No such thing as a synonym?

“There are no such things as synonyms!!”  I still remember how these words from Tom Robbins, in Jitterbug Perfume, grabbed my attention.  I wondered if it was true.  Learning new languages has taught me that it is.  Every language has it’s unique ‘untranslatable’ words.  The most famous Danish example is ‘hygge’.  I have been provided with many translations for this beloved word.  The simplest is ‘cosy’, but that doesn’t do it justice.  My favourite translation is more of a short story.

 

Hygge?

 

One man described ‘hygge’ as that feeling when you’re in a cabin deep in the woods, and outside it is snowing heavily, but inside the fire is warm, and you have good food and spiced wine.  With you are your oldest friends, your best friends, your lost friends.  All the people who have touched you in some way and who you have loved.  As the night goes on you all enjoy each other’s company more and more.  No one fights or argues, no one is tired or sad, all is well.  And then, in one glorious moment, everyone turns to the window, where they see the most beautiful shooting star.  Or perhaps it was rainbow….  Either way, it is glorious and beautiful and you will cherish that moment forever.  That, he claimed, is what ‘hygge’ is.

Picking between the two definitions I’ll take the second, even though I’m not sure how it applies when someone describe my bike or my new jacket…  Clearly there is no synonym for hygge.  The same is true of many english words.  The other night I was out with friends, all of whom speak English as a second or third language, and someone used the word ‘vibrant’.  It wasn’t a word everyone was familiar with, and as the only native english speaker the task of explaining it’s meaning fell to me.  I failed miserably!  “Errr, vibrant is like shiny, or wonderful… Lit from within?  Vibrant is vibrant.”  I concluded.  Articulate, no?

I’ve come across some great German words that I also doubt have synonyms.  I suppose the German compound noun thing is responsible for many of them.  I’ve seen various lists of ‘Ten Words Why German is the Best Language’ and ‘German Words You Wont Believe Are Real’, and a friend emailed me a particularly good one last week, which inspired me to write this post.

My favourites are:

Kummerspeck:  Grief bacon.  Weight gain due to emotional over eating, something I think we can all relate to.

 

Pizza. With bacon. In Naples. Nowhere better for a bit of therapeutic Kummerspeck.

 

Innerer Schweinehund:  Inner pig-dog.  The reason you still aren’t out of bed at 10am on a Wednesday, the reason you are late to work, and the reason you haven’t even started studying for that exam tomorrow.  It isn’t your fault, it is just your Innerer Schweinehund.

Fremdschämen:  External shame.  That awful horror you feel when watching someone else embarrass or shame themselves, and being unable to prevent it.  Applies double when the person in question is a friend or family member.

There are loads more, and I hope to add to my list as my German improves.  Here are some links to the best lists I’ve seen so far:  buzzfeed, hellogiggles, and fluentu.  What are your favourites?  Do you have some in other languages?