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.