{"id":33,"date":"2024-04-09T11:38:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T08:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/?p=33"},"modified":"2024-04-09T11:38:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T08:38:45","slug":"unusual-foreign-words-without-an-english-equivalent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/foreign_words.htm","title":{"rendered":"Unusual foreign words without an English equivalent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Spesenritter<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(German) Someone who shows off at a dinner or other social situation by paying the bill with their firm\u2019s money. Literally translated as an \u201cexpense knight\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Lagom<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Swedish) Not too much, but not too little; not too many, not too few \u2013 just the right amount. The baby bear&#8217;s bed and porridge in\u00a0<em>Goldilocks<\/em>\u00a0were\u00a0<em><strong>Lagom<\/strong><\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Estrenar<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Spanish) To wear or use something for the first time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Ohrwurm<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(German) A song or tune hat gets stuck in your head. Literally, an \u201cear worm\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Jibaku<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Japanese)The act of unintentionally or inadvertently demolishing your own argument in the process of defending your view.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Karelu<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Tulu Indian) The mark left on the skin by wearing anything tight.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Backpfeifengesicht<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(German) A face in need of a slap.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Meinichi<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Japanese) Word used to describe the anniversary of someone\u2019s death. Literally, the \u201c<em>Day of Honor<\/em>.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Culacino<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Italian) The mark left on a table by a moist glass.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Shamozzle<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Irish) A disagreement between a group of men that can involve shoving but not as serious as one that involves punching or kicking. In the UK we&#8217;d say,\u00a0<em>&#8216;It was handbags at 50 paces<\/em>,&#8217; i.e. done more for show and nothing that was ever going to break out in serious violence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Les Postillons<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(French) The droplets of spittle that come out of people\u2019s mouths as they talk to you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Yoko meshi<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Japanese) The peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language. The literal translation is, \u201chorizontal rice\u201d or \u201ca meal eaten sideways, a humorous reference to the fact that Japanese is normally written vertically, whereas most foreign languages are written horizontally.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Cafun\u00e9<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Portuguese)To repeatedly run your fingers through someone\u2019s hair in a soft and affectionate manner.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Morgenfrisk<\/strong>\u00a0(Danish) Feeling rested after a good night\u2019s sleep<strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>Literally: &#8216;morningfresh&#8217;.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Tibetan) Giving an answer that is unrelated to the question, literally \u201c<em>to give a green answer to a blue question<\/em>\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em><strong>Forelsket<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when first falling in love. Literally translated as \u2018<em>pre-love<\/em>\u2019.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Consuegro<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Spanish) The relationship between those whose children are married to each other, e.g. your father and your father-in-law are\u00a0<em>consuegros<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Atolondrar<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Spanish) To become so overwhelmed by something that you get scatter-brained and do something careless, e.g. you&#8217;re being bombarded by emails, phone calls and text messages all at the same time and you send an email yourself without an attachment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Desenrascanco<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Portuguese) The art of stitching together a solution to a problem at the last minute with no resources, i.e. doing a McGuyver.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Panahiyabhadra<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Hindi) A person whose excessive politeness leads him to be taken advantage of (Believe it or not, the literal translation is &#8216;someone who&#8217;s lost all the hair on his head after being beaten by shoes&#8217;; bald people are considered to be gentleman.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Chaltura<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Polish) A unambitious or slightly degrading job in a given profession, performed solely for money, e.g. an actor taking on a role in a rubbish movie just for the paycheck.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Suaimhneas croi<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Irish) A bursting happiness and peace experienced after a task has been finished and there&#8217;s nothing left to be done.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Cavoli Riscaldati<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Italian) An attempt to revive a dead love affair. Literally translated, it means \u201creheated cabbage.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Fingerspitzengef\u00fchl<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(German) The ituitive ability to think clearly about many individual complex parts and treat them as a whole. Literally, \u201c<em>finger tip feeling<\/em>\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Razliubit<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Russian) To fall\u00a0<em>out<\/em>\u00a0of love.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Dona<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0( Yamana, Chile) To take lice from a person\u2019s head and squash them between one\u2019s teeth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Prozvonit<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Czech) To call someone but only let it ring once so that the other person will call you back.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Betsubara<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Japanese) Loosely translates to \u201cextra stomach\u201d. It is generally used to describe a female who always has room for dessert.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Drachenfutter<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(German) A gift that a man brings to his wife or girlfriend after pissing her off. Literally translated as &#8216;dragon\u2019s food&#8217;.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>Voorpret<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Dutch) The sense of enjoyment we feel before an event actually takes places, such as looking through brochures for the vacation you&#8217;re planning to take. Literally \u201cpre-fun\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><em>L\u2019esprit d\u2019escalier<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Literally translate to \u201cthe spirit of the staircase\u201d, i.e. what you tink as you&#8217;re going down the stairs and it&#8217;s too late to turn back..<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speaklikeapro.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}