Here are 8 beautiful untranslatable words that defy straightforward translation. A text that is considered to be untranslatable is considered a lacuna, or lexical gap.The term arises when describing the difficulty of achieving the so-called perfect translation. (Fun fact: It also happens to be the shortest word in the English language that contains all six vowels.) Fernweh – German (from Germany) The term fernweh describes the feeling of longing to be in far-off places. Iyer drew the images as part of the “100 Days Project,” a website that invited and encourages artists to spend 100 days straight doing and creating what they love. If you’re a translator or just speak more than one language you probably answer questions like these frequently. English is a complex language, but there are still many untranslatable words and concepts where English doesn’t yet have a phrase to describe them. What’s the Japanese word for grape? Around a year ago, I decided to aggregate a list of these untranslatable words into a project called Eunoia. Some languages are simply unable to capture the true essence of a word when it has been translated from another language. A while ago a friend gifted me a little box set of “Untranslatable words”. Inside is a set of cards, each with a word in a foreign language describing a concept for which there is no direct equivalent in English. In fact, English even has a single-word technical term for a … How do you say restroom in French? The answers, by the way, are salle de repos and グレープ … It is considered to be one of the hardest words to translate. Eunoia itself is one of those words, meaning “a well mind; beautiful thinking”, derived from ancient Greek. Now, I’m sure a few people will look at this post’s title, then read through it, and then ask themselves, “Wait a minute, if these 15 words are untranslatable, why are they all followed by translations?” Untranslatable Words in The English Language. These are known as untranslatable words. It is different from wanderlust (also a German word but often used in English) in that wanderlust is a desire to travel, while fernweh is feeling homesick for a far-off place. language trends The idea of ‘untranslatable’ words says more about English speakers than other cultures Be sceptical when it's claimed that a language has 'no word for X' or '50 words … Untranslatability is the property of text or speech for which no equivalent can be found when translated into another language. We often hear people use the term ‘lost in translation’ when referring to mishaps or mistakes in translating from language to another. 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