Favorite words in a foreign language that don't exist in your native language

[StringerBell]

Occasionally I learn some new Italian word or expression that doesn't have an English equivalent and I just absolutely love it.

A few days ago, I learned:

il luogo comune (sing) / i luoghi comuni (plural) = commonly accepted concept that’s not necessarily true (it’s something that people keep repeating and believing. More often than not it’s not true or not totally true.)

What's you favorite word or expression that you've learned in another language that doesn't have a literal translation or doesn't really exist in your native language?

[BalancingAct]

I find the German word for Big Bang refreshing. I also correctly guessed its meaning at first encounter.

German: der Urknall
Italian: il Big Bang
French: le Big Bang
Chinese: 大爆炸 (literally: big explosion)

[nooj]

We don't say 'a common place' in English?

[Jaleel10]

There is a word in Portuguese (also in Galician) called 'Saudade'. It means

"a somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness. It is related to thinking back on situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived"

or

"The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness"

Many of my Portuguese-speaking friends are very proud of this word and they have every right to be proud of it This might be an interesting read Suadade vs Nostalgia

[rdearman]

il luogo comune (sing) / i luoghi comuni (plural) = commonly accepted concept that’s not necessarily true (it’s something that people keep repeating and believing. More often than not it’s not true or not totally true.)

This is a "factoid" in English. "an item of unreliable information that is reported and repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact."

[Schadenfruede]

I like the German word Schadenfreude, meaning pleasure caused by another's misfortune. German also has Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly means a face in need of a slap.

On a lighter note, my actual favorite word is the Danish Hygge. It's hard to describe, but imagine a word embodying a feeling of coziness, wellbeing and contentment. Think warmth in the winter, candles, blankets, books, family.

[Deinonysus]

I mostly miss grammatical features in English. I just started learning Indonesian and there are two different words for "we". There is "kita", which includes the person you're talking to (eg, "wasn't it fun when we went to the beach last week?"), and there is also "kami", which does not include the person you're talking to (eg, "It's too bad you weren't there when we went to the beach last week").

I also really like the dual person, which existed in a lot of older languages such as Old English and Norse, Biblical Hebrew, and Ancient Greek, but doesn't seem to have fully survived in many modern languages.

And a real future tense would be nice too. I never thought about this until I started learning French, but English verbs can't inflect to express that they're happening in the future. You need to add a helping word such as "will" or "going to", or using present progressive with context ("tomorrow I am going"). But in French you can just say « J'irai » for "I will go".

Other examples:
« Je rangerai mes affaires », "I will put away my things."
« Tu retourneras », "you will return".

[StringerBell]

We don't say 'a common place' in English?

I'm not even sure what this is. I've neither said this myself nor heard or read of this. This is not the same thing.

This is a "factoid" in English. "an item of unreliable information that is reported and repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact."

That is not the meaning of factoid that I'm aware of. I even looked it up just to double-check that I wasn't mistaken. There is a subtle but very important difference between this word and the one I posted about.

From Merriam Webster dictionary:
Definition of factoid

1 : an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print -> a "luogo comune" does not need to appear in print, it often starts out as something that has some vague basis in reality even if it isn't exactly true (i.e. going outside with wet hair will make you catch a cold)
2 : a briefly stated and usually trivial fact -> this meaning is the only way I ever see or read "factoid" being used, which has nothing to do with "il luogo comune"


***Hey guys, instead of doing your very best to try to prove me wrong that there's some kind of word in English that's the equivalent of the Italian phrase I wrote, how about we all contribute something fun to this thread, which I was hoping would be an enjoyable topic.

[Chung]

Occasionally I learn some new Italian word or expression that doesn't have an English equivalent and I just absolutely love it.

A few days ago, I learned:

il luogo comune (sing) / i luoghi comuni (plural) = commonly accepted concept that’s not necessarily true (it’s something that people keep repeating and believing. More often than not it’s not true or not totally true.)

What's you favorite word or expression that you've learned in another language that doesn't have a literal translation or doesn't really exist in your native language?

According to Wiktionary, there are a few tidy one-word translations in English of the phrase. I would have gone with "urban legend" for il luogo comune but that's not one word.

I'm amused that the Finns have come up with a colloquial compound to describe the activity of getting drunk at home in your underwear because you can't be bothered to do anything else: kalsarikänni (literally kalsarit "underpants" + känni "drunkenness"). To perform this act, a Finn pulls or leads (vetää) it as in Eilen olin niin masentunut, että vedin kalsarikännit "Yesterday I was so depressed that I stayed home and got drunk in my underwear." ("Yesterday I was so depressed that I pulled underwear-drunkennesses at home.").

For cultural reasons, a kinship term in one language can lack an equally clear/succint translation in another language and may be translated by a phrase or sentence.

[Xmmm]

Russian --

где же мой убер? Where the heck is my Uber?

Ты же не хочешь проблем. You really don't want to have problems.

Similar to "very" or "really", but shorter, more flexible, more powerful. And if же doesn't count, then компромат.