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Does Not Translate

doesnottranslate.com

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Re: Does Not Translate

#121

Post by School-Cotton »

tremon wrote: post #72
wbsss4412 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they are simply giving the closest possible translation. They list “te quiero” as meaning “I love you but not quite. Which is a mistranslation. It literally translates as “I love you”. But at the same time you have “te amo”, which also translates to “I love you” yet they are two different phrases with different meanings.

Rather, it literally translates as "I want you", and is often used in the romantic sense more than "te amo". My impression is that "amor" in Spanish isn't as single-mindedly restricted to love interests as it is in English: amor/amar is used for close friends and relatives as well.

Sorry but this is completely wrong and backwards, at least in the varieties of Spanish I’ve had exposure to.

Re: Does Not Translate

#122

Post by qqii »

timeon wrote: post #116
qqii wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having checked my own language I'd describe the list not as being unable to translated outright, but of susinct ideas that are not normally expressed in English. A literal or detailed and contextful translation does not express the same "feeling" as in the native tongue, which you could argue as a what is impossible to translate.

> feeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connotation

Thank you.

Re: Does Not Translate

#123

Post by fvdessen »

jejones3141 wrote: post #84

I'm not sure how English "tall" would be considered untranslatable/hard to translate.

Afaik there’s no exact translation for “tall” in french. There’s “grand” (big) and “haut” (high) that would be used to translate tall in different contexts

Re: Does Not Translate

#124

Post by [deleted] »

chrismcb wrote: post #109
School-Cotton wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a lot of the French ones, like “joie de vivre”, have been borrowed into English verbatim. “Joie de vivre” is indeed translatable into English, and the translation is just “joie de vivre”. To claim otherwise would be like saying that the concept of chile pepper can only be expressed in Nahuatl.

Google claims the translation to English is "joy of living" "joie de vivre"isn't exactly a common phrase in English

[deleted]

Re: Does Not Translate

#126

Post by awb »

chrismcb wrote: post #110
awb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha! I followed you until you went pure French.

He never went "pure French"

Depends on your perspective I guess. I see your point that they’re all phrases in the English dictionary.

From a French perspective though it’s mixed French/English until the end which would be entirely French.

Re: Does Not Translate

#127

Post by ithkuil »

awb wrote: post #126
chrismcb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He never went "pure French"

Depends on your perspective I guess. I see your point that they’re all phrases in the English dictionary. From a French perspective though it’s mixed French/English until the end which would be entirely French.

The escalation toward "pure french" was intended as an attempt to mirror https://luminusdadon.wordpress.com/2006/05/04/how-english-be...

Re: Does Not Translate

#128

Post by awb »

ithkuil wrote: post #127
awb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your perspective I guess. I see your point that they’re all phrases in the English dictionary. From a French perspective though it’s mixed French/English until the end which would be entirely French.

The escalation toward "pure french" was intended as an attempt to mirror https://luminusdadon.wordpress.com/2006/05/04/how-english-be...

I remember that from a long time ago. It’s fun to read the last sentence first and have it be unreadable. Then read from the beginning and it’s perfectly readable.

Re: Does Not Translate

#129

Post by mongol »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #35
Hokusai wrote: post #23

I think that 'Fika' is an interesting one. In Spanish, or at least in Spain, 'to go for a coffee' implies the same things that 'fika' does. Nobody expects to buy coffee to drink at the office, or at home, as to talk and socialize is more important than the coffee itself. I guess that in English speaking countries it could mean literally to go to buy a cup of coffee and hurry back with the coffee to your desk. Wouldn'…

It looks to me like "fika" is just like "chilling." See, for instance, https://www.swedishfood.com/fika

Do grandparents chill together much? I am lot native english speaker so I don't know. Chilling seems like a youthful thing.

Re: Does Not Translate

#130

Post by jonshariat »

y4mi wrote: post #119
jonshariat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember growing up in a 2nd generation home and with many immigrant friends, people would always say "Oh there isn't a word for that in english, its very unique" and then I would tell them the word which was usually not a common word but required some vocabulary knowledge. English is also the largest with over 200k words. Not to say there isn't words like this just that it takes deep vocabulary knowledge in two la…

there are a lot of words that dont map directly onto another word. heck, i'd argue that most abstract words are just close-ish approximations, which can be used to convey the same thing, but are also useable in different contexts with significantly changed meaning. Take yesterday's wordle for example: tangy. few languages have something that maps onto exactly this meaning. Its still easy to translate it with a senten…

Yup. There are words like this. My point is that there are also a lot of mistakes because you need to know both languages vocabulary to know if its true or not.
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