I found a book not long ago of interesting words that are - well, let's say, not easily translatable into English, or not translatable in less than a sentence. It's been fun to pour through.

It is In Other Words by Christopher J. Moore. (ISBN: 0802714447)

Here's an example I like. The word is "mokita" [moh-kee-tah] from Kiriwina of New Guinea. The book says, "A powerful word used to describe the truth that everyone knows but no one wants to talk about openly... usually unpleasant or unwelcome."

Lala

Hi there. Always good to see a new face.

We've had a number of discussions in the past on the concept of "untranslatability" which I'm sure you'd find interesting. Our usual conclusion (though there are dissenting voices) is that nothing is actually untranslatable although there is frequently no one-to-one correspondence of single words.
For example we have rubbished the book "The Meaning of Tingo" more times than I care to count.

On the specific example you have mentioned, if the context was suitable, I'd translate it by our rather colourful phrase "the elephant in the room".

Have a poke around on the old threads and you'll find some rather fascinating (and occasional mildly heated) discussions on the subject. A search for "Tingo" should give some.

And welcome to wordcraft.

I started a thread about this very word, used in an article that discussed "The Bell Curve", a book discussing the possible connection between intelligence and race.

The thread is now locked since it had started to deviate into a discussion about the suggestion implicit in the book , rather than the word "mokita" - but the thread can still be read although not added to. Just use the search facility for "mokita" and you'll find it.

Moore's book is one of the better researched, written, and referenced of this kind of book. I own most of them, and it is interesting to see how they "borrow" from one another, sometimes introducing their own take on a definition, and, sometimes, introducing downright errors.

[Corrected typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Hehehee...

I did read through the thread on defining untranslatable and there were definitely some good thoughts there. I sort of fall on the side of allowing that, though there may not be a single direct word-to-word translation for these things, the concept can be conveyed, hence the word is still translated and conversation is still happening.

I'm learning in Japanese class that translating is more an art of imparting meaning or intent, anyway, rather than literally changing words from one language to another. Our text book often gives us the "meaning" of a phrase and then follows it up with the literal translation, which can be both interesting and amusing.

Lala

Welcome, lala!
Slow on the uptake here, sorry.. down with the flu. Foreign languages my thing too, tho I've never dabbled beyond Europe, & congratulate you on your Japanese adventure.

When I was a Romance lit major decades ago, for me the holy grail was tripping on a word whose meaning-- though it could be conveyed with a couple of sentences of description-- was something I otherwise (in my culture) would probably never have come across. You must be coming across those every day in Japanese.

Languages are just to bring about differences but very essential means of communication thus the "GLOBE" solely depend on it...