Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does Not Translate

doesnottranslate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 133 posts

Re: Does Not Translate

#81

Post by yellowstuff »

Most of these words don't have a 1 word equivalent in English but the full range of meaning can be easily captured with a short definition.

Yiddish has good examples where words actually do not translate easily. EG, schmendrick and schmuck both translate as "a fool", but have distinct shades of meaning that aren't trivially explained. "Nu" is an interjection that has several specific meanings that require long examples to explain, EG: https://forward.com/culture/12736/just-say-nu-01335/

If you like that kind of stuff I highly recommend The Joys Of Yiddish https://www.amazon.com/Joys-Yiddish-Leo-Rosten-1968-06-23/dp...

Re: Does Not Translate

#82

Post by celtain »

throwaway98700k wrote: post #71
awb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprising to me. I’m an avid reader of books and news and movie watcher and I’ve never heard this phrase once. I also took 3 years of French, went to a 4 year college and I’ve reviewed lists of foreign phrases commonly used in English with my kids, all while somehow dodging this phrase for ~40 years!

It’s as common as je ne sais quoi or deja vu or ennui. This one’s on you. Here’s a helpful list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_expressio...

It's definitely not as common as deja vu.

Re: Does Not Translate

#83

Post by qqii »

hk__2 wrote: post #27

I’m always wary of these lists, because if you search for the languages you know you always see that most of them are actually translatable and/or rare expressions that nobody uses.

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.

Re: Does Not Translate

#85

Post by qqii »

wunderlust wrote: post #76

Just because a word doesn't have a 1-to-1 correlation with a word in another language doesn't mean it's not translatable; in fact, this website shows that they are translatable. Even more, it's not analytically true that any word in one language shares a perfect mapping with a word in another language. This is evident when you translate a word into another language and back into the native language and find yourself…

Having seen the English translations for my native tongue a lot of these translations are only surface level and quite lossy.

Even if the mapping between languages is surjective, certain ideas and phrases are difficult to translate whilst maintaining the succinctness of dialogue and are practically difficult to translate.

Considering translatability as a spectrum obviously "does not translate" is a hyperbole, and shouldn't be taken literally at face value. Hopefully you'd agree that most words on this list are at least on the difficult end of the spectrum.

Re: Does Not Translate

#86

Post by awb »

ithkuil wrote: post #80
awb wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Joie de vivre” is indeed translatable into English, and the translation is just “joie de vivre”. I’m a native English speaker and I’ve never heard of the expression “Joie de vivre”, so I don’t understand how “Joie de vivre” is the English translation of “Joie de vivre”.

Yeah, it's such a cliché. Using too many foreign words is such a faux pas, it reveals the bourgeois character of the speaker. No no no, a real connoisseur of the English language won't have such a lassaiz-faire attitude and accept just any fancy word du jour. That would be so gauche indeed. Au contraire I'm blasé at such attempts. The real English entrepreneurial avant-garde clique has so many choices a la carte, so…

Haha! I followed you until you went pure French.

Re: Does Not Translate

#87

Post by awb »

throwaway98700k wrote: post #71
awb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprising to me. I’m an avid reader of books and news and movie watcher and I’ve never heard this phrase once. I also took 3 years of French, went to a 4 year college and I’ve reviewed lists of foreign phrases commonly used in English with my kids, all while somehow dodging this phrase for ~40 years!

It’s as common as je ne sais quoi or deja vu or ennui. This one’s on you. Here’s a helpful list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_expressio...

I’ve heard those other ones a ton of times.

Re: Does Not Translate

#88

Post by irrational »

awb wrote: post #61
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.

> “Joie de vivre” is indeed translatable into English, and the translation is just “joie de vivre”. I’m a native English speaker and I’ve never heard of the expression “Joie de vivre”, so I don’t understand how “Joie de vivre” is the English translation of “Joie de vivre”.

https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Joie+de+vivr...

It has been estimated that English has more than a million words, what percentage do you think you actually know?

Re: Does Not Translate

#89

Post by emptybits »

"There's not an English word for that" comes up when discussing the flavours and smells of regional cuisines. Makes sense. Examples: "the fifth taste" (umami in Japanese or xiān in Mandarin, which sort of maps to "savoury" in English but not quite), or the "numbing spicy" effect of Sichuan peppers (málà in Mandarin).

My question: Is there an English word for the effect one experiences when consuming wasabi or horseradish?

The chemical responsible is isothiocyanate.[1] It's not capsaicin which is what makes peppers hot, so the Scoville Scale[0] doesn't apply to the pain of horseradish. BTW, sichuan peppers aren't capsaicin based either and they share something with some African spices that also chemically numb the tongue, but that's also not what's going on in horseradish or (true) wasabi.

Anyways, words in the ballpark are spicy or hot or painful or pungent but those seem a bit ambiguous. IMO, pungent doesn't satisfy because while it captures the sharp smell it seems to ignore the pain or heat of the experience. And spicy or hot in English strongly suggest the effect of peppers IMO, which can be misleading if you are describing horseradish.

Failing English, I'd love to know a Japanese or Mandarin word for this!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isothiocyanate

Re: Does Not Translate

#90

Post by emsy »

yellowstuff wrote: post #81

Most of these words don't have a 1 word equivalent in English but the full range of meaning can be easily captured with a short definition. Yiddish has good examples where words actually do not translate easily. EG, schmendrick and schmuck both translate as "a fool", but have distinct shades of meaning that aren't trivially explained. "Nu" is an interjection that has several specific meanings that require long exampl…

Schickse, Schmendrick and Schmock (derived from Schmuck) are still used in German. There are probably a whole lot more that I'm not aware of.
Post reply on HN