The Untranslatables: The Most Intriguing Words from Around the World

by C.J. Moore, Simon Winchester

Enliven your mind and enrich your daily conversation with The Untranslatables, a sublime and witty lexicon of fascinatingly precise phrases, for which there aren't direct English translations. From the German word Drachenfutter that encompasses actions aimed to diffuse a wife's fury at the appearance of her drunken husband to the national Finnish characteristic of sisu, which means something like a dogged and proud refusal to lie down and be beaten. If we don't have a word for it, we have to ask - why?

Genres: Language, Nonfiction

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 23, 2009

Reviews

[Tiina Kujala · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It makes me smile. We are all one earth, with many words.

[Nina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good entertainment, but no serious information value.