What does it mean when people say there’s no proper translation from a non-English word to English?

Question

You see it quite often when someone will say ‘there’s a word for that…there’s no direct translation but it’s loosely like…’ then proceeds to give it a translation.

I saw one recently of kummerspeck, I think the commenter said it was ‘food you eat when you’re sad’ or ‘grief bacon’.

I would also like to preemptively apologise for my ignorance.

In: 37

Answer 1

It’s not just English.

All languages have words that other languages lack.

It’s a lot about connotations, idiomatic meaning, and shared cultural knowledge.

Of course, you can always translate something – what people actually mean is that there’s no concise translation in one or two words.

Let’s say you want to translate the German “Fernweh” – it literally translates to far pain, but that doesn’t actually mean anything. If I want to translate the *meaning* I have to use an entire sentence, or use antonyms – roughly, “the desire for other places”. Kind of the opposite of home sickness.