Have you ever struggled to find the right word to describe a feeling, a situation or an experience? Sometimes, another language has exactly the word you’re looking for.
Every language has its own vocabulary, shaped by the culture, history and everyday lives of the people who speak it. As a result, some words have no direct equivalent in other languages. You can explain what they mean, but translating them into a single word isn’t always possible.
And that’s what makes them so fascinating!
Here’s a confession from people who work with languages all day: we love discovering words that make us stop and say, “Wait… how would you even say that in English?”
So, are there truly untranslatable words? Not quite. But some words are much easier to understand in their original language. We’ve picked 20 of our favourites from around the world that we’d love to share with you.
- Saudade (Portuguese)
A bittersweet longing for someone or something you love that’s gone.
- Hiraeth (Welsh)
Homesickness for a home you can’t return to, or that never existed.
- Fernweh (German)
The opposite of homesickness: an ache for faraway places you’ve never seen.
- Toska (Russian)
A heavy, restless sadness with no clear cause.
- Dépaysement (French)
The slightly disorienting feeling of being somewhere unfamiliar, often a pleasant one.
- Uitwaaien (Dutch)
Walking in windy weather to clear your head.
- Tartle (Scots)
The panic of introducing someone whose name you’ve just forgotten.
- Sobremesa (Spanish)
Lingering at the table after a meal, chatting, in no hurry at all.
- Desenrascanço (Portuguese)
Improvising a clever solution at the last minute.
- Jayus (Indonesian)
A joke so bad that you laugh anyway.
- Age-otori (Japanese)
Looking worse after a haircut.
- Pochemuchka (Russian)
Someone who asks too many questions.
- Komorebi (Japanese)
Sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees.
- Waldeinsamkeit (German)
The peaceful feeling of being alone in the woods.
- Gökotta (Swedish)
Rising at dawn to hear the first birds sing.
- Hygge (Danish)
Cozy contentment: candles, blankets and good company.
- Meraki (Greek)
Putting your soul into whatever you’re doing.
- Sisu (Finnish)
Stubborn grit that keeps going when things get tough.
- Tsundoku (Japanese)
Buying books and letting them pile up unread.
- Szimpatikus (Hungarian)
Instinctively likable, with a warmth “nice” can’t capture. Ask a Hungarian to translate it and watch.
So, are they really untranslatable?
Not quite, but each one needs a sentence to unpack. That gap between one word and one explanation is where translation gets interesting. Good translators ask what a word does: its feeling, tone and culture. Sometimes the answer is a phrase; sometimes the word is simply adopted, like kindergarten or déjà vu.
Which of these words is your favourite? And is there a word in your own language that you think the rest of the world should know about? Let us know under our latest LinkedIn post!
