When you’re booking EFL lessons, you don’t expect to be forewarned about words to avoid in the classroom. Why so? you’d probably think. What’s the deal with these offending words?
It’s simple. There are some words that can’t be translated from their native languages to the English language.
Amy Maoz, an Editor at leading content curation site Pocket, explains, “You’ve probably felt the guilty pleasure of schadenfreude—the German word for experiencing joy at others’ misfortune. Or curled up on the couch for some hygge—the Norwegian concept of contented coziness.”
Get the gist?
It’s easier in theory than practice to wrangle the language barrier and define these words in plain English. In fact, it’s as clear as mud. As a result, these notorious words have students and teachers in stitches in EFL lessons.
Here’s a few more example of words that smart teachers do their best to keep out of their EFL lessons, due to the plain lack of English language equivalents.
EFL Lessons Can’t Help with these Untranslatable Little Gems!
- Ubuntu – Fancy an extra pint of the milk of human kindness? The folks who spoke the Nguni languages of Zulu and Xhosa did. There isn’t one single comparable word for this South African staple. But there’s “a fairly broad English definition of ‘a quality that includes the essential human virtues of compassion and humanity.’”
- Lagom – When is enough more than enough to live a perfectly harmonious life? The answer is when you’re living a lagom life. Swedish author, journalist and photographer Lola Akerström wrote Lagom, the Swedish recipe for living with less and being happy around pillars of moderation, social awareness and sustainability. Trying summing that up in a single word!
- Shemomechama – You know that feeling when you’ve eaten so much that you’re full to bursting? But you keep on cramming even more food in your face all the same? The Georgians do. And they’ve coined the phrase that defines it – shemomechama.
At La Academia, our highly popular EFL lessons are as entertaining as they are educational. We’re proud of that. We aspire to do better for our amazing students than mundane classroom learning. As a result, the learning process is expedited when you’re having fun and enjoying the experience. Just don’t ask your teacher about shemomechama!
Source
Fourteen Fascinating and Untranslatable Words, Amy Maoz, Pocket