Useful words with no English equivalent


Surprisingly, they're not all long, Germanic compound words (generally a font of useful no-equivalent words):

8. Tartle (Scots)
The nearly onomatopoeic word for that panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can't quite remember.

9. Koi No Yokan (Japanese)
The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love.

10. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego)
This word captures that special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do.

Tartle is something I often experience, because I'm really, embarrassingly terrible with names.


14 wonderful words with no English equivalent