Questions tagged [translation]
Determining English equivalents for words or phrases in other languages (that is, translation into English). We don't actually do translations: we can try and help you with your own translation. Please see the detailed tag info for guidance on what to ask.
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What would you call a word that doesn't exist in or translate well into another language?
I've run into this situation several times, being a native Spanish speaker.
There are some words you just can't translate into another language. Is there a particular word to describe this?
I'm not ...
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Is there a single noun in English for 'jerry-rigged?'
Gambiarra in Brazilian Portuguese means a device, solution, or means to an end made impromptu, usually in a sloppy way and lacking care.
I was wondering if there was a single word in English for ...
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"To shoot out of cannon into sparrows"
In Russian we have idiom/saying "To shoot out of cannon into sparrows" (literal translation) which is used to convey an idea of applying too drastic measures to small problems. I believe there should ...
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Is there an English term for "L'esprit de l'escalier"?
L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier (literally, staircase wit) is a French term that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect comeback too late.
Merriam-Webster dictionary ...
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Do most languages need more space than English?
I saw the following statement on User Experience:
Supporting multiple languages can break the user interface, because most languages need more space than english
This seems to be a gross ...
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9
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"Saving on the parrot's chocolate is futile"
In Catalan there is an expression "ser la xocolata del lloro" that can be translated as "saving by not giving chocolate to the parrot is futile", conveying the meaning that when a household wants to ...
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What's the English idiom/phrase for insisting on/talking about/bringing up the same subject (equivalent of "drilling one's head")?
In Arabic (Specifically, north-western Levantine), there's a saying that goes like
He drilled my head about/with that lunch meeting (بخشلي راسي باجتماع الغدا)
Which means something along the lines ...
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You "show" someone a picture. You "---" someone a song?
In Maltese, we have a verb meaning "to show" corresponding to "to see/to look", and we have a different verb corresponding to "to hear/to listen":
inti tara stampa (you ...
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Is there a similar English phrase for this Tamil proverb - "Lavish outside home yet starving inside of it"?
In Tamil, a south Indian language, there is a saying which roughly translates into English as:
Lavish outside home, starving inside of it.
Background :
This proverb has a mocking tone and indicates ...
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English equivalent of komorebi (木漏れ日) — "sunshine filtering through leaves"
Is there an English equivalent of komorebi (木漏れ日), which means the sunshine filtering through the leaves of a tree (or trees)?
It is made up of three kanji and the hiragana particle れ. The first ...
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Pessimism idiom - opposite of rose-tinted glasses?
In Hebrew, we say "pink glasses" to mean optimistic observation, and "black glasses" for pessimism. I was trying to figure out how popular the literal translations are in English. I found "rose-tinted ...
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Word for "distance in time"
I need the correct English word for the German expression (zeitlicher) Abstand. Abstand means "distance", and zeitlich means "in time".
The "distance" between building maintenance dates is about ...
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Idiom for doing something intentionally despite knowing the outcome might be bad
Is there any idiom for doing something intentionally despite knowing the outcome might be bad, or an expression for a person who does such a thing?
For example, I know that if I ask someone a ...
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Favourite untranslatables [closed]
What are your favourite words and idioms in other languages that don't have good, succinct equivalents in English?
(The issue of whether there is, or could be, a sentence on one language whose meaning ...
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What is the English synonym for the German word "Sparmeister"?
Well, the title pretty much says it all.
A Sparmeister (noun), briefly speaking, is
a person who is concerned about his finances and tries to avoid
spending money whenever possible.
a person who ...
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"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
“Is become” vs “has become”
This is a famous quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer after the successful detonation of the first nuclear weapon. The quote ...
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Captain America said "if you get killed, walk it off!" How to understand "walk it off"?
The Avengers 2 just hit China yesterday. The official translation of the line "If you get killed, walk it off!" is "Someone is trying to kill you, run, run for your life" (This is the English version ...
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A word for a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh
There is a word for this in Indonesian language: jayus.
(Maybe, it is used in Filipino and Malaysian language also.)
It is a joke that is so bad, it's funny. It is often mentioned as untranslatable....
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Why are the same words translated differently into English depending on their meaning?
I've seen it several times before, but only have one example at hand right now. This Forbes article mentions Russia as country's name, but Rossiya as the bank's name, despite that these words are ...
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Single word for a very small amount of time [closed]
In French, if I want to quantify a very small amount of time (but not fixed: it can be 5 ms or 0.1 ms) I can use a pouième. Is there an equivalent in English?
I'm not looking for an expression but ...
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Difference between "purpose" and "goal"
What does this sentence from Star Trek: The Alternative Factor mean?
Jim, madness has no purpose ... or reason ... but it may have a
goal.
As far as I know purpose and goal are synonyms. How ...
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French (and, hey, others too) equivalent of "anglicize"
Is there a preferred word that means "to change (a word) to sound (or otherwise appear) as if it came from French"? I've found both "Frenchize" and "Francize" with a web search. If the latter is ...
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Is there a word in English for the Portuguese term "saudades"?
The word "saudades" was the the centerpiece of the closing ceremonies of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
It describes a feeling of melancholy or nostalgia not easily translated to English. Its definition in ...
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English Translation of "Umay" (feeling tired of eating the same food)
As a Filipino-Canadian, I often go to Filipino gatherings with lots of tasty Filipino food. In some cases, we eat so much food that we become full; however, in other cases, we say that we are "...
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What are the technical symbols used in the margin of a page called?
I research Latin texts which discuss a peculiar medieval practice: the addition of minute graphic symbols into the margins of the page, for example in order to indicate passages of interest, flaws in ...
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What's the difference between a few, few, the few [closed]
What's the difference between a few, few, the few?
Which one is formal or informal?
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Is there English counterpart(s) to Japanese old saying, “Present salt to your enemy.”?
We have a popular Japanese saying, “敵に塩を送る” — literally, “present (supply) salt to one's enemy”, meaning ‘play fair and square, not taking advantage of the weak point of your rival.’ It’s different ...
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Derogatory term for a corporate employee
I’m looking for a derogatory term for a person who works in a big, international business.
In Polish we have a few informal words for that, like korpoludek (“corpo little guy”) and korpoczłowiek (“...
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English equivalent of the Portuguese phrase: "this person's mood changes according to the moon"
In Portuguese there is an expression that says:
"Essa pessoa é de lua."
Literally "this person's mood changes according to the moon", which means that nobody can predict that person's mood.
Is ...
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English equivalent of the Malayalam saying "don't stab/poke the dead body"?
ശവത്തിൽ കുത്തരുത് (śavattil kuttarut)
is a Malayalam saying that in literal translation means "Don't stab/poke the dead body". The meaning would be something like: don't humiliate a person when he is ...
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Does 'moonlighting' mean 'illegal work'?
I was looking for the translation of the German word 'Schwarzarbeit' (black work) that means working illegally, without written contract, in order to avoid labour laws and taxation.
The Google ...
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How can I translate the words for the two types of bathrooms found in Russia into English?
I work in real estate, and sometimes I have to translate respective inscriptions from my native Russian into English. I get stuck in some cases where not only linguistic, but cultural differences have ...
user14972
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When did we stop translating proper names?
It used to be that one would just translate a proper name that was in another language into English when referring to that entity. For example, William the Conqueror, Christopher Columbus, King ...
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Are there sentences in languages which use grammatical gender that lose meaning when translated into English?
English nouns which don't denote people or animals with natural gender do not (apart from a few rare examples) use grammatical gender. So for example, "table" is always an "it" in English, whereas it ...
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A term for a woman complaining about things/begging in a cute/childish way
I'm trying to find a fitting translation for a Chinese term, which means that a woman is trying to be cute in front of her man in order to get what she wants. While she does this, her voice will ...
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Is there a word for "antro" in English?
I'm looking for a word equivalent to the Spanish word antro. Its definitions are "building frequented by delinquents and people of bad reputation" and
"dirty dwelling of bad appearance".
Maybe the ...
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English term corresponding to German “Ausgangssperre”
I’m a native German speaker looking for the correct term for a condition
when people are restricted from leaving their homes (German:
Ausgangssperre). For example, in the case of a virus outbreak.
I’d ...
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Friendlier way to express you paid for a person's drink/dinner and expect it to be paid back
In Dutch we have the word voorschieten. In English it translates — according to Google Translate — to "advance, lend, disburse". The Dutch word voorschieten is used in an informal setting between ...
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What do you call the habit of looking into smartphone while walking?
The habit of looking into and texting on a smartphone is becoming a prevailing social phenomena in Japan these days. We call this habit “歩きスマホ – aruki sumaho – using a smart-phone while walking” in ...
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English equivalent of the Kannada proverb "a poor man's anger only hurts his jaw"
The saying goes like "ಬಡವನ ಸಿಟ್ಟು ದವಡೆಗೆ ಮೂಲ".
When roughly translated to English it means:
A poor man's anger only hurts his jaw [due to all the grinding of teeth in the process].
How to ...
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Is "plastic glass" as a container a valid expression?
In another question here (sanity of a plastic glass!) the term "plastic glass" is being used which sounds somewhat odd to me, but has not been brought into question by any respondents.
Maybe it is ...
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Single word for "more than once"
Is there a single word to describe the occurrence of a pattern more than once?
This word exists in a file more than once.
According to an online Czech–* dictionary, these would be the equivalents ...
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Is the "female" in "female cousin" redundant here?
"My female cousin working for a finance company was dismissed. Disappeared along with her job were her confidence and smiling face."
There is a very complicated system in Chinese for naming different ...
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Word similar to "distraction" but with jokey connotation
I was wondering if there is a word that carries the same meaning as "distraction" but can be used for a comedy effect too.
As an example, imagine a situation where my parents are away and I'...
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Is there an enhancing, slangish word to put after statements, like the Norwegian slang word "ass"?
I’m making subtitles for a Norwegian TV show, and there is a very common slang word in Norwegian called ass. (Yeah, never mind the English meaning of that, it’s not pronounced the same.) The etymology ...
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English term for pre-thinker?
I was searching for an English translation for the German Vordenker. Basically a person, often a scientist, who began or further significantly developed a new concept or theory by contributing epoch-...
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Is there an idiom like the Russian's "Untilled field"?
"Непаханое поле" - a [big] amount of undone work.
Updated example: a kid is leisurely watching TV while there a lot of undone homework (which he hasn't even started).
Note: the example below is ...
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American English equivalent of "revise" (as in studying)
Today, I discovered that the meaning of revise to do with studying is used in British, Australian and New Zealand English, rather than American English:
(UK, Australia, New Zealand) To look over ...
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How can I express the time between late 80s and beginning of 90s (somewhere around 1988-1992)?
I am trying to translate the title of my thesis:
"Establishment of Political Parties in Georgia (at the conjunction of 80s and 90s of the 20th century)"
I am no sure about the part in bold. There, ...
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Word or expression for guys who slept with the same woman(prostitute)?
Embarrassingly, in Korean, there is a slang word for this kind of relationship between guys.
Might be translated as, "the husband of my wife's sister but only by the hole" ?
I don't know how can I ...
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