Why there’s no such thing as an “untranslatable word”
👋 We’re back with the Medium Newsletter
Issue #206: befriending good communicators and a roadtrip through the 11 distinct subcultures that comprise the U.S.
“Untranslatable words” are sort of a trope on the internet. Google that phrase and you’ll find a series of overlapping lists — often written by English speakers. A classic: hygge, which one of my friends who used to live in Denmark tells me definitely does not mean “cozy.” (It’s more nuanced than that, a combination of rusticity and simplicity.)
At a certain point, these lists can feel like cultural fetishism to me, like they’re flattening all of Denmark into an appreciation for candles and chunky blankets.
On Medium, linguist Tom Scullin believes nothing is truly “untranslatable” — some concepts just take more syllables to express in one language than another. Tsondoku (積ん読), for example, is a Japanese word for something that’s easy to communicate in English: buying books but not reading them (guilty). Saudade, which tops most lists of untranslatable words, is a Portuguese term at the intersection of longing and nostalgia. I think English speakers are fascinated by these words not because they feel foreign to us, but because they feel so familiar — and because whenever you learn a new word for something abstract, it makes the abstract thing floating around your head more concrete.
Plus: English contains just as many words that don’t easily translate, too. I don’t know what this says about the UK and America, but most of them have to do with social norms. Take awkward. It comes from a Norse word meaning “turned the wrong way” but has picked up all kinds of emotional and cultural valences over the last few decades, and it has no equivalent outside of English. The same is true of cringe and fair.
What else we’re reading…
- A progressive’s road trip through red states, featuring 11 distinct subcultures that comprise the U.S. (Cory Vinny)
- Joni Mitchell pairs well with a bowl of pho. (Ryley Graham)
- If you want to be a better communicator, befriend people who are good communicators. (Ava Huang, aka Bookbear Express)
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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
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