# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/161 "2011-08-30T06:51:38Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Not uniquely English at all. It’s “palla” in Swedish. And _chorizar_ in Spain’s Spanish, although you need to specify what is being _chorizado_. A person who _choriza_ is, you’ve probably guessed it, a _chorizo_. ---
**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 30, 2011, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/162 "2011-08-30T07:23:07Z")
I agree with Johanna in post #159, and I said more or less the same thing back in post #5. People are making too big a deal of the difficulty of translation here. No, you can’t always do a one-word translation. No, this doesn’t mean that you can’t get across the meaning most of the time pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/163 "2011-09-01T15:05:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Irish and Scottish Gaelic have no word for “yes” or “no”. Of course, since most, if not all, Gaelic speakers these days are bilingual they are familiar with the English word. “Sea” = yes “Ni Hea” = no in Irish. However as someone else pointed out, they’re rarely used, as you answer a verb with a verb. For example: “Ar ghlan tú an fhuinneog?” = Did you clean the window? The answer would be “Ghlan mé” or “Níor ghlan mé” not “Sea” or “Ni Hea”. ---
**Author:** ![cplif](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/48db29/32.png) [@cplif](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cplif)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/164 "2011-09-03T12:30:38Z")
Over the years, I have never found a French translation for “understatement”, though quite widely used in English. Since the word does not permit too much poetic licence (as in loom) I have never managed to convey it’s meaning directly. Just a word on subtitles, they are generally pretty bad “translations” in the strict sense, a good subtitle allows you to follow the plot. Even good literary translators are better when they respect color and style over literal translation (so much for the Bible) ---
**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:** [September 3, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/165 "2011-09-03T13:05:30Z")
The space between where translation ends and where meaning extends has always haunted people. There are expressions like _traduttore è traditore_ (translator is traitor) and “A translation is like a woman: If she is beautiful, she is not faithful. If she is faithful, she is not beautiful,” a complimentary helping of misogyny along with your metaphor. These are familiar complaints about the gap between translation and meaning. It also means that meaning is something more than is coded in symbols. It takes place inside the human brain, and it can be very extensively coded by symbols, but the symbols can only point to the meaning, not be it. I’m using _symbol_ in the broadest sense, including everything that language is made of. Language comprises a set of symbols. Translation can do whatever language can do. The question of what meaning is depends on the question of what consciousness is, which goes outside the scope of linguistics. And then there’s the infamous question of “_what is is_,” which is either profound metaphysics or a crude abuse of words by a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/166 "2013-06-18T04:54:24Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > 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. I can’t say that I agree with this. Perhaps it collides with some technical or professional definition of translation, but the common usage of translation includes text intended for laypeople, such as the translation of a movie or novel. A translation that did not make some effort to take cultural context into account would be a poor one. It isn’t the job of the original author to provide alternate idioms/metaphors/etc. for the target audience, nor is it the job of the end user to research words and phrases in the original language. That’s what translation is _for_. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/167 "2013-06-18T05:24:32Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The footnote was a _second_ joke. _ **Aut Caesar, aut nihil!** _😃 > **[Asterix the Gaul 1959 Page 30](http://comic-asterix-the-gaul.blogspot.com/2010/12/asterix-gaul-1959-page-30.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/168 "2013-06-18T09:35:38Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > There’s a follow-up to the original linked page, with five more words that are difficult to translate: [5 more difficult words to translate](http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2009/05/01/5-more-difficult-words-to-translate/). One of the new words it suggests is “fair”: > > That suggestion strikes a chord with me. When I was studying in Quebec, one of the mascots for the inter-mural teams at Université Laval was a big floppy hockey-playing dog, named: “Monsieur Fair-Play.” Considering that Laval is a French-speaking institution, in Quebec City, which tends to be more unilingual than Montréal, I found that odd. Why would francophones use an English term, especially in an institution and city that tends to be very strong on using French? > > When I asked francophone students about it, the standard answer was something along the lines: " ‘Fair play’ doesn’t translate. It’s more than just following the rules." In Hebrew, isn’t “fair” a loan word ( **Northern Piper** ’s point). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957/169 "2013-06-18T17:58:28Z")
> [@hammos1](#): > > French has no word for ‘nut’. There are words for each type of nut, but no generic term to describe them all. Yes and no. "Noix appears to be both general (nut) and specific (walnut), but if you really want to specify the latter, you would say “Noix de Grenoble”. There is a “Maison de noix” not far from here. It obviously means House of nuts (Nuthouse?), not House of walnuts. The two English words “safety” and “security”, seem to cover the same semantic territory as the two French words “sureté” and “sécurité” but have different break points. In fact, although I know when to use the first two I still cannot explain even to myself how they differ. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-are-difficult-to-translate/558957.md?page=8)