There isn’t really an equivalent of “voilà”, for example. “Here it is” would be the closest, it is one of the meanings, but it doesn’t work with its other uses : as a filler in between words, nor at the end of a sentence to express that we’re done talking, nor to express agreement or frustration.
The other way around, there’s no proper French equivalent of ”fair/close enough”, which I regret, I wish we had one.
33 comments
Tischi toschi.Commonly used here in Palermo.
This is a very local word though, not all over Italy! It describes a person who is kind of low class but pretends to be much more upper class than they really are.
I don’t think there’s a word that means that in English?
The most fantastic possibility of German is to put nouns together that then result in a new word with a new meaning.
The result is something like this.
Verkehrsinfrastrukturfinanzierungsgesellschaft
That is simply missing in English.
Back to your question about what word I’m missing in English. Verschlimmbessern=making something worse by trying to improve it. This would be very helpful, especially in many project reports.
In Portugal we have “saudade” wich something along the lines of missing something or someone but with a more melancholic level to it
In my region (Buzău :P) there’s this expression “e țâță de mâță” which means “it’s really good” or “it’s perfect”. But word for word it is “it’s the cat’s titty”.
It’s not like it’s impossible to translate the meaning, but it’s fun to say.
There’s also the expression “mi-a intrat un morcov în fund” (a carrot got in my ass), which means “I’m very nervous”. This one I miss the most because of how east it is to “continue the story”. So instead of saying a carrot is in your ass, you can say a rabbit is chasing you or it wants its carrot back, etc.
“Boh”.
It’s a very synthetic and effective way to mean “I don’t know and, in all honesty, I don’t care a holy dick about it”
I find english a bit lacking when it comes to words and terms related to emotions.
For example in Italy “magone” is used to express a specific type of sadness: it’s when you see or think about something and suddently you feel a lump in your throat and the urge to cry. It can be laced with melancholy/empathy depending on the situation but it’s not the same thing.
On the other side, italians couldn’t come up with a single verb like “to cycle” and now we’re stuck with “andare in bicicletta”
You win some you lose some!
In Filipino, mabait: means a person is good natured, kind, friendly, honest. It’s the best compliment.
Káröröm in Hungarian. It basically means being happy for another person’s misfortune
I am really missing “kaçıncı”: how manyeth (so for ordinal numbers). Does anyone have this in their language? Like “how manyeth was this horse in the race?”
Also, we have a reported past tense (so, for things that one has not seen, but heard from someone else. It is very practical.
Edit: An expression that I miss in English is “kolay gelsin” : may it go easy, I guess? Told to a person who is doing something laborious, wishing that they will finish it easily. Usually told to people who are doing manual labor, as a casual greeting. I never know what to say in Germany.
Some expresions from norway:
**Hjerneteppe** … litteraly means **Brain + Curtain (those that folds down on the theatre)**. A typical expression for knowledge you normally know, but doesn’t come to your brain when you need it
**Koste skjorta** .. litteraly means that **something cost the/your shir**t. Typically used on things that is very/way too expensive.
**Ugler i mosen** … litteraly means **Owls in the moss**.. typically used on things that are unexplainable/mysterious
**Hoppe etter Wirkola** .. litteraly means to **jump after Wirkola**. Mainly a reference to older people. Wirkola was a famous ski jumper here in the 1960ies.. And hence the expresions means to do something after the best/master has done it. A bit like doing the impossible.
**Ha det / Hade** .. litteraly means **have it.** It’s the classical way of saying bye/good bye to someone. It’s among the most norwegian expresions of all. Everybody says it, but few have any real thoughts of what it really means. Even our neighbours, the swedes, has a totally different expression when saying bye.
Light hearted: The way German nouns work is just great and intuitive. You want a desk for your garden? It’s a Gardendesk. You want a garden out of desks? It’s a Deskgarden. It’s like Build-a-bear but with nouns.
Serious: The term “Bildung” (~Education) has a long tradition in Germany and is not the same as Ausbildung (~training/education). Bildung means a specific way of educating and because it carries so many implications on its shoulders, anglophone Philosophers just use Bildung when they wanna talk about a deeper education.
One word I’ve never managed to find a good translation to is “ögontjänare”. Compound word of “eye” and “servant”. It describes a person who will behave/work hard when supervised and misbehave/slack off when not. It’s a fun word I think!
Some more common examples:
Orka – ~~not have enough energy to do something/can’t be bothered to do something~~ to have the energy to do something. It’s a very handy verb with no real equivalent in English. Next time someone tells you to do something that you have no energy for just tell them “I don’t ork”. It’ll be in the English dictionary before you know it!
Lagom – the famous one which means “not too much, not too little”.
“Många bäckar små” which roughly translated to “many small creeks”. It’s a shortened version of the longer saying “många bäckar små bildar en å” (many small creeks creates a river). There *is* a translation for this but no one from England that I’ve talked to has recognised it: “many a mickle makes a muckle”. Probably because it’s Scottish. Maybe some Scots recognise it? Anyways, it means that many small things can lead to/create something larger. Just saying “många bäckar små” is enough for anyone in Sweden to immediately understand.
[Edit] Another phrase I’ve found difficult to translate to English is “den röda tråden” (the red thread). The closest translation I can think of is “line of argument” but it doesn’t feel like a sufficient enough translation. If you make a scientific article about rocket fuel and you have one source about various ignition methods and one source that’s about the domestication of wild ducks, then it’s the red thread that clarifies the purpose of these two articles and how they pertain to the main topic at hand. We’re taught that it is very important that scientific articles have a clear red thread.
The fact that “the red thread” is such an established concept in Swedish but lacks a clear translation in English is problematic, in my view! For years I’ve used the phrase “red thread” completely unaware that it has no real definition in English..!
The word “gezellig” in Dutch. It means that for example when you’re hanging out with friends and you’re having a good time, then it’s “gezellig”.
Orka – not having the energy to do something (technically its having the energy to do something that you don’t actually feel like doing. As pointed out. However used on it’s own like ”orka” it’s a response that conveys that you don’t feel like doing it.)
Fika (maybe?) – coffee break with pastries
Hinna (I believe?) – to make it in time.
The verb “σιουμαλίζω”, which only appears in cypriot-greek, not standard greek. It means “I am delicately petting/juggling something with my fingertips”. Picture yourself trying to grab some pop corn. That motion.
The only time you will ever hear this word is when someone says “σιουμαλίζω τ’αρτσίθκια μου” (I am juggling my testicles) or simply “σιουμαλίζω τα” (I am juggling *them*), wich is an expression to say “I am wasting time by doing absolutely nothing”.
“Doch” probably one of my favourite words. Just means something like “Yes it is!”. No need to actually explain your point if you can just say Doch. But it can also mean “However” or “Even though” in some more intellectual sentences.
German has a word meaning *Yes, though you thought no.* It’s *doch*. [Illustration.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4aLThuU008)
German also has a one-word replacement for *c’est la vie*. It’s *tja*. [Illustration.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tja/)
And German has a zoo of modal particles that have no meaning but instead express the feeling of the one who talks about what he or she tells. In one word, sometimes two. And you have to use those all the time if you don’t want to sound like a robot. As an additional goodie, they are all doppelgangers of normal words with a meaning. Examples are *ja — yes*, *doch (see above)*, *eh — earlier*, *denn — because*, *halt — halt*, *eben — right now*, *mal — once*, and a few dozen more. Those are notoriously untranslateable when they are used as modal particles. As you need to consider the whole phrase and add an explanation in the target language.
By the way, we use *Bitte* for *voilà* in German.
I’m Portuguese we have “mimo” or “miminho” (the diminutive).
It’s when you do something nice, or give someone something because you were thinking of them.
It can be so many things, it could be a kiss, a hug, a pat on the head, giving them a pastery, or making them breakfast, maybe giving someone a flower, or making time for someone.
It’s usually used in the sense of giving someone a “mimo” or making them a “mimo”
It’s used for when you give someone a “treat”, but its also when you give someone affection physically, or verbally, or because you did something nice for them.
It’s just a very broad term.
In Dutch there’s the word “Lekker”, which translates, in English, to “yummy”. Which is correct, however, it used for lots of situations where “yummy” has nothing to do with it…
Both “þetta reddast” and “jæja”, for different reasons, are my favourite Icelandic words/phrases that don’t translate well.
“Þetta reddast” sort of translates into “things will work out or be fine” and I feel like a lot of foreigners interpret this as to mean we’ll just wait for things to be magically fixed by others or by magic.
But the core point of it is that sometimes things happen that are out of our control (though many use it for any situation) and instead of spending time freaking out and panicking, we take a deep breath and mutter to ourselves “þetta reddast” and do what we can. Because shit happenes, like weather, and then sometimes the best thing is to wait it out.
“Jæja” is my favourite word. It means anything and nothing and most of the meaning is the way it is said. It can for example mean “what’s up?” “Stop” “are you coming?” “Let’s get started” or just a general “i don’t know what to say but I feel like I have to say something”.
Also, honourable mention to “Gluggaveður”.
Catalan has some words that are quite intrinsic to it, to the point that they’re even a bit hard to define:
– Seny/Rauxa. Seny is something between common sense and wisdom, and together with its antonym “Rauxa”, which is something like “impetus” or “madness”, it describes the the duality of the Catalan character. As far as I know, they’re concepts unique to Catalan.
– Caler (caldre, escaldre). To be necessary. AFAIK English and Spanish don’t have a single verb for it, and they rely on constructs such as “to be X”. Romanian does though.
– Fer patxoca: To look like you fit in nicely, in a dress, among other people. Someone stunning, most often in contrast to how they usually look.
In 🇪🇸 I think achuchar and its noun achuchón have no easy translation. It can be a hug/cuddle, but not a normal hug, more a I-hug-you-while-I-rock-you-and-we-sway-together,but mainly done by older relatives..It can also mean to pressure someone to do something now instead of later
The adjective achuchable would be something so cute and fluffy and confortable-looking you desire to hug it, like the red panda in the film Red.
It can be translated but not with 1 word 🙂
“Sobre mesa” the 1 hour extra talk at the restaurant table. Its not really “table talk” because in english culture that happens while eating. In Spain its talk for 2 hours AFTER you were talking while eating for an hour.
So “sobre mesa” means the extra two after after you are done eating specifically.
Craic
Not drug related but usually ask “what’s the craic?”
Or “any craic”
It can mean what’s the story, any news or how are ye keeping all in a shorter sentence
Olé. Although the dictionary probably says it’s a word used for cheer (for example when someone is singing, or during a football match), ole is also used to express acceptance for what the other person is saying or for an event. My favourite use is when two people are arguing about something and end up coming to the same conclusion and the conversation is settled with an “ole”, which in this case means “that’s what I was saying all along”
Moreover, the most widespread theory is that “olé” comes from “Allah”, a mixture of the particular pronunciation of the Muslims who lived in the Iberian peninsula and its subsequent castilianisation. It’s funny to think that in an eminently catholic country every time we want to cheer or express acceptance we say “Allah” lol
“Ba, bolan, bona” (in serbian bre and sometimes be)
which arent standard words butd mean something like ’my guy’ (If youre talking to ‘your guy’ directly, that is)
In French we don’t translate “blog” but we say “blogueuse”, which means “female blogger”. So actually eveything can be translated from one language to another, but not always using a single word or by inventing a new one (canadian French translates “chat” as “clavardage” but continental French just borrows “chat”).
Our swear words just don’t translate well (to be fair, their meanings are very weird). Other common ones are single word for days before yesterday and day after tomorrow.
“Vaara” which (besides danger) means a high hill that is just low enough to be covered by trees.
“Löyly” is the result of throwing water on the sauna stones. Not just the steam, but also the heat and whole feeling that comes with it.
***Kilkanaście***, which is between 11 and 19. English has no word for something like that. And English doesn’t have a word for something between 21 and 99 (***kilkadziesiąt***), 100 and 999 (***kilkaset***) etc. Apart from that ***załatwić*** and ***kombinować***. I doubt there’s a word that would describe the concept of this in English.
Prozvonit
It means to call someone but hang up after a few seconds. Usually done when you want the other person to call you back or as an alert (like when you’re picking someone up you pull up at their place and do this call and hang up and they know that you’re outside)
In German the little phrase Hä? is used when you don’t understand something.
My favourite will always be “(to have the) Flemme”. Which mean feeling too much lazy about doing something but not in a pejorative meaning, almost a noble state of mind. It’s familiar though, you won’t say that to your boss