Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable

Lists of ‘untranslatable’ words always come with… translations. So what do people really mean when they say a word is untranslatable?

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch explore how how we translate different kinds of meaning. What makes words like schadenfreude, tsundoku, and hygge so compelling? Which parts of language are actually the most difficult to translate? What does it say about English speakers that we have a word for “tricking someone into watching a video of Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up?”

Read the transcript here

Announcements:

This month’s Patreon bonus episode is about the grammar of swearing. When we launched our Patreon this time last year (wow!) with a bonus episode about the sounds of swearing, we promised that we’d come back with even more about swearing that we didn’t have space to talk about. Now you can listen to a sweary double feature: put on bonus #1 and bonus #13 back to back! As always, episodes that aren’t specifically about swearing are swear-free. 

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• No word for dead umbrellas?
• Dr. Jen Gunter’s “no word for…”
• Concept first, jargon second
• A meta-analysis of all ‘untranslatable emotions’ lists
• ‘Yes’ and ‘no’ in Mandarin
• Translating poetry
• The art of Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey
  
• Rickrolling (Know Your Meme)
• A better definition of Rickrolling
• Mate(ship)
  
• Early mark
• Denotation
• Connotation
• Life is HARD (Dinosaur Comics)
  

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

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Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Emily Gref, our production assistant is Celine Yoon, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).