ProZ.com Translation Forums

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | .

Kay Denney — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:51:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Kay Denney
Post title: .

[quote]Alex Lichanow wrote:

My mother tongue is full of words that are considered to be untranslatable. There's a reason "Schadenfreude" is simply used unchanged in English. However, I only translate INTO my mother tongue, so the question is irrelevant. [/quote]

Schadenfreude is a beautiful word for a not so beautiful sentiment! I must admit that I have felt it at times. Like when that woman pushed rudely past me in a busy shop on Christmas Eve, and knocked her shin hard on the cast-iron fireplace accessories in my shopping bag.

And since I don't translate out of my native tongue, I'm finding there are more and more words I can't translate. When the English word comes to me but I'm speaking in French, I find myself flailing. It's really infuriating when it's a word that I use in translations: show me the French word and the English word just pops out of my brain, but show me the English word and I'm stumped. I've even thought I ought to start translating into French just to get my brain to work better both ways.
(only thought! don't slay me!!)

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Schadenfreude

Michele Fauble — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:22:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Michele Fauble
Post title: Schadenfreude

[quote]Angie Garbarino wrote:

[quote]Alex Lichanow wrote:

My mother tongue is full of words that are considered to be untranslatable. There's a reason "Schadenfreude" is simply used unchanged in English. However, I only translate INTO my mother tongue, so the question is irrelevant. [/quote]

pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune?, Impossible to translate also in Italian and French
[/quote]

But easy to translate to Norwegian - “skadefryd”.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Possible in my language

Lingua 5B — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 16:13:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Lingua 5B
Post title: Possible in my language

[quote]Angie Garbarino wrote:

[quote]Alex Lichanow wrote:

My mother tongue is full of words that are considered to be untranslatable. There's a reason "Schadenfreude" is simply used unchanged in English. However, I only translate INTO my mother tongue, so the question is irrelevant. [/quote]

pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune?, Impossible to translate also in Italian and French

[/quote]

We have a word for this in my language “zluradost”. It’s a form of (mild) passive/emotional sadism. Is this the most evil one can get? Or Machiavellianism?

I find that names of many local dishes stay the same in the target language. For instance, the Italian word “pizza”, look at this, just slight variations at times:

[url removed]

It’s because local dishes are like brand names.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Oh I can understand

Angie Garbarino — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:29:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Angie Garbarino
Post title: Oh I can understand

[quote]Alex Lichanow wrote:

My mother tongue is full of words that are considered to be untranslatable. There's a reason "Schadenfreude" is simply used unchanged in English. However, I only translate INTO my mother tongue, so the question is irrelevant. [/quote]

pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune?, Impossible to translate also in Italian and French

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Every single word

Baran Keki — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:43:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Baran Keki
Post title: Every single word

I wasn't taught my mother's tongue (Kurdish) because of 'safety' considerations.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | It happens, but there's a "but"

Ruan Rocha — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:37:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Ruan Rocha
Post title: It happens, but there's a "but"

Well, yeah, it happens sometimes, but, as other people have discussed about that on their answers, like, there might be a word, whether from our mother tongue whether it's not, that we don't exactly know the meaning or the equivalent to the other language, but this quest is a little deeper than that. You have to understand what's the context, the whole idea behind that word. Sometimes You don't know exactly what's the translation of that word, but if You know what the speech is about, You don't need to translate that word. But the phrase, the sentence, the mental frame of the meaning. Many times it is the most important of all, the way people think in that language.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Obviously everyone would

The Shredder — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 12:33:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: The Shredder
Post title: Obviously everyone would

I frequently encounter words in my mother tongue that I don’t even know the meaning of, so I’m not going to know how to translate them.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | yes

Zea_Mays — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 11:37:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Zea_Mays
Post title: yes

Examples for such words which can only be paraphrased:
Italian: ginepraio, menefreghismo
German: Torschlusspanik, Schadenfreude

An English word often hard to translate: experience

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Mother tongue

Lieven Malaise — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 11:08:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Lieven Malaise
Post title: Mother tongue

Since I'm not capable to translate on a professional level into another language than my mother tongue (in my humble opinion 99% of all translators isn't capable to do that), I would probably encounter words in my mother tongue that I don't know how to translate all the time.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Not just words: there are big pieces of text that should be left alone

Denis Fesik — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 10:11:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Denis Fesik
Post title: Not just words: there are big pieces of text that should be left alone

And if you care to translate one (which will be difficult), you should be prepared to read reviews saying how lame your translation is. Since the option of writing something that's better than the original is rarely available (unless the translator is a genius, and I don't claim to be one), it only makes sense to translate something if it makes sense to have it in translation for some solid purpose. I remember hearing a pretty famous Russian romantic song performed in English. It did sound good, and I imagine it was well loved in its time, but the lyrics were completely changed. Like, completely. Why? Well, I guess it's because it made no sense to translate the original lyrics and fit them into the same song format: it just wouldn't be relevant to the English-speaking crowd (that song being far from the hardest of them to translate).

Languages have many words that need explanations in other languages. I once found a Greek word on KudoZ with quite a few answers offered exclusively by Greeks, and I just happened to know that word (and its Russian counterpart) as well as the teaching behind it so I could see that none of the answers conveyed the essence of it. Why? Because it doesn't exist in English. Can't see how this can pose a problem though: English can always borrow a new Greek word or two. Are language purists even a thing in the Anglosphere?

[Редактировалось 2024-07-03 10:24 GMT]

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Of course, privately

Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 06:56:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD
Post title: Of course, privately

I only translate into my mother tongue, too, but it happens sometimes that my French husband asks me what a German expression means, and I realise that I can only explain around it and/or give him examples of its use in context.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Other

Alex Lichanow — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:39:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Alex Lichanow
Post title: Other

My mother tongue is full of words that are considered to be untranslatable. There's a reason "Schadenfreude" is simply used unchanged in English. However, I only translate INTO my mother tongue, so the question is irrelevant.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Lots

Philip Lees — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:12:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Philip Lees
Post title: Lots

My vocabulary in English, my mother tongue, is huge and includes lots of obscure and useless words, gleaned from years of doing cryptic crosswords, that I would never ever need to translate and wouldn't know how to if I did. Most of them would probably have no cultural referent in my second language.

On the other hand, as others have already mentioned, I translate professionally only the other way, from Greek to English, and it's rather unusual for me to come across a Greek word that presents problems in translation.

It does happen though. I remember reading a translation of a Greek novel in which a single word had been translated into a whole paragraph of explanation, because the story wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | Pretty silly Q, if I may say so.

Cilian O'Tuama — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 02:16:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Cilian O'Tuama
Post title: Pretty silly Q, if I may say so.

:-)

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | No

IrinaN (X) — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 23:55:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: IrinaN (X)
Post title: No

I don't translate words. I translate meaningful phrases, paragraphs and pages also known as context.

Are you asking about a case of an allegedly non-existent single-word equivalent in English that would ensure a 100% correct translation from Russian with every nuance accounted for in every context? Such predicament is a very common thing in any pair, it may indeed be non-existent yet it makes one of the most attractive and intriguing part of our profession. But would it mean "I don't know how to translate it?" Research is another part of the same profession.

Translating and deciphering poll titles is getting harder and harder :-)

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? | N/A

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 21:09:00 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Post title: N/A

I translate exclusively into my mother tongue...

Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?

ProZ.com Staff — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 20:10:04 +0000

Forum: Poll Discussion
Topic: Poll: Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate?
Poster: ProZ.com Staff

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever encountered a word in your mother tongue that you didn’t know how to translate? ".

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