Hasta La Ideas

There are so many human foibles that English lacks words to explain, so we English-speakers have to steal them from other languages and italicize them to get by. L’esprit de l’escalier, “the wit of the staircase,” is my favorite from the French: That’s when you’re at a party, someone hits you with a zinger that you have no comeback for, and you don’t think of the perfect rejoinder until you’re walking down the stairs and leaving at the end of the night.

What you see here is several more of these foreign words from Maptia, a website dedicated to sharing global stories. They’ve commissioned an illustrator to explain “11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures” that you’re bound to get a kick out of.

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