Untranslatable Words

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I think what has kept me from speaking some of the languages that I understand, is the fear of sounding foolish.
.

Tiny bit of experience for ya...
My definition(Thanks again to Igorsk) of Unutterable silliness: Anyone afraid of sounding foolish is afraid of truly living.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by mores

Well, the english thingamajig isn't bad either and means the same thing!
Hey, 3 languages and 3 funny words

and don't forget "doohickey", or "doomahickey" or "whatsit".

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Tiny bit of experience for ya...
My definition(Thanks again to Igorsk) of Unutterable silliness: Anyone afraid of sounding foolish is afraid of truly living.

Pretty much describes me. So, what's yer point??

[yvanleterrible]

LIVE you indecent brick! (Said God to that darn lump of clay that became man.)

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

heh... and here i thought it was at least a compound of legitimate words... my friend is from Dresden, what region are you from ? if Germany is anything like france, regional slang can be so different from one place to another as to be virtually incomprehensible. and i'm not even talking about dialects... 50 years ago, a grandpa from one village wouldn't understand a grandpa from the next village over.

Regional slang can be pretty interesting in the States too. And then, you add in things like pronunciation and ... well .... I can barely understand some of the people around here.

Example: "birdy" = here in Texas, that means "verde" the Spanish word for green rather than an avian creature.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Speaking of Spanish terms, (at least in the US-Mexico border region), try translating pachuko. A pachuko, is not exactly a hoodlum, but is a rebel, potentially violent but usually not, who considers himself a exemplar of his culture, (albiet a repressed culture), and usually demands respect for himself and his culture. And this definition still doesn't really fully describe the gestalt of the word.

Speaking of Spanish terms, although this may no longer be true but 30 years ago a "taco" meant a food item in Mexico and a dirty joke in Spain. What with world consumerism as it is today ... I doubt that is true any longer.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i just thought of another one. i don't know if it has a good translation in english, i would be interested to learn it if it does :

décalé(e)

a very useful word. the litteral meaning is something like "shifted" or "deplaced". one very common meaning can be translated as jet-lagged, but it can also be used in a similar sense, when "someone" (ahem) has managed to get themselves completely off a normal timetable, for example not going to bed until 4 in the morning, without the assistance of long-distance air travel (or faster than light travel, or any travel at all, but all within the comfort of their own home).

it also has a more figurative meaning, for something which is "shifted" from the norm, like the opposite of "mainstream".

any ideas ? a word like that would be really useful to me in english, for obvious reasons.

(goodnight...)

The word I've always used for that is "discombooberated" -- also "discombobulated" --

Can be used for people or things that have gone a bit off kilter as a result of ... well, of anything.

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Example: "birdy" = here in Texas, that means "verde" the Spanish word for green rather than an avian creature.

And there I was .. believing it was written "Birdie" and meant "playing one under par" in Golf..

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Discombobulated? Same sense of being disordered, but not displaced. Well, for that matter, the term "displacement" might just be the best, though it does have several technical meanings, even in psychiatry, but I've seen it used in novels to describe that vague, out of time/out of place feeling.

Ah haaaaa .... Taylor, once again, you and I are of one mind.

Yup ... that's the term I would use, or discombooberated.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by tirsales

And there I was .. believing it was written "Birdie" and meant "playing one under par" in Golf..

Of golf I know nothing ... noooothing ... I am clueless when it comes to sports. And, there's a good hard to translate term for you .... "clueless."

What would they use for that in other languages ... anyone??

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

clueless

Ahnunglos ?

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by mores

mobileread.com is chronophage! Anyone else find it hard to NOT call up the site 25 times a day? You guys make it so hard to stay away

It would be more correct to say it is "chronophagic" ... but your point is well taken.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i have a friend who lives in Japan and sometimes she has explained a bit about how social hierarchy works there ; i agree, i can't think of any way to easily translate that (but i'm far from qualified). once she explained that she was studying "respectful japanese" (that's not the real name, i can't remember what it was), because when addressing someone of much higher social status japanese use such an elaborate code of polite formulas and honorific word-forms as to constitude almost another language. we (in french) have polite ways of adressing strangers, elders and bosses in french as well, like "vous" instead of "tu" (english used to have this disctinction) but nothing near as complex, and social interaction is not nearly so codified here, groups are much more fluid and i would say that someone *not* being your equal within your group would be the exception, rather than the opposite...

but i like the idea of affectionate or honorific endings (i like to call people chéri(e) in daily life too, in a vaguely ironic (because the beauty of "chéri" is that it's simultaneously sweet and just a bit ringard...) but still affectionate way...), so i'm going to try to remember these. don't be surprised if i start calling people "nekokami-chan" and "taylor-chan" (i know, i know : not usually for boys... i don't care.)

To an extremely limited extent we have that in English buy sticking "y" or "ie" at the end of the first name to make it a diminutive. Can be really insulting when used with someone who has (or thinks he has) higher status than you.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by tirsales

Ahnunglos ?

Whaaaa?? What language is that??

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Whaaaa?? What language is that??

German