dumb daydream) about a 'universial language' that would include all the words from every known language, just few minutes ago before I discovered this on HN. haha. I think it's really neat since there are thousands of foreign words that cannot be translated into English or Korean (Languages I speak), and it takes a quite of time just to really understand what those words mean.
- notfed 3y ago> The first multilingual urban dictionary Is it even legal for a site to call itself "[an] urban dictionary"? AFAIK "Urban Dictionary" refers to one thing: urbandictionary.com, no?
- notfed 3y agoAlso, I bet running urbandictionary.com is an absolute moderation nightmare. Imagine that, and now it's in thousands of languages. I wish the authors the best of luck.
- FireInsight 3y agoI know of at least one unaffiliated urban dictionary site using the term, but it's translated so maybe it doesn't count.
- FireInsight 3y agoWhen browsing my native language, I found that many of the words were in fact not untranslatable or urban in any way, but rather common words like "computer" that have been formed from roots different than english.
- xela79 3y agothis was posted before, many of the "untranslatable" things are perfectly translatable.
- amarainn 3y agoHi! I am Amarens, the creator of Untranslatable and I just wanted to thank you for sharing my project on here! It has given me a big spike in visitors and new contributions, and I just think it's very cool you wanted to share this project with other people. THANK YOU!