I’m wondering what things, concepts, emotions, etc. that are expressed in other cultures & languages that the (American) English language has no words for.
"Zeitgeist"in German has (so far as I know) no direct English equivalent. What are some other examples?
American English has no (single) word for the British English “biscuit”. And British English has no word for the American English “biscuit”. In the first case, an American would have to say “cookie or cracker”. In the second case, the concept is completely foreign, and has no word, since the American biscuits are not eaten in Britain.
What’s an American biscuit?
By now, I’d say “Zeitgeist” IS an English word meaning “Spirit of the age.”
When we find a useful foreign word or expression, we tend to keep it and make it a part of our language. There’s no English equivalent of L’Academie Francaise, and there’sno reason to come up with a new word for “kindergarten” or “schadenfreude” when the German words suit us fine.
In German, they say that a wheel that is not true ‘eggs.’ We don’t have any good verbs for that.
A German girl I dated told me that gemuetlich is much, much more than ‘cozy’ - there’s just no good translation.
Japanese: Shibuii (sp?) - the concept in art of something that is better than perfect because it has one beautiful flaw. The closest English word is “Chicago.”
Imagine a scone crossed with a croissant: dense and doughy yet still soft and flaky.
Yes – the closest things in British usage are scones, but they aren’t as sweet, and they are served with the main course of the meal.
And scones are harder, more crumbly and less flaky than American biscuits. I don’t think either is necessarily sweet; it depends what you put on them.
And we have “English muffins,” which I love. Brits have “crumpets,” which I hate.
Don’t listen to bup. *Shibui *is the concept of understated perfection - like Audrey Hepburn.
Wabi-sabi is the concept of imperfection adding to the aesthetic - often in pottery and the like there will be one intentional flaw. That’s the whole ‘beautiful woman with the broken nose’ deal.
In English, a chicken “lays an egg.” In Arabic, the chicken “eggs.”
Famously, English has no words for the centerline of the face between the eyebrows and between the two parts of your mustache.
Just as oddly, English have several words that seem to have no real definition, “mercenary” and “hispanic” come to mind.
Japanese: Shindoi. Kind of a mixture between tired but knowing that you’re doing something hard and accomplishing something at the same time. Was definitely exchanged as we passed people coming down the mountains while we were climbing up.
Wouldn’t mercenary be “person who fights for money” and “person for whom money is the overriding concern”?
From the adjective ‘warm’ we have the noun ‘warmth’ And for the opposite adjective ‘cool’ we had the noun… actually we don’t have a corresponding noun. I wish we did.
The Spanish verb empalagar has no real translation that I can think of. It’s a verb to denote a “feeling” of having eaten too many sweets.
i.e.:
Estos dulces me han empalagado.
in English:
These candies have ??? me up.
You could say sweetened, but it wouldn’t be the same thing. Perhaps you could say “over-sweetened”.
Actually we do, Paul: philtrum.
ETA: Given the part of your post I did not quote, I suspect you will come back to tell us that gullible is not in the American Heritage Dictionary.
We do: it’s ‘chill’. The words have the same relationship that ‘foul’ and ‘filth’ have. I’d guess ‘chill’ has become less common as a noun because ‘coldness’ or similar words have taken over.
How about schadenfreude?
Everyone is reduced to using the German word for it.
There’s also the wonderful Japanese word genki. [As far as I can tell, it means generally happy and merry]
And the Thai concept of sabai. [Chilled and content and happy]
The Irish noun craic. [An amorphous cloud of fun]
I bet the Germans really enjoy the irritation that that causes.
Why wouldn’t ‘merry’, ‘cheerful’, ‘perky’, etc. work fine as a translation?
