Show HN: Words that don't translate

Recently, I’ve been running into more words that only seem to exist in a single language. Words like kaizen, ikigai, and karoshi in Japanese…or, lagom and fika in Swedish, which are not directly translatable to other languages.<p>As I have learned more about these “untranslatable” words, I’ve found that they often give a glimpse into that particular culture which I think is pretty cool. I wanted a way to discover more of these words, and even compare them across cultures.<p>So today, I built this searchable web app of words that don&#x27;t translate (as part of the 24h startup challenge).

I speak Greek.<p>Ανάγκη = need&#x2F;necessity. Φιλοξενία = hospitality. Πνεύμα = spirit. Ok, it may mean breath, too, but only in songs or poems. If might raise some eyebrows in everyday speech. Usual word for breath = ανάσα or more uncommonly, πνοή. Σωφροσύνη = prudence? That&#x27;s the only one that doesn&#x27;t translate perfectly.<p>For words that really don&#x27;t translate (to English at least) look up καημός, παλικάρι, μεράκι .

I actally thought of creating such a list myself a few days ago. Very nice to see this here!<p>One improvement I immediatly thought of: Usually you cannot say&#x2F;know that one word cannot be translated to ANY other language, because nobody knows all languages. But what you actually can know is that a word in one language does not exist in one other language. You know that if you speak these two languages. So storing triples makes more sense, I think.<p>Example: Because I speak german and french, I can surely say that the german word &#x27;satt&#x27; (meaning: not hungry anymore) does not have an equivalent in french. But I have no idea if it exits in japanese. Someone else knowing german and japanese has to fill this gap.<p>There are also duplicates in your Database like &#x27;Kummerspeck&#x27;.

In Japan I learned the word &quot;fukujoushi&quot;, which the dictionary translated as &quot;death during sexual intercourse (with a woman)&quot;. The last part really cracked me up.

Not really sure what you mean with &quot;that don&#x27;t translate&quot;. Is it ANY other language? Because then the Norwegian &quot;Avspasere&quot; has a Danish translation &quot;Afspadsere&quot; as seen in The Danish Dictionary: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ordnet.dk&#x2F;ddo&#x2F;ordbog?query=afspadsere" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ordnet.dk&#x2F;ddo&#x2F;ordbog?query=afspadsere</a>

I don&#x27;t know if all the words in this list qualify. Some of them exist in other languages as specific words as well.<p>For example:<p>Fremdschämen To be embarrassed by something somebody else did German<p>Myötähäpeä in Finnish (alongshame when literally translated)