Asking non-native English speakers.
The Hungarian adjective “ügyes”. It’s used to describe someone when they do something ably/skillfully/cleverly. (Doesn’t necessarily imply a learned ability, can be innate.) It usually implies an activity involving manual dexterity, but can also be used for mental problem-solving.
When used as an exclamation, it basically means “Well done!”
Kinda a reversal, but I’m curious if other languages have a word as versatile as English’s “fuck”. Like obviously other languages have words for the verb of making sex, but is it common for it to also be a noun, adjective, or adverb to the point where you could have it as every other word and it still be grammatically correct?
In Dutch, the word “kanker” can be used as verb, noun or adjective. Example: Die kanker hoer kan opkankeren met die kanker van haar. Which best translates to something like: That fucking whore can fuck off with that shit of hers. Except that the Dutch version is wayyyyy more rude and inappropriate.
Fuck the fucking fuckers.
It always felt weird to me that English has no distinct phrase to express non-romantic affection.
English speakers use “I love you”, but in Italian (and many other languages) you’d make a distinction between a romantic partner and a friend/relative/whatever.
Ti amo = I love you, said for example to your partner, signifies a deep emotional bond, not something you usually say lightly.
Ti voglio bene = I love you, but less charges, more in a “I feel good about you” way
I always appreciated Spanish’s Te quiero vs te amo to express to friends my feelings for them, much better than “I love you, no homo”.
I recently came across a word that I couldn’t find a translation for. In Swedish, the word “skallgång” refers to the act of walking in a line formation in a search party.
Way too many for Chinese (think every Chinese dish you know), but the one world I think about the most in this context these days is 老百姓 (lao3 bai3 xing4) (Also see a somewhat related Wikipedia article). Direct translation is “ol’ hundred surnames”
It’s… a non-formal word for the “commoners” or the “average person”. This is a concept I don’t hear in mainstream media that much nowadays. I don’t think most news or mainstream media even refers to say the entirety of the lower to middle social class in one word… (Note that it is different from “Average Joe”, which does have a Chinese counterpart which translates to “Zhang three Li four”)
On top of it, the whole concept of “a hundred surnames” representing most of society is kind of absurd in English-speaking countries. Societies with historical Chinese influences tend to have lots of ppl share the same surnames
In Spanish.
Sobremesa, the period you stay at the table after lunch or dinner having a coffee or some drinks while chatting.Aprovechar, is basically the opposite of to waste. So depending on the context is to take advantage of something, to make the most of, make a good use, give a second use or reuse leftovers for something else.
Sobremesa
It’s weird there’s no English word for that, now that you point it out, since it’s a pretty common thing.
Estrenar: to use/wear something brand new for the very first time. Sometimes when you are estrenando white shoes your classmates in school would try to step on them so they no longer look new.
The old-school English word for aprovechar was “thrift” or being thrifty. These days I hear it used mostly in the specific sense of saving cash. I don’t often hear it much anymore in terms of conserving resources, but that is where it came from, and if you use it in that sense people will understand you.
As for sobremesa, that’s not something I’ve enjoyed enough for it to have its own word, unfortunately.
Botellon: just drinking and socializing outside, usually something a group of underage kids/young people would do. Not a party, not simply getting drunk. Like hanging out but with some alcohol.
Second one is “appreciate” in English.
Not really. “Aproverchar” means more like “I have this things that I would normally throw out but I will used for X instead”. You wouldn’t say “I had some left over chicken so I appreciated it to make corquetas”.
I second the person before you, that is literally
appreciate (a thing)Closer to “appropriate” (the verb, not the adjective) but still not quite, it’s too formal
It’s not quite that either. The spanish word for “appropriate” is “apropiar”, and the meaning is the same. Aprovechar has a different meaning.
Does it count if English just steals your words?
Schadenfreude, Zeitgeist, Weltanschauung, Kindergarten.
Doppelganger, wanderlust, poltergeist…
Stein… oh wait no, spiel… oops not quite
Blitzkrieg?
Blitzkrieg translates pretty well doesn’t it? Fast war?
Lightning being the literal translation but used in the same way as fast.
I always assumed lightning war was just a way of making it sound more interesting, I didn’t realise blitz just meant lightning
Perhaps if the meaning is different or altered from the actual word.
The problem is when they steal a word and then change the meaning.
You don’t want to go down that road.
“beamer, handy, mobbing, shooting…”English words, yes? What about them?
I guess you don’t speak German, as those are now German words that you might not be able to guess their meanings
Looking forward to “woonerf.”
Angst, although that one became more of a false friend: Fear of the unknown vs Teenage BS
Zeitgeist works well as “spirit of the times”; Weltanschauung as “worldview”; and Kindergarten as “pre-school”.
That’s what English does. Why do you think OP is asking?
It’s what every language does, to some extent. You’d really struggle to say, “I was working from home, sending emails and providing feedback, and during a meeting with my team and the marketing manager, the internet died” in German without stuffing the sentence to the brim with English loanwords.
The french: Je ne suis pas d’accord
Je travaillais depuis chez moi, j’envoyais des courriel et je faisais des retours, et au cours d’une réunion avec mon équipe et le directeur commercial, la connexion Internet a lâché.
Plenty in French too! And this is just English; my point is that loanwords are super common.
Russian is more productive than English, so there’s a bunch of “we just smushed a bunch of prefixes and suffixes on it” words that don’t have a great English equivalent, like недоперепить – to drink quite a lot but not succeed at drinking too much. I don’t think we properly have листопад which is the equivalent of “snowfall” but for autumn leaves. I really miss успевать – to successfully have enough time to do something. There’s also кипяток – water that has been boiled but then slightly cooled, like 200-205 degrees F. The canonical examples are тоска , which is a kind of melancholy longing, and авось which expresses optimism but I basically never heard anyone actually say.
Never hearing anyone express optimism feels like a very Russian stereotype.
It does seem on-brand.
I think авось has a general meaning similar to “god willing”, or “with some luck”, not simply some optimism. Like “авось успеем” -> “with some luck, we can make it in time”. I do agree it’s an old-fashioned word which I haven’t really heard in a while.
As someone who speaks the exact bare minimum amount of Russian to get by in Estonia (so basically hello, please, thank you, fuck you, good bye), there’s a couple Russian words of the “not in front of your babushka” type that IMO lose a bit of character when translated to the English phrases that mean the same thing:
похуй - universal answer whenever someone raises a concern
хуйня - very versatile word
I’ll let you do the honor of translating them.
very versatile word
So, pretty much anything and sometimes exact opposite thing 🥲
Pretty much.
In the context of how I hear it used in Estonia at least, it both means something is very annoying, or it means it’s so unimportant it doesn’t matter. It also just means “thingamajig”. I suspect there are use cases I can’t think of right now or ones that I don’t even know.
Shaka, when the walls fell
Timba, his arms wide
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
Darmok and Jalaad, at the bar.
Jalaad in the bathroom the next morning.
Doch
There exists no english equivalent for doch, it has multiple functions, the most known one being an expression that emphatically negates a previous sentiment.
“Does not!”
“Does too!!”Which created one of the most long lived german memes.
“It should not be that way, but it was.”
It fills a big gap in English because there is no single English word to unambiguously answer a question like:
“So you don’t want me to come over this afternoon?”
There would be, if people were able to understand the concept of single negation. But in practice, any single word answer to that question will likely lead to confusion or misunderstanding.
Came here for doch. Its one of my favourite words im using arguing with AFD voters and works every time its like a spell.
In JavaScript,
this.Buddhist devs meditate frequently on the differences and similarities between
thisandself
Guten Appetit! (German term equivalent to “cheers” for drinking - but for eating.)
Mahlzeit has no English translation
That one is really interesting, because a lot of languages has it, from guten apetit, through dobrou chuť to itadakimasu. But english was out of school that day I suppose.
English stole 'Bon Apetit" from French fair and square!
As English often does - if it makes sense in another language and is easy for English speakers to understand the context it’s used, they’re quite happy stealing it. Especially French.
Loanwords are a thing in every language, especially English loanwords.
That’s because English isn’t a language, it’s three other languages in a trenchcoat, stealing stuff from every other language.
Celtic, western Germanic (Angles, Saxons, Frisian), Latin, northern Germanic (Danish, Norse), and in 1066 finally French (which is a mixing bowl in its own right). The trenchcoat is way more crowded than you think.
Sacrebleu !
itsdakomasu
Did you mean itadakimasu?
Because that is what you say in Japanese when you start eating but interestingly it doesn’t mean “Guten Appetit” (basically “have a nice meal”) but “I am (thankfully) going to receive (a nice meal)”. While “Guten Appetit” is about others who are eating alongside you, “itadakimasu” is about the speaker.
Wasn’t itadakimasu religious in origin? Making it something more like the prayer before the food that English-speaking Christians do - “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive…”?
I wouldn’t know. The verb is itadaku which is a humble form of the verb morau, meaning “to receive”. The imasu part is basically just polite grammar. If there is anything religious about it, it’s obscure.
Good appetite?Oh, looked it up, it’s not used in the same manner as German, i never knew 😃
Head isu!
Gezellig in Dutch. Used to describe a situation that’s cosy and fun togetherness. Can also be used to describe a place that looks inviting (to have that good time in). I guess 😃
It’s the word extroverts use to blackmail people into coming to social gatherings.
GezelligGesellig
Sisu. Its a mix of courage, determination, resilience, keeping your nerve, doing a scary or difficult thing even though you know that odds of succeeding are low. Its also done quietly, no complaining or boasting about it. You can mutter some curse words quietly to yourself.
Closest English word for it might be “guts” or “grit”. But those don’t really explain it completely.
Finnish.
So humble bravery.
Yes but with determination, perseverance and some other stuff added into it.
As your southern neighbour, I knew someone would have to mention sisu.
Now someone needs to explain Finland’s national emotion, vitutus.
Oh yeah! Vitutus is a great word indeed. I should have used that one lol.
Ismo Alanko Säätiö has a song called Vittu Kun Vituttaa, I would have linked a youtube link here but youtube thinks its age-inapproriate and demands a log in. So I recommend you find it on your preferred music service, https://lyricstranslate.com/en/vittu-kun-vituttaa-fuck-im-so-pissed.html
What is the difference between grit and sisu? As in, for you, grit is (this set of qualities) vs sisu is (this set of qualities)?
I am asking because the qualities you used so far… They are grit.
Its also done quietly, no complaining or boasting about it
Is this the difference? Everything looks grit to me.
Yep, sounds like “grit”.
Theres a sort of Finnish flavor to it. Just like theres grit, then theres Aussie grit. Its kind of difficult to put into words, “grit” is just a part of “sisu”, theres more to it.
Sorry, but if you can’t articulate the difference I don’t believe there is one.
Okay.
Or, hear me out, the word/concept doesn’t translate into English well which is why the difference is hard to articulate in English
I know this one. From the title of the movie about one of your lads exacting cinematic vengeance on Nazis.
Beautiful stuff. 💛
I haven’t seen that one. Heard its good fun.
Personally I found it way too gory
Yeah I’m leaning on that way as well. I’m not big on these heroic gore festival movies. I’m glad a Finnish movie was successful internationally, but probably not my thing. I might watch it in the next 15 years.
Well worth the watch. 👍
Kindergarten
That’s how you get kids:
Sow the seed, wait a few years until they are sprouting. Then you pick them up and keep them at home until mature.This is proof that Germans do have humour!
That is correct, but we spell it without the second “u”.
And capitalized
