Top 5 Untranslatable Words

English is a famously flexible language, eager to assimilate or adapt words from other languages. As there is no prescriptive institution regulating which words should be added to the English vocabulary, the process through which it enlarges itself has no rules other than the will of the people.

invaded and coloniser

As you have seen in Speak Up, English has incorporated words not only from the various civilisations that have invaded the British Isles —the Saxons, the Celts, the Romans, the Normans and the Vikings­—, but also from the countries it has colonised, militarily or culturally.

lingua franca

While English remains the lingua franca of the world, however, there are some specific concepts from other languages that English-speakers just cannot express with one word.

no words

Every Spanish learner has had the experience of searching for a specific word in English to indicate a concept or a feeling... and found none available. This might not be due to the limited vocabulary of the speaker, but to an absence of the actual word in English.

explanation needed

Some so-called loanwords have entered and been adapted for English and are now of common usage; words like ‘siesta’, ‘machismo’ or ‘guerrilla’. However, some words for concepts, feelings or customs simply don’t exist, and require some explanation in English to be fully understood. We have selected five of them. Can you think of any more?

1. Tutear

There is only one second person in English grammar, so it’s often difficult to distinguish the level of formality when addressing someone. Of course, using Ms. or Mr. and the surname instead of the given name can be considered more respectful, similar to ‘usted’. The closest equivalent would be ‘to be on first-name terms’.

2. Sobremesa

The act of lingering after a meal, enjoying a friendly conversation or engaging in a heated debate, often spiked with all types of alcoholic spirits and even cigars. Of course English-speakers also like a nice long ‘after dinner talk’, but they don’t have the flexibility of business hours that Spaniards do, so it is not a respectable custom and they have not coined a word for it.

3. Estrenar

In English one can ‘premiere’ a play or a movie – a French loanword, incidentally –, but if you’re wearing a dress or a pair of shoes for the first time there’s no specific word to express it. Yes, shoes and dresses can be works of art, but you don’t ‘premiere’ them.

4. Friolero

It may have to do with the warm climate we enjoy in most Hispanic countries, and thus that we’re not used to low temperatures, but in English a person who always wears an extra layer of clothes or an additional blanket would simply be ‘more sensitive to the cold’ than the average person.

5. Vergüenza ajena

According to the cliché, the British are culturally more polite and well-mannered than their European counterparts, so one might assume that English would be the language to coin a concept to express the embarrassment one feels when the other person is making a fool of him or herself. Or perhaps it is precisely because they are so refined that they prefer to ignore it and not even express it in words.