“Alfajores de dulce de leche” and other untranslatable words

Somewhere in Western India, I bought some fried food from a man on the street. He spoke enough English to have a basic conversation. As I was going to pay him, he said “thirty Indian money, please“. I could immediately see why he had said that. He was translating everything from his native language to English, and for him, ‘rupee’ was an Indian word that he couldn’t say while speaking English. What was the English translation of ‘rupee’? Indian money!

This is the perfect example of something that you shouldn’t translate. A currency should remain the same unless it has a real translation, such as pound translates to ‘libra’ in Spanish and Portuguese. Some words shouldn’t be translated because they lose an important part of their meaning when translated. Other words simply don’t exist in other languages. And some words just sound best when they aren’t translated.

Loss of Meaning

For me, it can be a language crime to translate some words that lose part of their identity through translation. A great example of this is the Argentinian empanada. I have seen it translated to English as pasty, turnover and pie. None of these translations do justice to the delicious Argentinian snack. A pasty is a British pastry that resembles an empanada but is larger, with thicker dough, and follows strict ingredients. A turnover is generally sweet, and has slightly different meanings throughout English speaking lands. And pie is an incredibly general word that can be made of any size and shape, any type of pastry, and any filling.

Continuing with the idea of pies, a common translation of apple pie to Spanish would be torta de manzana. An apple pie refers to a pastry covered with cooked apple, whereas in Spanish, torta de manzana generally refers to a cake. In fact, if I had to translate torta de manzana to English, I would use apple cake.

Moving from food to sleep, siesta is another Spanish word that doesn’t need to be translated. Many people choose nap, which is generally used as a mid-day short sleep. This is fine, however, most or many English speakers today understand the idea of siesta, as being a semi-important sleep that breaks up the day. In fact, siesta is in the Oxford dictionary. Poncho is the same – it sounds like it should have a translation outside of Spanish, but, actually, much of the world understands poncho.

Words that don’t exist

One good reason not to translate something is because you can’t. This can either be because the word is truly international (like internet and many other technical words) or because you have found a word that is unique to one language.

A German-speaking friend of mine once told me that she felt geborgenheit. When trying to find an English translation for me, she realised that it didn’t exist. She told me that geborgenheit is a feeling of complete comfort and security, that often involves an element of nostalgia “like sitting by an open fire on Christmas Day in your parents house”. Another, not so lovely, untranslatable word from German is schadefreude which means enjoying someone else’s suffering!

In Spain, Argentina and many other Spanish speaking countries, there is a great act of staying at the table after a meal, to chat and drink. This is called la sobremesa and I believe that this fantastic word doesn’t exist outside of Spanish. Possibly because of the fact that it is simply more customary in Hispaophone countries!

Just sounds best

After correcting some translations of official texts, I have found many things that are better not to translate. Many proper nouns, such as the names of Universities and other institutions are better just italicised rather than translated. For example:

“The following study was carried out by the Oncology department of the Universidad de Buenos Aires from March to June 2016.”

A completely different example of things simply sounding best are words that lose their descriptive ability when translated. If you are explaining a Mexican scene, of a man sleeping under his hat, you could say hat, however, the Spanish sombrero is not only understood, but sounds much better.

Lastly, returning to food, there is the classic example of Argentinian alfajores de dulce de leche. An alfajor is not a little cake and dulce de leche is not caramel. Language should be something inspiring and interesting, and I feel that any translation of this Argentinian delicacy will only take away its uniqueness and deliciousness.

Four Spanish, two English and one French untranslatable words

Estrenar – To wear something for the first time or to open a business (especially a hotel/restaurant etc.) for the first time
Friolento – Someone who is very sensitive to the cold
Desvelar(se) – To keep someone awake, or stop someone from sleeping
Te quiero / I want you – This is a direct translation in which the result is a very different meaning.
‘Te quiero’ is best translated as ‘I love you’. It can be used for family and friends as well as romantic partners, although ‘te amo‘ is mostly just used for romantic partners.
‘I want you’ has almost no relation to love, unless it was said in a particularly sweet way between romantic partners. It is probably more similar to the Spanish ‘te deseo‘, and can sound quite animalistic if said wrong!
To look forward to something – This common English expression has no decent foreign alternative. The closest you can come in Spanish would be ‘tener ganas de‘ or ‘estar ansioso de‘, however neither of these translations could be followed by ‘Christmas’.
Bon appetit – In Spain, ‘que aproveche‘ is common. In South America ‘buen provecho‘. However, in English, there is no decent translation. Occasionally people might say ‘enjoy your meal’, however, it is quite common (particularly in the UK) to hear the French words ‘bon appetit’ in restaurants and other places.

Do you agree with my argument? Can you think of other words that shouldn’t be translated? Or do you think that you have a great translation for alfajores de dulce de leche? Let us know in the comments section below

Podcast: Play in new window | Download