Untranslatable phrases English should adopt
Not necessarily. I've come across English phrases that I understand perfectly, but struggle to translate into French, and vice versa.
This happens a lot at the dinner table when we go to my parents, as my mum's English isn't very good and she has to have every single word translated into French for her benefit, even if she's not involved in the conversation at all. I find that I struggle to translate some phrases into French, at least without losing some of the meaning. Any translation I do come up with for these is approximative, not quite right. Sometimes I just give up trying to translate something altogether (and now obviously I can't remember any specific example, but it happens a fair amount.)
Unsurprisingly, most jokes and play on words are untranslatable, but she just refuses to accept that.
Toro Toro wrote: Fussbudget - sure, you could. In which case, you know how to translate it.
This happens a lot at the dinner table when we go to my parents, as my mum's English isn't very good and she has to have every single word translated into French for her benefit, even if she's not involved in the conversation at all. I find that I struggle to translate some phrases into French, at least without losing some of the meaning. Any translation I do come up with for these is approximative, not quite right. Sometimes I just give up trying to translate something altogether (and now obviously I can't remember any specific example, but it happens a fair amount.)
Unsurprisingly, most jokes and play on words are untranslatable, but she just refuses to accept that.
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