Useful words and expressions in other languages we don't have in English.

[MardyBra]

Like schadenfreude for example.

Brain has gone blank trying to think of other examples!

You know when you cry because someone is leaving, but you don't want to upset them so you have to wait, and then cry after they've gone, but your sad tears are also happy tears too, due to being excited for the person leaving? Like hidden, bittersweet crying. I think nacik works well, it's Yup'ik.

There is a fabulous Hindi word 'chamcha' which means, well, arse-licker and sucker-up.

Also 'goondas' - thugs, but slightly more hooliganish.

Does sérendipité not mean the same? What's the nuance difference?

I came on here to say 'dreich' but someone beat me to it. 'Mardy' is great, too.

Thanks for the compliment LRD!

It's not a real word in French, LRD - it hasn't caught on. Hence their envy!

It's mournjy round our way, instead of mardy. There are other words that mean that though, I guess, like grumpy.

No worries mardy.

I forgot, France has that funny attitude to borrowings, doesn't it? They're not keen on the idea.

Eejit
Amadàn in Irish - a fool.
Craic- fun
A Sleeveen - a sly person
A cute hoor

Yet some adopted words make it and others don't. It's not always very clear why!

Amadan - mumsnet doesn't accept fadas

Another Scots word: swither, ie 'indecisive', 'unsure', 'perplexed' - but nothing quite does the same job

Mither- Yorkshire to mean a mixture of whinge/ complain/nag
"give over mithering me!" can get lots of use.

Swither is a great word!

I love:

L'esprit de l'escalier - describing the moment as you leave a party when you think of the perfect witty retort.

Mettre les petits plats dans les grands - meaning to lay on a fancy meal

I've never though of good English equivalents.

I like the Yiddish 'zaftig', meaning a pleasantly plump woman. It's a positive word, rather than judgemental. It means she's mature, had a good life and has been well fed.

Also 'kvetch' meaning a persistent irritation.

Greek has words for different degrees of relations, like the spouse of your spouse's sibling.

A Norwegian word 'hårsår' - it means when your scalp hurts when you brush your hair too hard or when you get an enthusiastic hairdresser

A friend told me about this one yesterday: uff da. When you are sensory overloaded. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uff_da

I am quite frequently uff da.

Have always liked 'jolie laide' from the French, meaning unconventionally attractive rather than pretty.

Like Greek, Hindi has individual names for individual relations. So there's a different name for your mother's brother, your father's brother, the man married to your maternal aunt, and the man married to your paternal aunt. But there's no name for 'cousin'. So they say "real brother" to distinguish siblings from cousins.

'Clarty' is a fantastic Yorkshire word used to describe food that sticks to your teeth when you eat it.

Duh, not names, terms. I can't remember what they are though .

graag in Dutch. You can tack it onto the end of a demand or request and it makes it instantly polite and nice. Plus it's so delightfully gutteral - love it!

There was a brilliant article in the Guardian about this one upon a time. It included a word from a South American country which described tapping someone on the far shoulder to make them look the other way.

Panzee's comment reminds me of a Dutch word 'uitsmijter' which is a meal you serve to get people to leave, or as the end of an evening. It's like a hot open sandwich with ham and cheses and an egg on the top.

I have always loved the German word 'doch'. It has several meanings or uses but I particularly like when it is used to say 'on the contrary'.

I witnessed a very long argument between young siblings that basically just went 'ja!' , 'doch!' , 'ja!' , 'doch!' ...

I also like the word 'shoogle' in Scots which means to give a little shake .

I like shufti for a look around, from Arabic. My grandad use to called his glasses his shuftiscopes.

Add message | Report | Message poster headoverheels Wed 29-Jan-14 14:05:06
Wouldn't that just be earworm in English though?

The English use of Earworm is a calque of the German word which coined the phrase. There is no such thing as a ear worm, the true translation is actually earwig if I recall. The Germans coined the meaning for the tune thing before we had a word. I don't actually say it in English so I didn't realize it had been anglicised.

Welsh ones are very often mention - cwtch and hiraeth. Locally there were two used commonly when I was a kid "Meddwl" which would translate to think, but would be used to describe someone up themselves. And Grain, meaning a kind of fur coat no knickers person or someone putting shallow things before values, is as close as I could translate it.