Asking non-native English speakers.
In Spanish.
Sobremesa, the period you stay at the table after lunch or dinner having a coffee or some drinks while chatting.Aprovechar, is basically the opposite of to waste. So depending on the context is to take advantage of something, to make the most of, make a good use, give a second use or reuse leftovers for something else.
Estrenar: to use/wear something brand new for the very first time. Sometimes when you are estrenando white shoes your classmates in school would try to step on them so they no longer look new.
The old-school English word for aprovechar was “thrift” or being thrifty. These days I hear it used mostly in the specific sense of saving cash. I don’t often hear it much anymore in terms of conserving resources, but that is where it came from, and if you use it in that sense people will understand you.
As for sobremesa, that’s not something I’ve enjoyed enough for it to have its own word, unfortunately.
Russian is more productive than English, so there’s a bunch of “we just smushed a bunch of prefixes and suffixes on it” words that don’t have a great English equivalent, like недоперепить – to drink quite a lot but not succeed at drinking too much. I don’t think we properly have листопад which is the equivalent of “snowfall” but for autumn leaves. I really miss успевать – to successfully have enough time to do something. There’s also кипяток – water that has been boiled but then slightly cooled, like 200-205 degrees F. The canonical examples are тоска , which is a kind of melancholy longing, and авось which expresses optimism but I basically never heard anyone actually say.
Does it count if English just steals your words?
Schadenfreude, Zeitgeist, Weltanschauung, Kindergarten.
Doppelganger, wanderlust, poltergeist…
The problem is when they steal a word and then change the meaning.
Way too many for Chinese (think every Chinese dish you know), but the one world I think about the most in this context these days is 老百姓 (lao3 bai3 xing4) (Also see a somewhat related Wikipedia article). Direct translation is “ol’ hundred surnames”
It’s… a non-formal word for the “commoners” or the “average person”. This is a concept I don’t hear in mainstream media that much nowadays. I don’t think most news or mainstream media even refers to say the entirety of the lower to middle social class in one word… (Note that it is different from “Average Joe”, which does have a Chinese counterpart which translates to “Zhang three Li four”)
On top of it, the whole concept of “a hundred surnames” representing most of society is kind of absurd in English-speaking countries. Societies with historical Chinese influences tend to have lots of ppl share the same surnames
It always felt weird to me that English has no distinct phrase to express non-romantic affection.
English speakers use “I love you”, but in Italian (and many other languages) you’d make a distinction between a romantic partner and a friend/relative/whatever.
Ti amo = I love you, said for example to your partner, signifies a deep emotional bond, not something you usually say lightly.
Ti voglio bene = I love you, but less charges, more in a “I feel good about you” way
Shaka, when the walls fell
Timba, his arms wide
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
Darmok and Jalaad, at the bar.
