We hear a lot about other languages that have a single word that is ridiculously specific and translate into English as a phrase, like schadenfreude.
Can you think of any English words that would take a sentence or two to explain to a foreigner?
Secondhand, but…[urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1f_uMKaeZM]If English Is Your Second Language, What New Words Blew Your Mind? (r/AskReddit).
Three examples from the above, as seen from some other languages: “Arson,” “Awkward,” and “Roadkill.”
Over/under.
Hangry.
I had to explain the phrase “come-to-Jesus moment” to some German colleagues recently.
Serendipity
Seems like one would need a formidable command of at least several widely-spoken languages to answer this. I can think of a few English words for which I haven’t been able to find satisfactory Spanish equivalents*, but I don’t know whether the Germans have a 10-syllable word or the French have a poetic phrase that means something even more specific.
*Cute, for example. There are of course words for praising someone’s baby or kitten, but they usually mean something more akin to “pretty” and thus don’t have quite the loaded potential for condescension, which is a very important part of my conversational arsenal.
Japanese “kawai” seems pretty close to English “cute”, from what I’ve seen of its usage. If anything, it’s even more condescending.
Not necessarily. I have seen many lists of words in other languages that we don’t have in English. Especially German words. Are there similar lists with English words aimed at non-English speaking audiences?
But you only need to be fluent in English to know whether a new word you just learned in any other language has an English equivalent. To know whether an English word has equivalents in any other languages, you’d need to know all those languages.
That’s what linguists are for.
“OK” (as in acceptable) is one of those words that I’ve found has been loaned into nearly every foreign language I’ve encountered because there’s no native word that really captures that exact sentiment.
All the usages of it i note in anime seem to be completely sincere e.g. one girl complementing another’s bag in an episode of Girls und Panzer I watched last night.
“cowboy”.
Lots of languages have words for “farmer who raises cows”, but the American cultural context of adds many layers of meaning.
(Although this example isn’t quite what the OP is looking for, because it’s more about cultural/historical context, and less about language)
Oh, here are a couple more I just thought of:
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To make.
English has two separate words–“to do” and “to make”.
Other languages use only one word for both concepts. (example: French “faire”) -
to Love vs to like.
Many languages have only one word for both concepts. (French : “Aime”)
Gaucho? Vaquero? Both of those are more than just “cow-farmer”
Nitpick: kawaii. That second i is important, turning the last part from a dipthong to emphasize the “ee” ending.
And I agree it’s usually not condescending. However, some hip Japanese are aware of the over-abundance of “kawaii” in their commercial culture and might use it in an ironic or meta way.
As for English words for which they don’t have an equivalent (or sometimes even if they do) the Japanese will just adopt it, pronouncing it as well as they can. Someday I’d like to compile a list of borrowed English words that I can’t believe they didn’t already have a word or expression for.
Yeah. An American is a foreigner to an Englishman it would take a sentence or two to fully explain-
Chuffed
Cheeky
Minging
Others…
Sure, Urban Dictionary has a stock word for it’s replacement for each, but that doesn’t do the word justice in the context they use it. In the same way Gemütlichkeit means ‘cosy’ or ‘comfortable’, yeah kinda, but not really.
I read technical science documents all day and the katakana in them if rife. And often really inexplicable/misleading. Like would you believe that a “capacitor” is a “コンデンサ”
They do the same thing in Hong Kong Cantonese because of the British influence. Two of my faves re baa si (bus) and dik si (taxi).
I’m surprised at how accurate katakana can sometimes be. When I first saw my favorite Taiwanese actresses name, 王祖賢 (Joey Wong Jyo Yin / Wang Tsu Hsien) in katakana, ジョイウォン, I wondered how accurate it would be. After painstakingly translating it character by character, I was shocked that translates to directly to Joey Wang (doesn’t rhyme with bang, close to Wong, but different).
“scrumping”
It means children stealing apples from a tree that isn’t theirs. No other sort of fruit stealing scenario qualifies.
If you were an audio technician, perhaps! (“Condenser microphone” is, I think, the main place where the old term “condenser,” superseded by “capacitor” in the 1920s because of its ambiguity vs steam condensers, is still used in English)