Lost In Translation

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Akihi-Hawaiian-noun-930x794 Commuovere-Italian-verb-930x794 Mangata-Swedish-noun-930x795 Wabi-sabi-Japanese-noun-930x799 Tsundoko-Japanese-noun-930x798 Tretar-Swedish-noun-930x801 Luftmensch-Yiddish-noun-930x795 Komorebi-Japanese-noun-930x795 Kilig-Tagalog-noun-930x794 Glas-wen-Welsh-noun-930x793

Illustrations of ten words considered untranslatable to single-word English from Lost In Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World – a new book by Ella Frances Sanders.

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7 thoughts on “Lost In Translation”

  1. Tom Stewart

    This has been done to absolute death on social media over the last few months.

    But anyway.

    “…words considered untranslatable to single-word English”, and yet the writer happily goes on to translate “tretar” as a single word in English: “threefill”.

    1. John E. Bravo

      Yep. Just because compounds aren’t as commonplace in English as in German doesn’t mean they’re inadmissable.

  2. KirkenBrenner

    Nothing we haven’t seen a million times before, now with the added difficulty of trying to decipher that obnoxious scrawl.

  3. Tony

    Jaysus. I thought they were great. Never heard of any of them except wabi- sabi. Thought the illustrations were pretty charming too.

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