One day I am going to finish watching the Loups-Garous anime.  (Which is a dystopian take on this sort of thing.)  

Which by the way we still haven’t talked about for even a second in my course!  I think the most recent “contemporary issue” brought up in the class of the same name was something specific to the field from about 10 years ago. 

Read the comments too. 

troisroyaumes:

starlady38:

fuckyeahforeignlanguagemajor:

Gheegle: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Pochemuchka (Russian): a person who asks a lot of questions

Shlimazl: (Yiddish) a person chronically unlucky

Sgriob: (Gaelic) The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky

Pari-pari and Saku-saku: (Japanese) Hard-crispy verses Soft-crispy, i.e. a rice cracker versus fried chicken

Bakku-shan: (Japanese) a girl that looks attractive from behind, but not from the front.

Backpfeifengesicht: (German) A face that needs to be hit.

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”

Stam: (Hebrew) An agreement out of amusement and frustration that something doesn’t have a satisfactory answer among those talking.

Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.

Waldeinsamkeit (German): the feeling of being alone in the woods

Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

Taarradhin (Arabic): a way of resolving a problem without anyone losing face (not the same as our concept of a compromise – everyone wins)

Litost (Czech): a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery

Meraki (Greek): doing something with soul, creativity, or love

Yoko meshi (Japanese): literally ‘a meal eaten sideways’, referring to the peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language.

Duende (Spanish): a climactic show of spirit in a performance or work of art, which might be fulfilled in flamenco dancing, or bull-fighting, etc.

Guanxi (Mandarin): in traditional Chinese society, you would build up good guanxi by giving gifts to people, taking them to dinner, or doing them a favour, but you can also use up your gianxi by asking for a favour to be repaid.

Tingo (Pascuense language of Easter Island): to borrow objects one by one from a neighbour’s house until there is nothing left

Radioukacz (Polish): a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain

Selathirupavar (Tamil): a word used to define a certain type of absence without official leave in face of duty

Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.

Nunchi: (Korean) the innate ability that lets you sense what would be the wrong thing to say in a situation

Honne and Tatemae:(Japanese) Respectively, reality as you understand it, and reality as filtered through what society expects.

Sgiomlaireachd: (Scottish Gaelic) an interruption of mealtime

Desenrascanco: (Portuguese) to come up with a last-minute solution.

Thanks alemosie!

That is not actually how I would explain honne and tatemae, but let it go for now.

Hah, that is also not how I would explain nunchi, but better translators than I have tried to explain 눈치 and failed to cover the whole breadth of the term so I won’t attempt it.