# English Words That Don't Translate **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 26, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219 "2015-07-26T07:56:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/21 "2015-07-26T22:50:57Z")
I think most educated adults get that translation is a tricky business and that a skilled translator can relay difficult concepts. Yes schadenfreude, now a full fledged English word, can be translated as “pleasure in the misfortune in others.” But I think some folks in this thread are thinking too much like linguists and not enough like word nerds who see the word “schadenfreude” and think “There’s one word in German for something that takes a dictionary style definition in English. That’s pretty neat.” ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/22 "2015-07-26T23:44:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Schadenfreude is an English word - I can assure you the way most EFL-speakers pronounce it is not the way Germans do. The English pronunciation of “Schadenfreude” is about as close to the German pronunciation as a word could be. The only difference would be the “R”; English doesn’t have a uvular R. It’s not like people say “shade in frood”. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/23 "2015-07-27T00:13:25Z")
Re: עָרוּם (Number 4 on **Monty** ’s list.) > [@chappachula](#): > > 4 means “naked” (!) —which proves how poorly translation software works 🙂 > [@Alessan](#): > > It also means “cunning”. I think if you combine all 4 of those words together, you might get something similar to “subtle”. This is also the word used at Gen. 3:1 “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field . . .” ( [Genesis 3 Interlinear PDF](http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen3.pdf) ) (See [here](http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Hebrew_Index.htm) for table of contents to entire Old Testament Interlinear.) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/24 "2015-07-27T01:40:42Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > But I think some folks in this thread are thinking too much like linguists and not enough like word nerds who see the word “schadenfreude” and think “There’s one word in German for something that takes a dictionary style definition in English. That’s pretty neat.” Sure, but my point is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen (as it often is framed) because of some kind of intrinsic quality of the German language, but rather because the English speaking cultures haven’t developed a single word for it. As mentioned above, this kind of situation is usually the reason words get borrowed. _Schadenfreude_ is English now, and people have been using it as English for a while (i.e., in print, it’s usually not capitalized or put in italics anymore). But of course we use all kinds of common, borrowed words that would otherwise require a “dictionary style definition” in English, without thinking twice, (_kitsch_, _cafeteria_, _dilettante_), so I don’t know why _schadenfreude_ always gets trotted out as some kind of unique thing, other than that the meaning itself might be more of a conversation piece. In the spirit of the OP, as well as to demonstrate my point, I’d offer _potluck_ (the North American meaning). Most interpreters I work with just use the word _potluck_ itself. Otherwise, you can plug it into an online dictionary, and come out with something like this in Spanish: _comida o cena en la que cada invitado aporta un plato de comida y la bebida_ I don’t think it’s any big surprise that this is the case, when you consider the function and prevalence of potlucks in North American society. Of course, if there is some Spanish-speaking region where this kind of dinner is common, they’ll probably have some kind of regionalism for it, and that would go for other languages as well. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/25 "2015-07-27T02:02:08Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > . . . But of course we use all kinds of common, borrowed words that would otherwise require a “dictionary style definition” in English, without thinking twice, (_kitsch_, _cafeteria_, _dilettante_), . . . Actually, _cafeteria_ and _dilettante_ might not be as good examples as words like _rodeo_, or _syndicate_. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/26 "2015-07-27T02:46:40Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Japanese borrows many, many words for other languages, though in the modern era it’s mostly from English. There is an entire syllabary (katakana) that is used for writing foreign words. I don’t think this makes your point at all. Katakana is just different symbols for exact hiragana equivalents. Katakana exists to keep foreign words at arm’s length, rather than to allow adoption of words that would be hard to write. It’s linguistic apartheid. I think the English word _OK_, in some sense, fills a need for other languages. You could argue it means nothing more than ‘fine,’ not affirmative, but not negative. Certainly, other languages have a word like that. But everybody the world over seems to have latched onto _OK_ as the perfect economic way of expressing ‘acknowledged’ or ‘satisfactory.’ ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/27 "2015-07-27T03:31:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Sure, but my point is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen (as it often is framed) because of some kind of intrinsic quality of the German language, but rather because the English speaking cultures haven’t developed a single word for it. As mentioned above, this kind of situation is usually the reason words get borrowed. _Schadenfreude_ is English now, and people have been using it as English for a while (i.e., in print, it’s usually not capitalized or put in italics anymore). But of course we use all kinds of common, borrowed words that would otherwise require a “dictionary style definition” in English, without thinking twice, (_kitsch_, _cafeteria_, _dilettante_), so I don’t know why _schadenfreude_ always gets trotted out as some kind of unique thing, other than that the meaning itself might be more of a conversation piece. > > In the spirit of the OP, as well as to demonstrate my point, I’d offer _potluck_ (the North American meaning). Most interpreters I work with just use the word _potluck_ itself. Otherwise, you can plug it into an online dictionary, and come out with something like this in Spanish: > > _comida o cena en la que cada invitado aporta un plato de comida y la bebida_ > > I don’t think it’s any big surprise that this is the case, when you consider the function and prevalence of potlucks in North American society. Of course, if there is some Spanish-speaking region where this kind of dinner is common, they’ll probably have some kind of regionalism for it, and that would go for other languages as well. I’m not claiming schadenfreude is some how unique, just that it’s the go to example of a hard to translate word. And the fact that German culture developed schadenfreude independently I find very interesting. Doppelganger also rings my cherries. Plus, I’m from Indiana. We don’t have potlucks, we have pitchins. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/28 "2015-07-27T03:34:25Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I don’t think this makes your point at all. Katakana is just different symbols for exact hiragana equivalents. Katakana exists to keep foreign words at arm’s length, rather than to allow adoption of words that would be hard to write. It’s linguistic apartheid. > > I think the English word _OK_, in some sense, fills a need for other languages. You could argue it means nothing more than ‘fine,’ not affirmative, but not negative. Certainly, other languages have a word like that. But everybody the world over seems to have latched onto _OK_ as the perfect economic way of expressing ‘acknowledged’ or ‘satisfactory.’ [OK](http://www.amazon.com/OK-Improbable-Story-Americas-Greatest/dp/0199892539) is a very fascinating book. And to think it started from a goofy joke makes the word all the more endearing. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/29 "2015-07-27T04:08:51Z")
The. > [@](#): > > You might recognize this word, but there is no English translation of it. It is similar to a and an but it has a nuanced meaning that those two words just don’t quite capture. [13 Untranslateable Words](http://specgram.com/CLXX.3/07.covarrubias.untranslatable.html) ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/30 "2015-07-27T04:25:48Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The. > [13 Untranslateable Words](http://specgram.com/CLXX.3/07.covarrubias.untranslatable.html) “The” is translated in French as either “les” or “la” or “le”, depending on context. What’s so difficult about that? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/31 "2015-07-27T05:34:54Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > In the spirit of the OP, as well as to demonstrate my point, I’d offer _potluck_ (the North American meaning). Most interpreters I work with just use the word _potluck_ itself. Otherwise, you can plug it into an online dictionary, and come out with something like this in Spanish: > > _comida o cena en la que cada invitado aporta un plato de comida y la bebida_ > > I don’t think it’s any big surprise that this is the case, when you consider the function and prevalence of potlucks in North American society. Of course, if there is some Spanish-speaking region where this kind of dinner is common, they’ll probably have some kind of regionalism for it, and that would go for other languages as well. The shortest I’ve heard in Spain (where potluck hasn’t made inroads yet as far as I can tell, I did hear it both in Miami and in Costa Rica during conversations in Spanish), other than the assumption that everybody knows what we’re talking about, is _comida en común_. When someone found the expression strange, it was explained as a derivation of _puesta en común_, the process during which people who have been working on separate tasks of a common project get together to share and meld those individual tasks into the final result. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/32 "2015-07-27T06:59:54Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > “The” is translated in French as either “les” or “la” or “le”, depending on context. > What’s so difficult about that? That article appears to be an example of what the French call _satire_. Sadly, there’s no English word for it, so it remains incomprehensible. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/33 "2015-07-27T16:37:07Z")
Turducken. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/34 "2015-07-27T21:36:46Z")
The French have frais. Not exactly “fresh” or “fair” but somewhere in between regarding the weather. As in, Il fait frais. It’s cool , chill, fresh… Not exactly freezing but not unpleasant, either. Wouldn’t a lot of the tenses in english be a little troublesome to translate directly into chinese? As I understand it, chinese doesn’t use tenses in the same way. Inquiring minds… ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/35 "2015-07-27T22:52:38Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > The French have frais. Not exactly “fresh” or “fair” but somewhere in between regarding the weather. As in, Il fait frais. It’s cool , chill, fresh… Not exactly freezing but not unpleasant, either. > > Wouldn’t a lot of the tenses in english be a little troublesome to translate directly into chinese? As I understand it, chinese doesn’t use tenses in the same way. **Inquiring minds** … Inquiring minds what? I want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/36 "2015-07-28T13:19:29Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > “The” is translated in French as either “les” or “la” or “le”, depending on context. > What’s so difficult about that? Plenty of languages don’t use articles. For someone who speaks one of those languages, the difference between “I saw a show” and “I saw the show” might be difficult to grasp. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/37 "2015-07-28T14:35:15Z")
A question about “schadenfreude”. Is it a compound word (compound words being pretty common in German, and this word being on the longish side)? If so, I’m going to say it doesn’t count\*. It’s rather arbitrary what is considered a word vs a phrase, and if you have a phrase that means the same thing, it’s just a matter of the rules of the language not putting that phrase together into a single word. \*Irrespective of whether it is considered an English word now. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/38 "2015-07-28T18:19:37Z")
“Gullible” has no direct translation from English to any other language. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/39 "2015-07-29T19:12:02Z")
And if you slowly enunciate the syllables it begins to sound like “orange”. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219/40 "2015-07-29T19:13:04Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > Inquiring minds what? I want to know. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-that-dont-translate/726219.md?page=3)