Words That Travel Badly

Some words are easy to carry into a new language, but others refuse to travel.

My aunt Lena moved to Osaka last spring, and she soon found a strange problem.

Her job was to translate simple shop signs from Japanese into English.

"Eigyo chu" looks easy, but it means "we are open for business now." A coffee shop near her flat uses a word for the smell of fresh rain on hot stone.

English has no single word for that smell.

Lena wrote four words instead, and her boss said the sign was too long.

She laughed and told him, "Some words are small boxes with big things inside." Now she keeps a notebook of these difficult words.

She says translation is not a copy; it is a careful, friendly walk between two homes.