# English words that are difficult to translate. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957 "2010-10-31T05:43:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/141 "2010-11-08T11:51:36Z")
> [@Yonose](#): > > I don’t think there’s a word in Spanish for “ever” > We use _nunca_ for “never” and _siempre_ for “always” but I personally have problems translating ever. _Nunca_ appears to be derived the Latin _numquam_. _Siempre_ seems to be from _semper_. So I would expect Spanish to have evolved its own version of _umquam_, which means “ever, at any time.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/142 "2010-11-08T13:15:54Z")
> [@Yonose](#): > > I don’t think there’s a word in Spanish for “ever” > We use _nunca_ for “never” and _siempre_ for “always” but I personally have problems translating ever. > [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > _Nunca_ appears to be derived the Latin _numquam_. _Siempre_ seems to be from _semper_. So I would expect Spanish to have evolved its own version of _umquam_, which means “ever, at any time.” I think there isn’t a word that’s the exact equivalent; the concept exists but it happens to be expressed in different ways than it does in English, and which is the best translation will vary with the exact sentence - but the same happens with many situations involving, for example, verbs (phrasal verbs, verb tense usage, etc.); tense structure isn’t even the same in the two languages, and if two tenses happen to be grammatically equivalent they aren’t necessarily equivalent when it comes to how they’re used and what they mean. One of the worst difficulties of translation is getting the customers to understand that, in general, “word by word” is _not_ going to work. “Will you ever love me?” “¿Me querrás algún día?” In this case, ‘algún día’ has the meaning that ‘ever’ has in English, but its literal back-translation is ‘some day’. “If we ever want to go to Mars, we will.” “Si queremos ir a Marte, lo haremos.” (‘If we want to go to Mars, we will’) There isn’t even a word that can be pointed out as being the ‘ever’; in Spanish you could say “Si alguna vez queremos…” - but it is not necessary. Having that kind of unnecessary stuff crop up too often is one of the hints that a text is a translation. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/143 "2010-11-08T16:27:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > **kunilou** , I don’t know when that story is from, but I’ve been seeing _barbacoas_ (it’s a _barbacoa_ if it’s the whole “coal burner + grille” assembly, a _parrilla_ if it’s only the grille that you place over a fire) around for at least 30 years. The style of cooking is called _a la parrilla_ if it doesn’t involve sauce and _barbacoa_ if it involves barbecue sauce. It may have been that the problem wasn’t with the word itself being hard to translate, but with the guests being “big city boys” who’ve never killed anything bigger than a mosquito, hoed a row or cooked a rack of ribs over an open fire. > [@BleizDu](#): > > I don’t get it, it’s barbecue too in French, nothing to translate. 😕 > [@Blake](#): > > It probably depended on the exact order of the guests. Perhaps it was related to the German first, who translated it to the Frenchman as “grill” who then translated it to the Spaniard as “griddle” and was relayed back as “frypan” or something like that. > > You get this playing Babelfish Bingo too. The word only has to fail to translate correctly once and it then gets increasingly incorrect with every subsequent translation, even if the \*original \*word is identical in all the subsequent languages. It’s been a long time (anything involving Jack Paar was obviously a long time ago) and I didn’t understand all the translations, but I seem to recall that “barbecue” went into French as _rotisserie_ which shifted the meaning from a backyard cookout to roasting meat in an oven. ---
**Author:** ![Croquantes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@Croquantes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Croquantes)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/144 "2011-08-22T18:42:04Z")
In Chinese, there are two words that -very- difficult to translate. Nice and Mean. Especially because in English, we consider the words to be opposites. Neither words exist in Chinese, so it’s really hard to explain one without being able to use the other! Nice and mean both mean so many things, that when I tried explaining to some Chinese people what the words meant by writing out all the different meanings on a whiteboard I ended up filling half of it. In order to translate the words, you have to spell out what makes a person nice or mean. Hard to do if you’re basing your opinion of someone being nice on a gut feeling, which is what English speakers often do. “So, what did you think of her?” “Oh, she’s nice”. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/145 "2011-08-22T19:01:08Z")
> [@Croquantes](#): > > In order to translate the words, you have to spell out what makes a person nice or mean. Hard to do if you’re basing your opinion of someone being nice on a gut feeling, which is what English speakers often do. That is pretty cool, IMHO. It forces you to be specific. This would be annoying at first, but I think it would eventually train your mind to be more alert. A bit like that invented language – e-squared? – which is just English, but without ever resorting to using any form of the verb “to be”. And…how do you translate “mean” or “nice” in zombie language? 😉 (Just kidding. I think this thread is well worth reviving, and it’s not \*that \*old.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/146 "2011-08-22T19:02:39Z")
Cricket (the game, not the insect). Is there any translation that is not simply an adoption/adaptation of the English word? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/147 "2011-08-23T00:57:07Z")
JKellyMap writes: \> This would be annoying at first, but I think it would eventually train your mind to \> be more alert. A bit like that invented language – e-squared? – which is just \> English, but without ever resorting to using any form of the verb “to be”. E-Prime > **[E-Prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime)** > > E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes denoted É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be. > E-Prime excludes forms such as be, being, been, present tense forms (am, is, are), past tense forms (was, were) along with their negative contractions (isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't), and nonstandard contractions such as ain't. E-Prime also excludes contractions such as I'm, we're, you're, he's, she's, it's, they're, there's, here... ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/148 "2011-08-23T14:45:47Z")
There is the old joke about the Irishman who has to ask the Spaniard what mañana means and on hearing the explanation responds that sadly there is no equvialent word in Irish Gaelic that conveys the same sense of urgency. I also heard recently that the word “gingerly” is hard to translate into most other languages. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/149 "2011-08-23T14:57:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > JKellyMap writes: > > \> This would be annoying at first, but I think it would eventually train your mind to > \> be more alert. A bit like that invented language – e-squared? – which is just > \> English, but without ever resorting to using any form of the verb “to be”. > > E-Prime > > [E-Prime - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime) Thanks – that’s the one! Er…I mean…you have found, and have showed us all, just the thing I was wondering about! ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/150 "2011-08-23T15:34:16Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Tell me about it. The problem’s the exact same in French. I did a short stint translating for _Warhammer Online_. My, my. So many Rageclaw Bears and Throatslasher Bats and the like. Yeah, it sounds the shit in English, but in French “Ours Griffe de Rage” sounds \*like \*shit :). > > And yup, same problem with the swordsmen, swordbearers, swordchuckers, swordmasters, swordsworders, all of course needing to be differentiated because they’re don’t count towards the same quests. > On the upside, it was fun to do in a puzzle sort of way, and I learned quite a bit of ancient, medieval or quaint vocab in the process of navigating around the issue. On the downside, I doubt the majority of players know what half of the words we ended up using actually mean, or even realize they’re not made-up words 😕 LOL, this points out why one should not play on a foreign to you language server. I play Lord of the Rings Online on a German server [I want to hang out with my german buddy and he started playing it long before I started so he was all set up on a German server. I had to ‘cheat’ my way on to one instead of being filed onto an American server] Good example - when they link an item into chat, it pops up with the name in german. When I click on it, it autotranslates into english in the popup. There are many names that are different, the street my residence is on is called something else entirely different in German. Many of the subzones get different names, the quests have different names. [the issue that the zone chatter and people wander up to me and start typing at me in German is beside the point 😃 It is a lot of fun and I do not have a low frustration point so it works for me.] I have noticed that frequently the German population on the server tend to be less assholish than on the american server I accidently made an account on. I can only listen to so many Chuck Norris jokes before I wist for it to be PVP to I could go around and gank them all. I wouldn’t say that the players are more serious, they have lots of fun, they just seem to have a bit more maturity in the general player population. They also tend to be more willing to share craft material spawns. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/151 "2011-08-23T15:42:31Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Not anywhere near the extent that it happens in Japan. I’ve been hounded by acquaintances at work because I’ve said the equivalent of, “I’m sorry, I have other plans.” > > “What other plans?” > “Who are you meeting?” > “Where are you going together?” > “For how long?” > “What’s your relationship to this person?” > > …and on and on. These are people I barely know outside of work. It’s not just that I’m not Japanese either, I’ve seen it happen with Japanese friends and colleagues. Instead of a simple white lie about not being able to go, you have to make up an elaborate story that covers most or all of the potential questions. And even then, sometimes they won’t fucking let it go. It’s a major cultural difference, not just a little foible. My brother in law had the perfect way to deal with it .. he would tell whomever that he was going to be making his regular call to his parents. Parental obligation is sort of a trump card over a random social local event … everybody thought he was particularly dedicated to honoring his parents =) [He just never liked the semiobligation to go out drinking with the guys in his office after work on Fridays.] ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/152 "2011-08-23T18:24:17Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Tell me about it. The problem’s the exact same in French. I did a short stint translating for _Warhammer Online_. My, my. So many Rageclaw Bears and Throatslasher Bats and the like. Yeah, it sounds the shit in English, but in French “Ours Griffe de Rage” sounds \*like \*shit :). > > And yup, same problem with the swordsmen, swordbearers, swordchuckers, swordmasters, swordsworders, all of course needing to be differentiated because they’re don’t count towards the same quests. > On the upside, it was fun to do in a puzzle sort of way, and I learned quite a bit of ancient, medieval or quaint vocab in the process of navigating around the issue. On the downside, I doubt the majority of players know what half of the words we ended up using actually mean, or even realize they’re not made-up words 😕 Ooh, I must know: What are Squigs in French? ---
**Author:** ![Bamboo\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@Bamboo\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bamboo_Boy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/153 "2011-08-23T19:44:11Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Similarly Swedes often struggle and use the word ‘funny’ instead. I have had many an exchange like this: > > - Did you enjoy last night? > - Yes, it was funny. > - Huh? Danes totally do this too. It made me realize that “funny” is very often a negative thing. “That water park was funny” makes me thing there is something probably slightly defective about it. Not too long ago I was asked by a Russian friend to explain the difference between “wish” and “hope”. I couldn’t define it clearly for him at all. They are clearly two different things to us native speakers. “Wish” is particularly problematic, even alone. -BB ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/154 "2011-08-24T02:27:37Z")
> [@nani](#): > > \ > I recently had to translate the word “fluffer” for a foreign friend of mine. That took a few sentences. I would’ve done it quicker than that… “Can you explain _fluffer_ to me?” “No.” ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/155 "2011-08-24T04:45:04Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > **privacy** > > **slut** > > **miss** > **fuck** > I’ve also had trouble explaining: silly, sarcasm, black (as in morbid) humor, indefinite counting terms like “few” or “several,” cheesy, and casual. Some concepts are rooted in culture and require explanations, some just have no equivalents. I’ve had a hard time with the word ‘flirt.’ Japanese will always respond with nampa, but the connotation and cultural nuances of the word are very different. Nampa is more like ‘to hit on.’ ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/156 "2011-08-27T04:13:17Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Nous sommes ‘fuqued’! _ **“J’en ai marre!”** _, when said with that French combination of despair and awe, seems to have the same connotation… (And don’t be like me and continually chuckle internally, thinking “Gee, I wonder why that Frenchie is bitching about The Smith’s guitarist?\*”) \*Hey, when I run into him in Paris, I can say, “Johnny Marr, j’en ai marre!” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/157 "2011-08-27T07:30:00Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > There isn’t in Hebrew, either; we make due with the phrase “forest fruit”. > > Hebrew also doesn’t have a word for “subtle”, which explains a lot. > > Going the other way, there are a few very common Hebrew words that can’t really be translated to English, like _stam_, which sort-of means “for no reason”, and _davka_, which according to context can mean “actually, despite what one might have thought”, or “out of spite” or various other concepts related to general contrariness. > > [An article on “Davka”.](http://elephant.org.il/translate/davka.html) From what I understand, “amen” is also hard to translate. Translations of the Bible even still disagree on Jesus’s common use of the word before speaking. In fact, exclamations are often hard to translate. For another New Testament Hebrew example, consider Hosanna. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/158 "2011-08-29T07:10:55Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > From what I understand, “amen” is also hard to translate. 😕 You don’t translate it to “amen”? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/159 "2011-08-29T14:29:41Z")
This thread displays a lot of mistaken assumptions about what translation is and what it does. Claims of “untranslatable” this and that generally derive from such assumptions. Briefly: 1. A good translator—a fully qualified professional— can translate anything, given a full understanding of the expression in the source language and a complete native knowledge of the target language. There is no insurmountable obstacle to getting anything translated. I think one reason this is possible is the underlying universality of language and grammar deriving from the neural structure of linguistic areas of the human brain. 2. Translation does not and cannot proceed word for word. This eliminates all arguments about translating a single word in the source language which can be expressed multiple ways in the target language, depending on context or nuance. Translation doesn’t do words per se, it does meanings. The words used to convey meanings are not necessarily one-to-one; they can just as well be one-to-many. 3. A translation is not a thorough dissertation on the full range of cultural context implicit in a text or utterance. For that we have anthropologists, philosophers, and literature professors who have the scope to write whole books on a single term or concept. Translation is not tied to the infinite nebulous cloud of culture in which texts arise and are embedded. Translation is tied to the text itself, a finite and relatively concrete object. For the eland example, it’s sufficient to translate “as tall as the shoulder of an eland.” The customer for whom the translation is done presumably has an interest in the subject matter, and is expected to fill in the cultural background of meanings with their own research. Otherwise we wouldn’t be translators, we’d be encyclopedists. That said, there are some expressions that are more challenging and require the full competence of a qualified professional translator to do an adequate job. “Adequate” as outlined above, in which the scope of the meaning conveyed is not infinite, but isn’t supposed to be. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/160 "2011-08-29T22:13:18Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Something very english is “scrumping”. > > Of course other languages have words for “stealing” and “apples” but the english word carries with it much more subtlety of meaning. > > It means young boys taking apples, from someone’s garden. And this is not a malicious act. It is not wholesale theft (as taking too many would cease to be scrumping) and it has to carry with it the possibility of being caught (taking apples from a tree in an abandoned house garden just wouldn’t be scrumping). Not uniquely English at all. It’s “palla” in Swedish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957.md?page=9)