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Mark W. Post, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of Sydney

DARK SECRETS: Impossible translations why we struggle to translate words when we don t experience the concept | Vintage Vibes

Languages
Wietse Jongsma/Unsplash

If you are fluent in any language other than English, you have probably noticed that some things are impossible to translate exactly.

A Japanese designer marvelling at an object’s shibui (a sort of simple yet timelessly elegant beauty) may feel stymied by English’s lack of a precisely equivalent term.

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