18: Translating the untranslatable

Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne

Science

4.8 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2018

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lists of ‘untranslatable’ words always come with... translations. So what do people really mean when they say a word is untranslatable? In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch explore how how we translate different kinds of meaning. What makes words like schadenfreude, tsundoku, and hygge so compelling? Which parts of language are actually the most difficult to translate? What does it say about English speakers that we have a word for “tricking someone into watching a video of Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up?” This month’s Patreon bonus episode is about the grammar of swearing. When we launched our Patreon this time last year (wow!) with a bonus episode about the sounds of swearing, we promised that we’d come back with even more about swearing that we didn’t have space to talk about. Now you can listen to a sweary double feature: put on bonus #1 and bonus #13 back to back! As always, episodes that aren’t specifically about swearing are swear-free. To listen to bonus episodes and support the show, visit patreon.com/lingthusiasm. To see this episode's shownotes and definitely NOT get rickrolled, visit http://lingthusiasm.com/post/171912276831/lingthusiasm-episode-18-translating-the

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics.
0:21.9	I'm Gretchen McCulloch.
0:23.2	And I'm Lauren Gorn.
0:27.3	And today we're talking about how to translate untranslatable words.
0:30.6	But first, it's our Patreon anniversary.
0:31.5	Yay! And we are super excited to revisit the topic that we visited for our first episode, which is swearing. Yay,
0:40.9	rude episode on Patreon. So our first Patreon episode was all about the sounds of swearing and
0:46.6	swearing in different languages, and this time we're talking about the grammar of swearing,
0:50.3	and we already have reports that it made somebody laugh out loud in public. So maybe
0:55.0	don't listen to it around young children or in public because you might have to explain to them
1:01.0	why you're laughing so hard. So you can go check that out at patreon.com slash enthusiasm.
1:05.5	We also, conveniently for our anniversary, unlocked a new Patreon goal, which we are really excited about.
1:14.1	This one is a goal to commission some Lingthusiasm-themed art.
1:20.1	Yes, so we're very excited to have some exciting art, and for you guys to get to see
1:25.1	concept sketches and where things go from here. So stay tuned for more
1:28.9	exciting Lingthusiasm art news.
1:45.5	So untranslatable words. Lauren, have you come across any untranslatable words lately?
1:52.4	It's because I came across, like, three in the space of a day that I was like,
1:57.4	we really have to talk about this topic because it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a linguist meme,
2:01.6	or a talking about language meme is this idea that there are some words that just aren't translatable or words for which we don't have meanings for which we don't have
2:06.4	a single word and maybe we should. So the first is a language log post from Mark Lieberman.
2:12.2	He's talking about how there was a big windy, wintry, weathery event in Philadelphia that
	...

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