I stumbled upon these on Tumblr and I just loved them! It wows me that there are so many words that other languages possess that we English speakers can only describe with long sentences. Of course it also goes the other way around as well. English has some fancy words that other countries probably like having in their repertoire. Or maybe we just have more words?
To all you bilingual peeps, which of your languages do you like best? And to everyone else, which language do you think sounds the most beautiful or attractive?
Lily In Canada 
I love this post! Words thrill me, and, I now plan on adding these to my vocabulary, once I figure out how to pronounce them. So far, Goya is my favorite. Thanks, Lily!
Thanks girl! It’s always nice to be a lover of words and appreciate the little every day beauty of our language. Yeah I have no idea how to pronounce any of these so good luck to you! Goya is a great one!
Um. I think the French lose this one. The word is “homesickness”. It’s quite common.
Also, Waldeinsamkeit is my favorite. I love being alone in the woods. And I love the German language. It may be rough and rude sounding, but I think it’s funny the way they just smoosh words together to create new words. Rather than creating an actual new word.
Haha true. Although after living in England and now Canada, there is something I miss not only about my home, but about just being in the States. It’s weird! But yeah it’s basically the same.
Yeah being alone in the woods is a cool, spooky feeling. But it’s also so peaceful. Kind of cool that there’s a word for it! German language is cool. Definitely rough, but it just sounds so rad! Good choice!
That’s great! Of course I love the Russian word. It is litterally something that can be translated into ‘Why-er’.
But all these words, jeeze, the’re things that really exist! Why doesn’t English have a word for that?
The Dutch language has the word ‘gezellig’, which can be translated into ‘Cosy’. The difference is that people can be ‘cosy’, or a house, or a conversation. It’s different from cosy and apparently, little languages actually have this word.
Hah that’s awesome that you know the translation of the Russian one! That’s actually one of my favorite ones because I know a lot of question-ask-ers.
I actually love the word cosy (I spell it cozy but it can be spelled either way) and use it all the time. My cat’s name was actually Cozette and we called her Cozy haha. It’s just such a good feeling. I love that the Dutch have taken that word to a new level!
Words are the most beautiful thing in the world, I know. I totally fell in love with this when I saw it on Tumblr too. The words, their meaning, the illustrations, sigh. I think all languages are beautiful. I might be a little biased just because I know it, but I love German. Granted, it’s hardly the “prettiest” sounding language in the world, but it’s SO COOL. My favorite word out of this list is Iktsuarpok. Such a common feeling/action!!!
-Kaitlyn 🙂
I’m glad you saw this on Tumblr too! I’m so lazy by just posting it here. Oh well! That’s awesome that you can speak German! It’s very harsh sounding, but still very cool nonetheless. I agree about Iktsuarpok! So cool that there’s a word for it!
Thanks for stopping by Kaitlyn 😀
I’m firmly of the opinion that English is the best language, much like how I believe that a shaved head is the best hairstyle a man can go with.
Some of them foreigners have right weird words for weird stuff. I like the Pana Poo one the best, if only because I’m an immature child.
Haha I like the way you think Michael. Not much wrong with that. English is a great language. It seems like it would be difficult to learn if it wasn’t your first language though. I always feel bad for people who have to learn all the confusing stuff like “to” “too” and “two” haha.
Pana Po’o is a funny sounding one and a word that I think I will use quite often now!
Dinner and tequila are universal, so I’m good with any language.
But there are a few here I can identify with, especially the moon reflection.
Yeah the most important words are always universal. Love, food, alcohol…all winners.
It’s funny which words people are drawn to. Almost everyone commented on different ones. I like the moon one as well. 🙂
I know nothing. Just saying hello and this was a coolio post. Cheers Lily!
Haha you know more than I do, I’m sure. Thanks Audra! Glad you stopped by. Hope you and your fam have a wonderful long weekend 😀
Did you know that there is no translation for “Guilty Pleasure” into Norwegian? I had a conversation with a Norse friend tonight and she said she has never felt guilty about eating. Ever. Guilt is an American avocation.
That’s pretty awesome. I went to Oslo once and everyone and everything was very cool. I’m part Norwegian, but unfortunately I didn’t inherit the non-guilty thing. I guess I’m just too Amurrican. That’s an awesome fact though! I’m gonna have to remember that and pass it along!
Well, since I’m a Korean↔English translator, I’m going to have to go with Korean of course! lol~ When I first heard the language, I was interested in learning it because I thought that even when people were just speaking it, it sounded like they were singing. There are actually quite a lot of these “untranslatable” words in Korean too, and many of them are among my favourite words in the language because they often describe very abstract and beautiful concepts, but it also kind of sucks because then I can’t really convey the meaning of them to non-Korean speakers! :c
That must be crazy hard to be a translator. Did you just decide to pick it up or had you known some of it when you were younger? I’m so bad with languages. I tried to teach myself some French using an App, but it was useless. I think I need to invest in Rosetta Stone!
Oh no, I didn’t start learning Korean until around three years ago, when I was about 20 going on 21… it would have been a lot easier if I had known some of it when I was younger! lol Like, I took French classes in school from age 9 until age 16 or so, and I’ve forgotten most of it, but if I tried to pick up that language again, it prob wouldn’t be as difficult as it would be if I was just starting out, you know?
I (cough)acquired(cough) Rosetta Stone and used the first level (disc?) or two for Korean (and tried out the Japanese version for a bit), but honestly, it’s not as great as it’s made out to be. I mainly learned (and continue to learn) Korean through some high-quality websites because Rosetta Stone has massive gaps in what it teaches you, and at least with Korean, the grammar construction that Rosetta Stone uses was quite unclear and confusing… now that I’ve learned more grammar elsewhere, I see that what Rosetta Stone teaches is very bare bones and not very practical or natural.
So, I mean, if you have the money to blow, it’s a good start, but I wouldn’t expect to achieve fluency (or even a conversational level, to be honest) with Rosetta Stone, and what you do learn will prob sound quite stilted.
Oh that’s good to know! Some part of me figured it was too good to be true. Korean seems so tough! Good for you for learning something so new and different. Have you ever thought of teaching English in Korea or anything like that?
The language def isn’t easy, but there’s quite a lot of borrowed English in Korean that’s just written in Hangul/Korean lettering, and you can learn how to read Hangul is prob an hour or two. The king who brought about Hangul way back when did so because they were using Chinese characters at the time but there was a lot of illiteracy due to that, so Hangul was born and the literacy rate increased dramatically.
As far as I know, it’s the Asian script that’s most similar to English in that there aren’t characters: there are “letters” of sorts that are phonetic (even English letters aren’t phonetic LOL) and you just arrange them into blocks depending on their shape. It’s not like Chinese or Japanese where you have to memorise hundreds or thousands of characters; all you have to do with Korean is learn 24 “letters” and you can more or less read Korean from there. It’s kind of awesome!
I’ve thought about teaching English in Korea, but I didn’t go to uni (you need at least a bachelor’s degree (in any field) in order to teach English in Korea) and there are a lot of sketchy contractors out there; it’s not easy to find a reputable one that will actually get you a job and get you situated in the country. Plus you’re not really allowed to speak Korean when you’re teaching, so for me, what’s the point? Hahaha~
lol I love your novel comments. That’s interesting though that Koreans have a letter system opposed to character symbols. That would make it immensely easier.
That’s true about not really speaking Korean when you teach English, but I have a friend who has basically moved there and teaches in a school now and I think he really likes it. But you’re right…most people don’t get actual jobs when they go out there. You should definitely visit though! I’ve never been to Asia but I’m pretty sure people would just assume that I was “Godzirra!!” so yeah. I forgot that you didn’t go to uni. Good for you. Honestly, there aren’t many people left who chose to not go. It’s kind of overrated anyway.
Hahaha, well, I’m glad you like them!
I definitely plan on visiting Korea! I also kind of love that you forgot I didn’t go to uni, because that’s the idea? I think it’s a common misconception that other people have, that people who didn’t go to uni are dumb or something… I mean, if I want to learn something, I’ll read about it and teach myself!
Plus, with translating jobs for instance, it’s more about having connections than having a degree (and that goes for so many jobs, even in other fields). Nowadays it seems like networking is far more important than actual skill.
This is true. If you’re fluent in the internets, then you can basically get any job. Lol truely spoken from someone who’s (whose?) never had a job.
Those are wonderful! I also utterly adore the untranslatable ‘schadenfreude’ from German; ‘shameful joy’, and ‘age-otori’ in Japanese; ‘to look bad following a haircut’.
Lol I did an entire post on ‘schedenfreude’ once! That’s definitely my favorite! Hahah omg I need to use ‘age-otori’ more often. Thanks Anna! 😀
Hi Lily 🙂
I didn’t get Some languages like Chinese, German, Korean and Japanese ext………. Oh, May be you’ll publish soon… 🙂
Yeah those seem like hard languages to understand. Any languages with letters/characters that are different from the ones I know, seem impossible to learn! Thanks for stopping by!
Yeah i knew that those languages difficult to understand easily but they are not impossible to learn! 🙂
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