I find it interesting that the article calls these words "untranslatable" but then proceeds to translate them. Yes, there are no single words in English that have the exact meanings of the single words in Japanese, but "untranslatable" gives the impression of not being able to convey the meaning in English even with multiple words--but that's exactly what the article does.
I like these:<p><i>Murahachibu</i>: shunning, public ostracism. Originally meant being excluded from eight (out of ten) aspects of village life. The two jobs which a person under murahachibu were still allowed to perform were firefighting and undertaking, considered the meanest, dirtiest, and least desirable jobs. Handling corpses was thought to make a person "unclean", and persons who did so were isolated to the slummiest village districts called <i>buraku</i>; from these are descended the <i>burakumin</i>, who (much like blacks in the USA) have been historically an oppressed underclass and yet have contributed much to the modern street culture of Japan.<p>Modern murahachibu is practiced in a less severe form: if you fail to kiss the right asses and scratch the right backs in your professional or social life, you will find yourself without help when you most need help.<p><i>Daikon ashi</i>: thick legs (on a woman). A daikon is, of course, a long thick radish used in Japanese cooking. It turns out that Japanese women are at least as self-conscious about not having a "thigh gap" as are Western women.<p><i>Tachiyomi</i>: to "read standing up". When you're in a bookshop and you pick a book off the shelf and start reading it right in the shop. Manga fans love to do this; bookshop owners will sometimes throw people out for doing it. Brings back memories of being an early teen and heading straight for the magazine racks to read ALL THE GAMING MAGAZINES while my mother did the shopping.
I really like:<p>"Kintsukuroi": the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver joining the pieces and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.<p>Westerners have the Nietzsche'esque notion of 'what does not kill you makes you stronger'. But "Kintsukuroi" is more like 'what does not destroy you makes you more beautiful.' It's as if the effort and care taken to repair the item confers a sense of heightened value on it.
There's one word that I expected to be in the list but it isn't, which is もったいない (mottai nai)<p>It describes the situation where something/someone that is still of some use is left unused and wasted, such as leaving food on the table or wasting somebody's talent.<p>I'm a Japanese who's been living in the US for more than a decade, and I always thought this one word represents what's missing in American culture the most.
English probably borrows from other languages more than any other.<p>What's stopping us from just stealing these words? In Singapore for example, people will often just drop in a Malay or Cantonese word.
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a><p>> If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective
This makes me wonder what English words are unique to English, kind of like "breakfast" (in the context of a Burmese tribe) mentioned at the top of the article. There's gotta be a few, right?
japanese and german share a lexical pattern<p>the more syllables in a word then the fewer definitions it has<p>it is interesting to me that the author chose these 'types' of words to highlight<p>their highly specialised nature makes them far more translatable than the Japanese words i find most beautiful<p>my favourite japanese word is 間,ma (o)<p>it is difficult to translate because it simultaneously carries multiple meanings: "gap", "space", "pause" or "the space between two structural parts"(i); it can refer to any existence of negatives space, be it temporal, physical or metaphysical<p>the kanji is a combination of the characters for: gate(ii) and sun(iii); two of the most important symbols in japanese iconography, and the question of whether the sun is setting or rising between the gate is up to interpretation as well<p>(o) <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%93" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%93</a><p>(i) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_(negative_space)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_(negative_space)</a><p>(ii) <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%80" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%80</a><p>(iii) <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5</a>
Well, at least half of Japanese words are borrowed either from English or from Chinese, so it works in reverse as well.<p>Here's one that nobody mentioned yet:<p><i>Tsundoku</i> - when you buy new books but end up never reading them
Certainly the first time I've seen "otsukaresama" described as "beautiful". It's like something you say to your coworkers when you pass them in the hallway.
The Japanese word "mu" can be translated as "I reject the premise of your question" - a word which would be very useful in English. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)</a>
Hmm...my adblock doesn't work on that site. There's an ad between each word. It actually made me more enraged. It's a listy, click bait, rubbish, bullshit article.