# No translation... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 18, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232 "2013-06-18T02:21:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/21 "2013-06-18T14:46:57Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Didn’t someone once claim that the French have no word for entrepreneur? Was it the same person who told you that gullible can’t be found in the dictionary? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/22 "2013-06-18T15:18:53Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > . . . with some foreign word, we will steal it. Viola! It’s now English. . . . Did you do this\* on purpose, or was it just a typo? I hope the former, because it was funny. (\*_Viola_ was stolen from Italian, and is a kind of instrument; as a flower name / girl’s name, stolen again from Latin. _Voilà_ was stolen from French.) ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/23 "2013-06-18T18:25:06Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Step-father and father-in-law are both beau-père in french, so while there is a french word you can translate step-father and father-in-law into you lose some of the specificity of meaning. This. English has spent centuries mugging other languages for good words, giving us a thesaurus full of words that mean similar things, but different. Nuance. And that gets lost in translation a lot. Fort, Fortress, Castle, Fortification, Crenelation, Battlement, Embrasure, Merlon, … How many languages are going to bother to have words for ALL of those? My own meager contribution to the list: The Latin word “res”, I was taught best translates as “thing”, but it doesn’t. It’s just that the best English translation varies by context. It means thing as in “unidentified physical object”, or concept, or idea, or situation, or action. Which means that Latin actually has no separate word for those things. There is no Latin word for “idea”, but an ancient Roman would use “res”. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/24 "2013-06-18T21:05:15Z")
Yiddish has words (mechuton and machateiniste) which refer to the parent of one’s child-in-law. Or to the parents-in-law of one’s child. Same thing. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/25 "2013-06-18T22:05:11Z")
> [@SpyOne](#): > > … The Latin word “res”, I was taught best translates as “thing”, but it doesn’t. It’s just that the best English translation varies by context. It means thing as in “unidentified physical object”, or concept, or idea, or situation, or action. Which means that Latin actually has no separate word for those things. There is no Latin word for “idea”, but an ancient Roman would use “res”. “Entity?” ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/26 "2013-06-18T22:36:09Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I’d argue that while some Americans might call a scone a biscuit, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when an American says biscuit. > > [This](http://thebarking.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/biscuit.jpg) is an American biscuit. While there is some similarity to a scone, it’s lighter and fluffier in texture and generally has only flour in it, not bits of other stuff like scones (in my limited experience) usually have. American biscuits tend to have a more crumbly texture and scones tend to be more flaky. I think the scones you’re familiar with are what a British cookery book would call “rich scones”, which have egg, and usually fruit in the recipe. There are also “plain scones”, which are identical to American biscuits. In my experience, any given recipe can produce scones that are either flaky or crumbly, depending on small variations in the amount of liquid, and how much you handle the mixture. Of course, a rich scone is what a Briton, as well, would first think of, if you simply said the word “scone”, so you’re right that it’s not an adequate one-word equivalent to “biscuit”. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/27 "2013-06-18T23:52:51Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > English has about 100,000 quasi-common words and the Oxford English Dictionary lists 500,000 which are all traceable is usage. But wait - there’s more! There are at least another 500,000 of specialised but widely used words in medicine, zoology, physics, astronomy, microbiology, necromancy etc etc. And then there is Leet. And Pirate Talk the most dastardly of 'em all. Reading this, an odd thought occurred to me. Do people in other languages speak Klingon? Or is this an English-only thing? And if the later, does that mean that Klingon is also English? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/28 "2013-06-18T23:54:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Mijin** : > > If you were to hold up everything that a Brit calls a biscuit, Americans would call them cookies. However, if you were to hold up everything an American calls a cookie, Brits would call some of them biscuits and some of them cookies. I don’t think even that much is true: Some things that a Brit would call a biscuit, an American would call a cracker. In particular, American Graham crackers are very similar to (but not quite the same as) British digestive biscuits. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/29 "2013-06-19T00:04:53Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Reading this, an odd thought occurred to me. Do people in other languages speak Klingon? Or is this an English-only thing? And if the later, does that mean that Klingon is also English? :dubious: I find the idea of two people from across the world both learning Klingon charming. I see a short film: they run into each other and are attracted, with lots of blushing, but they can’t communicate. They run into each other later at a Star Trek convention and fall in love when they realise they can communicate in Klingon. It could be in that intentionally-childlike animation so many short-film makers love. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/30 "2013-06-19T04:21:16Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Did you do this\* on purpose, or was it just a typo? I hope the former, because it was funny. > > (\*_Viola_ was stolen from Italian, and is a kind of instrument; as a flower name / girl’s name, stolen again from Latin. _Voilà_ was stolen from French.) I was trying to be funny. Yeah, that’s my story… ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/31 "2013-06-19T05:32:39Z")
Do any other languages have those utility verbs ‘get’ and ‘got’ ? Seems to me that if you can successfully use those words then you are more than half way to conquering english ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/32 "2013-06-19T08:32:16Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > I don’t believe that “weekend” has a direct single-word equivalent in French or German judging by the amount of times I hear it in use in Switzerland. > > I double-checked this using Google Translate, and it appears that there’s no equivalent in Danish, Dutch, Polish or Swedish either. _Mais_ of course it does! The french-from-France single-word for weekend is the anglicism _weekend_, which is a French as the aforementioned voila or quesadilla are English. Alternatively, I’ve also heard the already-mentioned _fin de semaine_ in France, but some people will claim that because it’s three words it’s not “an acceptable translation”. Those people can use the next _fin de semana_ to wash my car by tongue. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/33 "2013-06-19T11:31:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think even that much is true: Some things that a Brit would call a biscuit, an American would call a cracker. In particular, American Graham crackers are very similar to (but not quite the same as) British digestive biscuits. And don’t forget Chicken in a Bisket! Which are a type of American cracker. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/34 "2013-06-19T15:51:49Z")
> [@SpyOne](#): > > This. > English has spent centuries mugging other languages for good words, . . . Ahh! The James Nicoll theory of the development of English: > [@](#): > > The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/35 "2013-06-19T15:56:38Z")
I’m a professional translator. The meaning of _any_ text in any human language can be rendered in any other language. In principle, there is nothing in any language that cannot be translated into any other language. The issue, though, is concision. An idea that one language can express in a single word may need an expanded phrase or sentence or even a whole paragraph in translation to get the meaning across. It’s also dependent on the translator being fully skilled in the art of translation and possessing full knowledge of both the source language and the target language. With those conditions being met, anything at all can be translated. It could seem impossible, though, to those who aren’t professionally skilled translators. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/36 "2013-06-19T16:05:07Z")
I’m talking about translating _just_ the _meaning_. Poetry and sound symbolism are special cases. When translating poetry or a text that incorporates a particular sound or rhythm in the original, you can translate the verbal meaning exactly, but then you have to sacrifice the extra-lexical dimensions. That’s what is meant by something lost in translation. You can work the poetic meter and rhythm and sound symbolism into the translation if you’re talented enough at those things, but then you’d have to loosen up some on the meaning and sacrifice some of the semantic exactness. But for regular prose, these issues don’t matter and exact translation is always possible. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/37 "2013-06-19T16:34:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think even that much is true: Some things that a Brit would call a biscuit, an American would call a cracker. In particular, American Graham crackers are very similar to (but not quite the same as) British digestive biscuits. My (American) wife claims that Graham crackers are cookies, not crackers. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/38 "2013-06-19T17:26:15Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > That’s what is meant by something lost in translation. That is one aspect of “lost in translation,” but there are other aspects, such as the cultural background that provides context beyond the literal meaning. I agree that the definition of any word can probably be translated into any other language. I am not sure that the full meaning can always be conveyed. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/39 "2013-06-19T17:53:13Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There are quite a few words in English that don’t translate well in Russian. Of course, Russians just use the English words then (transliterated into Cyrillic). > > Something like “image” (in the PR sense of the word). No equivalent in Russian. So to convey the meaning they use “имидж” which is just the transliteration. > > Same with “teenager”, “brand”, “businessman”, “offshoring”, “holding” (as in “stock holding company”), “futures”, “realtor”, “dealer”, “broker”… > > You can see that most of these have to do with “capitalism” :). Guess the short time since capitalism was introduced in Russia after the Soviet times is not enough for original Russian word formation. I recall reading, 20 or more years ago, about a couple visiting Russia in company with other couples, one of which would have to be the poster cou[le for Mr. and Mrs. Ugly American. The latter were complaining to the writer that they could not find the restaurant which was alleged to be nearby. The irony was that they were saying this within 20 feet pf a sign reading PECTOPAH. ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232/40 "2013-06-19T18:36:18Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > That is one aspect of “lost in translation,” but there are other aspects, such as the cultural background that provides context beyond the literal meaning. > > I agree that the definition of any word can probably be translated into any other language. I am not sure that the full meaning can always be conveyed. You could extend that argument to say that the full meanings of words cannot be conveyed even between two people who grew up in the same household. Words have definitions in dictionaries, but in the human brain they do not. Every time you hear or see a word you store a subtle memory of the context: the larger text, the topic, the situation, the identity of the speaker, the tone of voice, the speaker’s emotional state, your emotional state, the time of day, whether there were birds chirping outside the window… All those associations contribute to the “definition” of the word within your mind. No two people will share all the contexts in which they hear a word and thus will not agree on a complete understanding of the word. (Fortunately, for the vast majority of words these differences are tiny and people can communicate just fine.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-translation/661232.md?page=3)