25 Words From Other Languages That Would Be Very Useful In English
English has somewhere between 170,000 and 250,000 distinct words depending on how you count them — yet somehow, it still falls short. There are feelings you’ve had a hundred times, social situations you’ve stumbled through repeatedly, and natural phenomena you’ve paused to admire, all without a single concise word to describe them. That gap isn’t a flaw in English so much as evidence that human experience is richer than any one language can fully contain.
Every language develops vocabulary shaped by the culture, geography, and emotional landscape of its speakers. The Japanese notice specific qualities in light filtering through leaves. The Norwegians have a word for the giddiness of new love. The Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego identified a look that needs no words. These languages encoded experiences that English left unnamed — and that’s precisely what makes borrowing from them so valuable.
Below, you’ll find 25 words from other languages that would genuinely be useful additions to everyday English. They’re organized by theme for easier reading, each with a clear definition, pronunciation hint where helpful, and a quick explanation of why English speakers actually need this word in their lives.
Why Languages Leave Gaps — And How Borrowing Fills Them
Language doesn’t develop in a vacuum. Words emerge because communities need them, shaped by climate, social structure, daily rituals, and shared values. A culture that prizes elaborate social reciprocity will naturally develop precise vocabulary for those dynamics. A society living among dense forests will name what they see in the light between branches.
English has always been a language that borrows freely — “kindergarten” came from German, “café” from French, “tsunami” from Japanese — and it’s better for it. The 25 words that follow represent the next logical step: concepts that English speakers encounter constantly but can only describe with clumsy multi-word phrases. That’s the very definition of a word worth adopting.
Words for Unique Emotions and Feelings
Some of the most useful untranslatable words describe emotional states that are entirely universal — you’ve felt them yourself — but that English forces you to describe in an awkward paragraph rather than a single term.
1. Forelsket (Norwegian)
Pronunciation: foh-RELL-sket
The euphoria you feel when you first start falling in love — that giddy, slightly terrifying rush before things settle into something steadier. English has “falling in love,” but forelsket captures a specific stage of it, the peak of new-love electricity that eventually fades. Anyone who’s ever been unable to sleep because they couldn’t stop thinking about someone new knows this feeling precisely.
2. Saudade (Portuguese)
Pronunciation: sow-DAH-day
A deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for something or someone absent — possibly something you’re not sure you’ll ever have again, or perhaps something you never quite had at all. It’s bittersweet and beautiful, and “nostalgia” doesn’t quite cover it. Saudade carries a heavier, more melancholic weight that English simply doesn’t have a word for.
3. Litost (Czech)
Pronunciation: LEE-tosht
A state of torment created by the sudden sight of your own misery. It’s that sharp sting of self-awareness when you catch a glimpse of how far things have gone wrong for you. Milan Kundera described it as “a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.” The English phrase “self-pity” is too dismissive — litost acknowledges that the anguish is real.
4. Fernweh (German)
Pronunciation: FERN-vay
You know the ache of homesickness. Fernweh is its opposite: being homesick for a place you’ve never been. It’s a longing for somewhere unknown, a pull toward distant, unfamiliar places that feels almost physical. “Wanderlust” comes close, but fernweh has the emotional depth of genuine yearning rather than simple desire to travel.
5. La Douleur Exquise (French)
Pronunciation: lah doo-LEUR eks-KEEZ
Literally “the exquisite pain” — the specific ache of wanting affection from someone you know you can never have. It’s not the heartbreak after a relationship ends. It’s the ongoing pain of loving someone who is, for whatever reason, unreachable. Unrequited love gets close, but this phrase captures the quality of the pain itself: sharp, exquisite, and ongoing.
6. Koi No Yokan (Japanese)
Pronunciation: koi no yo-KAN
The feeling when you meet someone for the first time and sense, with quiet certainty, that you will eventually fall in love with them. Crucially, this is not “love at first sight” — it’s a premonition, a knowing before the feeling fully arrives. It’s more emotionally sophisticated than the Western cliché, and English has no equivalent for this specific, calm certainty.
Words for Social Dynamics and Relationships
Human interaction generates some of the most complex and specific emotional terrain. These words describe social experiences so common that you’ll immediately recognize them — and wonder how you ever talked about them without a dedicated term.
7. L’Esprit de l’Escalier (French)
Pronunciation: les-PREE duh les-KAL-yay
Translated literally as “staircase wit,” this describes the experience of thinking of the perfect comeback or clever response hours after the moment has passed — typically as you’re walking away. If you’ve ever lain awake at 2 a.m. mentally delivering the ideal retort from an argument you lost six hours ago, you’ve experienced l’esprit de l’escalier in full force.
8. Guanxi (Mandarin)
Pronunciation: GWAHN-shee
In Chinese society, guanxi refers to a network of relationships and social capital built through favors, gifts, and mutual support — but it’s also a resource that can be spent by asking for those favors to be repaid. It’s a more nuanced and dynamic concept than “networking” or “connections,” describing the ongoing give-and-take of social obligation. Any professional who has ever leaned on relationships to get something done understands guanxi intuitively.
9. Ilunga (Tshiluba, Democratic Republic of Congo)
Pronunciation: ee-LOON-ga
A person who is ready to forgive any abuse the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. Ilunga describes not just a type of person but a clearly defined boundary — and one that most thoughtful people aspire to. English requires an entire sentence to express what this single word contains. In 2004, it was reportedly voted the world’s most untranslatable word by a panel of linguists.
10. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan)
Pronunciation: mah-mee-lah-pee-NAH-tah-pie
A look shared between two people in which each wishes the other would initiate something they both desire but neither wants to start. It’s that charged moment of mutual unspoken wanting — whether between potential romantic partners or two coworkers hoping the other will speak up in a difficult meeting. It appears in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most succinct word.
11. Nunchi (Korean)
Pronunciation: NOON-chee
The subtle ability to read a room — to listen carefully, gauge another person’s mood, and understand what’s needed without being told. It’s emotional intelligence made specific, and Koreans consider it a fundamental social skill. English has “tact” and “perceptiveness,” but nunchi combines both into a single, culturally prized quality that really deserves its own word in every language.
12. Pena Ajena (Mexican Spanish)
Pronunciation: PAY-na ah-HEH-na
The embarrassment you feel on behalf of someone else — the cringe you experience watching a stranger bomb on stage, or the vicarious awkwardness of seeing someone walk into a glass door. Germans have Fremdschämen for this, and Mexicans have pena ajena. English speakers invented the word “secondhand embarrassment” for exactly this sensation, but it still doesn’t have the elegant precision of a dedicated single word.
13. Arigata-Meiwaku (Japanese)
Pronunciation: ah-REE-gah-tah may-WAH-koo
This one requires a moment to appreciate its genius. It describes a favor someone insists on doing for you despite your attempts to stop them — and which, when it inevitably causes more trouble than it was worth, social convention still requires you to thank them for. Every family gathering contains at least one arigata-meiwaku moment. The fact that English doesn’t have a word for this scenario says more about our social conventions than we might like to admit.
14. Backpfeifengesicht (German)
Pronunciation: BAHK-pfye-fen-geh-zikht
A face in urgent need of a punch. Blunt? Yes. Useful? Absolutely. English speakers settle for “punchable face,” which lacks the satisfying specificity of this compound German word. It’s aggressive by nature, but as a description of a certain kind of infuriating countenance, it’s oddly perfect.
Words for Everyday Observations and Experiences
Not every vocabulary gap involves grand emotion. Some of the most useful untranslatable words describe small, ordinary moments — the kind that happen every week and that you’ve described with a shrug and a vague gesture for your entire life.
15. Age-Otori (Japanese)
Pronunciation: ah-gay-oh-TOH-ree
To look worse after a haircut than you did before you sat in the chair. This happens. It happens regularly. And every time it does, describing it requires a full explanation rather than a single word. Age-otori handles this with efficient precision and, frankly, a kind of resigned dignity.
16. Desenrascanço (Portuguese)
Pronunciation: deh-zen-hus-KAN-soo
The resourceful art of disentangling yourself from a difficult situation using whatever’s available — improvising a solution on the fly when the conventional approach isn’t an option. The research brief’s comparison to “MacGyver it” is apt. Desenrascanço is that skill of creative problem-solving under pressure, and it deserves a word as nimble as the act itself.
17. Duende (Spanish)
Pronunciation: DWEN-day
The power of art to move you deeply — the climactic rush of spirit you feel during an exceptional flamenco performance, a piece of live music, or a painting that stops you cold. It’s the quality in art that reaches past your intellect and grabs something primal. English has “transcendent” and “moving,” but duende is specifically about that electric, almost supernatural energy between a work of art and its audience.
18. Gigil (Filipino)
Pronunciation: GEE-gill (hard G)
The overwhelming, almost violent urge to pinch, squeeze, or bite something that is unbearably cute — a puppy, a baby, a tiny object. If you’ve ever had to physically restrain yourself from squeezing a small animal because it was simply too adorable, you’ve experienced gigil. Scientists have actually studied this phenomenon (calling it “cute aggression”), but gigil had a word for it long before the research.
19. Meraki (Greek)
Pronunciation: may-RAH-kee
Doing something with total soul and devotion — pouring a piece of yourself into your work, your cooking, your craft. It’s what separates competent execution from something that carries a person’s essence. Saying someone works with meraki is a genuine compliment, recognizing not just skill but the spirit invested in the act. English needs this word in every creative workspace.
20. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
Pronunciation: PAH-na POH-oh
The instinctive act of scratching your head when trying to remember something you’ve forgotten. It’s a universal physical gesture, yet English describes it only in roundabout terms. Pana po’o gives a name to the specific, slightly helpless moment of reaching for a memory that’s just out of reach.
21. Jayus (Indonesian)
Pronunciation: JAY-yoos
A joke so poorly told, so spectacularly unfunny in its delivery, that you can’t help but laugh anyway. Not laughing at the joke — laughing at the failure of the joke. Every workplace has someone whose jayus moments are their greatest comedic contribution. “Dad joke” approaches the territory but doesn’t capture the involuntary, almost helpless laughter that jayus produces.
22. Komorebi (Japanese)
Pronunciation: koh-moh-REH-bee
The interplay of light and leaves when sunlight filters through the canopy of trees — the dappled, shifting patterns it creates on the ground below. It’s a specific visual phenomenon that anyone who has walked through a forest on a sunny day has noticed and loved, and it has never had an English name. Komorebi is arguably one of the most beautiful words on this entire list.
23. Zhaghzhagh (Farsi)
Pronunciation: ZHAHG-zhahg
The chattering of teeth — but specifically from either extreme cold or extreme anger. The dual application is what makes this word precise: English “chattering” covers the cold version, but zhaghzhagh acknowledges that fury can produce the same involuntary physical response. That’s a more complete observation about human experience than English currently offers.
24. Bilita Mpash (Bantu)
Pronunciation: bih-LEE-tah em-PAHSH
An extraordinarily vivid, beautiful dream — the direct and intentional opposite of a nightmare. English has “sweet dreams” as a wish and “pleasant dream” as a description, but no single word for the experience of a genuinely wonderful dream that lingers warmly after waking. Bilita mpash fills that gap with satisfying symmetry.
25. Bakku-Shan (Japanese)
Pronunciation: BAH-koo-shahn
A person who appears attractive from behind but less so from the front. It’s a wry, specific observation about the gap between expectation and reality — and one that most people have experienced in some form. Bakku-shan handles it with a certain dry humor, giving a name to a universal moment of recalibrated perception.
Conclusion: Language Is a Living Thing — and It’s Always Hungry for Better Words
These 25 words aren’t curiosities or novelties. They describe experiences you’ve had, emotions you’ve felt, and social situations you’ve navigated — all without the right vocabulary to name them precisely. That’s the remarkable thing about untranslatable words: they reveal that the experience was always there, waiting for language to catch up.
English has spent centuries absorbing words from other languages, and it’s richer for every one it’s taken in. The words above — from Norwegian to Bantu, from Japanese to Hawaiian — represent the next wave of potential additions. Some may already be finding their way into English conversation. Others are simply waiting for the right moment to arrive.
As List25 readers know well, the world is endlessly strange, specific, and fascinating. So is the language people use to describe it. The next time you experience the quiet electricity of forelsket, the resigned appreciation of meraki, or the involuntary cringe of pena ajena, you’ll at least have the right word for it — even if you have to borrow it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does “untranslatable” really mean when applied to foreign words?
A word is considered untranslatable when there’s no single equivalent word in another language that captures its exact meaning. The concept can usually be explained in several words or sentences — the challenge is that the original language condenses it into one efficient term.
Are any of these foreign words already used in English?
Yes — a few have already started appearing in English-language writing and conversation. Saudade, duende, and schadenfreude (a similar German word) are perhaps the most commonly used by English speakers. Language adoption is gradual and usually starts in literary or academic circles before spreading.
Why does Japanese appear so many times on this list?
Japanese culture places enormous value on precise, nuanced observation — of social dynamics, nature, and everyday experience. This tends to produce highly specific vocabulary. It’s also a language with a rich compound-word tradition, making it efficient at combining concepts into single terms.
Is it appropriate to use these foreign words in everyday English conversation?
Absolutely, especially when the word is the clearest way to express what you mean. Using nunchi, meraki, or gigil in conversation is no different from using “zeitgeist” or “schadenfreude” — both of which are German loanwords that English speakers use comfortably every day.
Where can I find more untranslatable words from other languages?
Books like The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig and Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders explore similar linguistic territory beautifully. Academic works on linguistic relativity — the idea that language shapes perception — also dive deep into this fascinating subject.
Does learning foreign words help you learn the language they come from?
It’s a great entry point. Encountering a word like komorebi or koi no yokan often sparks curiosity about Japanese more broadly. While memorizing vocabulary lists isn’t enough to learn a language, a genuine interest in its words is one of the best motivations to start.