Certain English terms lack a perfect translation in other tongues. You may come across words or phrases in another language that have similar meanings, but they won’t be quite identical. While it’s an uncommon phenomenon, to be sure, it may surprise you to learn that some familiar English words are unique to the language. Here’s a look at a few terms that fall into this fascinating category.
Awkward
When speaking another language, you may find it awkward to come up with an identical substitution for the word “awkward.” Derived from the Middle English “awk” — a prefix meaning “backhanded” — coupled with the adverbial suffix “-weard,” it’s been used by English speakers to describe clumsiness since the 1520s and a sense of social embarrassment since the 1710s.
But many other languages lack a precise translation. There’s the Spanish torpe, meaning “clumsy,” but that word omits the sensation of social tension so typically associated with awkwardness. In French, you could say chelou for “weird,” or gênant for “embarrassing,” but those fail to individually capture the all-encompassing feeling of being awkward. In Japanese you may use gikochinai for clumsiness, terekusai for embarrassing situations, and heta for ineptitude, but those terms also fall short of being direct translations.
Serendipity
The term “serendipity” was coined in a 1754 letter by British politician Horace Walpole to American politician Horace Mann, based on the Persian fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip.” Walpole said the princes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” This word, meaning “the ability to find valuable or agreeable things not sought for,” is slightly different from “fate” or “luck,” which do have exact translations in foreign tongues.
In French you could say ça tombe à pic, an idiom that translates to “that comes at the perfect time.” Hindi speakers may say sukhad sanyog, meaning “a pleasant coincidence.” But those are just two of the many examples of non-English words that fail to capture the detailed nuances of “serendipity.”
Spam
“Spam” is a 20th-century linguistic invention, first used in the 1930s as a proprietary name for spiced ham. It’s often used today by English speakers to refer to unwanted email. That usage comes from a 1970s sketch written by the English comedy troupe Monty Python, in which a chorus of Vikings repeatedly chanted “spam.” In 1993, early internet users took inspiration from that Monty Python sketch, co-opting “spam” because of the overwhelming nature of junk email.
You won’t really find an exact equivalent of the email version of “spam” abroad, but you’ll find many words and phrases that are quite close. For example, Vietnamese speakers say thư rác, which literally translates to “garbage letters.” Many German speakers have adopted “spam” as an English loanword, though you may also hear unerwünschte Werbe-E-Mails instead — a mouthful that literally translates to “unsolicited promotional emails.”
Bandwagon
The word “bandwagon” was coined in the mid-19th century in reference to a literal wagon used to carry band members as part of larger circus processionals. But its current meaning was made popular in 1899 by then-New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote, “When I once became sure of one majority, they tumbled over each other to get abroad the band wagon.” This new idea of “being on the bandwagon” referred to attaching oneself to any political movement that appeared likely to succeed.
While this concept may seem familiar to non-English speakers, the word “bandwagon” is anything but. Spanish has the phrase tendencia popular, translated as “popular trend,” but it lacks the figurative imagery associated with bandwagons. In Japanese you might hear someone say binjō suru, though that means “to take advantage of” more generally.
Limerence
A big reason why “limerence” doesn’t have a direct translation outside of English is the fact that it’s a relatively new term. This word was coined in a September 11, 1977, article by American psychologist Dorothy Tennov, who admitted it “has no [etymological] roots whatsoever.” She defined it as “the euphoric feeling experienced when first falling in love” — a sensation almost everyone across the world is familiar with, even if they lack a word for it.
One of the closest translations you’ll find is the German word Liebeskummer, literally translated as “lovesickness.” However, the Germans typically use that term in reference to the pain of breaking up, which is kind of the opposite of what “limerence” means to convey. Mandarin speakers use the slang liàn’ài nǎo, which literally translates to “love brain,” to describe being unable to make rational decisions because of being overly infatuated with somebody. But that term also isn’t an exact translation of “limerence.”
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