Next Thursday, May 21, is World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, a United Nations sanctioned holiday aimed at raising awareness of diversity issues. It’s a day for celebrating the value of diversity, and of course, we’re celebrating by looking at linguistic diversity and, in particular, how languages differ in the concepts that they easily express. We say “untranslatable” above to describe these special phrases, but really, as any bilingual knows, you can translate just about anything but some translations are succinct and easy while some words in one language take a lot of time and words to fully translate. The first word in our list is a perfect example. In Portuguese, there is one word “saudade” that sums up a host of emotions and states of mind that can’t be summed up in one word in English. Let’s take a closer look and learn some other “untranslatable” phrases:
1. PORTUGUESE: Saudade (noun): a type of nostalgia, a longing for something you once had but have no more. It is also used to express being homesick, missing someone dear or feeling blue. Saudade comes from the latin solitate, meaning solitude and as demonstrated by the sentences below, it is a difficult expression to translate using a single word, or even one phrase. The word saudade is said to have originated from the deep longing that African slaves felt for their native countries, former way of life, and the people they had to leave behind.
Eu tenho saudade de casa.
I’m homesick.
Você tem saudade da sua terra natal?
Do you miss you native country?
Desde saiu de casa, Felipe sente saudade da comida da sua mãe.
Since leaving home, Felipe misses his mother’s cooking.
Os velhos amigos sentem saudade da juventude.
The old friends long to be young again.
Ela está morrendo de saudade.
She’s feeling blue.
Eu estou com muita saudade de você.
I miss you a lot.
2. GREEK: Καψούρα (ka-PSU-ra) (noun)
You are not Greek, or a lover of Greek culture, if you don’t know what καψούρα is! Κάψα ( KA-psa) is the slang word for heat. Kαψούρα is that “burning sensation” of love, more than having a crash or being in love. Kαψούρα is the passion beyond life itself even if you know you are to be “burned” by this love.
3. FRENCH: faire le pont (verb)
In French this literally means to make the bridge, but the idiomatic meaning is to make a long holiday weekend by taking an additional day off around a holiday. So for example, this year May 14 is Ascension Day and happens to be a Thursday. Who wants to go back to work on Friday after a nice day off in May? No need to in France. They font le pont and make a one-day holiday into 4 days off from work. C’est magnifique !
4. SPANISH: hacer botellón (verb)
This is the widespread practice of buying alcohol in supermarkets and drinking it outside before going to the clubs in Spain. The practice started some 15 years ago mostly by college students and spread quickly to city parks and squares all over. Botellón is practiced every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night now in many places and as you can imagine, neighbors love it.
5. GERMAN: Gemütlich [guh-moot-lih] (adjective)
This word describes things, places or situations that are cozy, comfortable and homey; used often in winter and often when friends get together, as in :
Der Abend bei Freunden war so gemütlich, dass wir uns wie zu Hause gefühlt haben.
The evening with friends was so ‘gemütlich’, that we felt like we were at home.
