I was an English <> Spanish translator in another life. While I agree with your general idea that there are some untranslatable words, most of the words you ci

I was an English <> Spanish translator in another life. While I agree with your general idea that there are some untranslatable words, most of the words you cite do have equivalents in Spanish, unless you are referring to false friends. In that case, it'd be great if you could elaborate. But generally speaking, the translations are regionalisms. Also, I'd like to add that language is very much embedded in culture and vice versa. They work off each other and influence each other. I think words are concepts. Some of the discourse of translatability in the Spanish-speaking world, especially when the source language is English, usually deals with the illogical sense of English words. Bullying is a good example, actually. Bullying comes from the Dutch word "brother" and its definition has drifted far away from "fine fellow". In Spanish, the word "bullying" in the 21st century English-speaking sense would be related to mean "acosador", which comes from the Latin cursus/currere which can probably best be defined as "to proceed" in English. So "bullying", as you suggest, might not have a one-word translation, but it could be translated as "acosador escolar". However, because Spanish-speakers understand the importance of world integration, "bullying" is also used, though you get purists and word-rebels in some regions who, incidentally, are also anti-American, anti-consumerism and sceptical of the English-speaking world in general. A similar phenomenon occurs in the UK. You see certain people use an indigenous equivalent instead of adopting a standard "London English" word. It certainly happens in South America. So yes, culture and language are very much tied together. Personally, I think Portuguese, though a romance language, really shouldn't be grouped together with Spanish, even though I can understand most of it, though I've never taken a single Portuguese course in my entire life. My understanding it has to do with studying Latin and Italian. I think the average, educated Spanish speaker would be able to read maybe 50% and understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese even less. Some words and pronunciations have seeped into Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, however.