Translatable but Debatable – חוויתי khavayati

Translatable but Debatable – חוויתי khavayati

A khavaya is an experience, so khavayati translates logically to “experiential” — an uncomfortable construction, certainly too unattractive for use in advertising.  It wears its suffix like a borrowed pair of shoes.

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Translatable but Debatable – Going to the translators' debate

Translatable but Debatable – Going to the translators' debate

For the American market, it was necessary to remove elements that were peculiar to Israel and change the names of the characters to proper American names.  The USA may be a nation of immigrants, but American children want to read about other children who are like themselves, not foreigners in a foreign environment.  In that way they differ from American adults who read Israeli novels in translation and tend to appreciate learning new things about the country through them. 

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Translatable but Debatable – עשה לביתו (asa l'veito)

Translatable but Debatable – עשה לביתו (asa l'veito)

The expression asa l’veito (עשה לביתו) — literally, “provided for his household” — has a respectable origin in the book of Genesis, where Jacob says to Laban: “the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?”  But as Ruvik Rosenthal notes in his blog, modern Hebrew uses the expression “particularly in connection with public servants who make the move into profitable private business.  

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Translatable but Debatable – יבושֹם y'vusam

Translatable but Debatable – יבושֹם y'vusam

Nobel Prize laureate Yisrael (Bob) Aumann opined that socialists are mistaken in not wanting anyone to be too well off.  “What I need is to be comfortable.  And if somebody else is a thousand times more comfortable, she-y’vusam lo,” said Professor Aumann.  Literally, “let him have it with perfume.”

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Translatable but Debatable – גיחך (gikhech)

Translatable but Debatable – גיחך (gikhech)

In English, snide superciliousness tends to be conveyed with S words-- sneer, scoff, snigger, scorn.  To the ear, gikhekh makes a very different impression.  It sounds like a gurgling cackle.

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Translatable but Debatable - התנהלות (hitnahalut)

Translatable but Debatable - התנהלות (hitnahalut)

Yoram Peri says that “the media invented a new Hebrew term (hitnahalut)” meaning “a behavior pattern arising out of personality.  The terms closest to it in English — conduct, self-management — do not emphasize the psychological element sufficiently.”

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Translatable but Debatable – זו נבלה וזו טרפה (twin evils)

Translatable but Debatable – זו נבלה וזו טרפה (twin evils)

When Americans were planning independence from Britain, more than one local patriot floated the idea of speaking Hebrew instead of English.  If Americans all spoke Hebrew today, they would be better able to discuss elections in which zu nevela v’zu treifa — meaning “it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other” or “Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee” but in a particularly bad way.

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Translatable but Debatable – לעגן (l'agen) and יתד (yated)

Translatable but Debatable – לעגן (l'agen) and יתד (yated)

Just today on the evening news, Amnon Abramovich announced that regarding the latest rumors of scandal in Bibi Netanyahu’s inner circle, recent testimony had contained no ytedot, nothing to hang on to.  If we use the translation of yated at Seadict.com, the testimony had no “peg, wedge, tent-peg, picket, pin, spike, stake, strut, stud, brad, chock, cotter” — all words unsuitable to carry the metaphorical meaning in English, unfortunately.  Maybe the translation in this case would be “no smoking gun.”

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Translatable but Debatable – לזכות lizkot

Translatable but Debatable – לזכות lizkot

Alcalay and other Hebrew-to-English dictionaries are perfectly willing to allow that זכות (zchut) can mean either “right” or “privilege.”  Or “prerogative.”  It’s up to the context and the translator

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Translatable but Debatable – צמוד tsamood, להצמיד l'hatsmeed

Translatable but Debatable – צמוד tsamood, להצמיד l'hatsmeed

Tsamood means both “adjacent” and “linked.”  So if the date of your wedding rehearsal is tsamood to the date of your wedding, does that mean that the two dates are close together, or merely that one depends on the other?  

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Translatable but Debatable — מכונן m'chonen

Translatable but Debatable — מכונן m'chonen

Although its meaning and its deterioration mirror the Hebrew word m’chonen, the word “seminal” has another problem, because although the Latin word semen carries the meaning of “seed” in the botanical sense, not everyone sees “seminal” that way.  Ms. Brigitte, a blogger, writes: “it implies that the origin of a work is male, regardless of who wrote it.” 

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Translatable but Debatable – מציאות m'tsee'oot

Translatable but Debatable – מציאות m'tsee'oot

As I sought out translations, I was continually reminded that only the position of a little dot distinguishes המציאוֹת from המציאוּת, the bargains from the realities.  Generally in Hebrew, as in life, we don’t even have the little dot to help us.

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Translatable but Debatable – ספרות מגויסת, the literature of shared commitment

Translatable but Debatable – ספרות מגויסת, the literature of shared commitment

Whereas Sartre was trying to distinguish an individualistic littérature engagée from already unfashionable socialist realism, in Hebrew the parallel term sifrut m’guyesset retains the association of groupthink, of being enlisted or drafted or inducted for purposes of agitprop or other propaganda rather than thoughtfully asserting beliefs one has formulated as an individual. 

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Translatable but Debatable – הזוי hazui

Translatable but Debatable – הזוי hazui

For the most part, English-language dictionaries consider that delusional means “having false or unrealistic beliefs or opinions,” as Dictionary.com puts it.  But below the fold, a set of “Examples from the Web” includes more than one sentence mentioning “delusional ideas” — ideas that are delusions, not ideas that have delusions.  So if a psychiatrist has delusional patients, it’s a good guess that the patients are imagining things; but on the other hand, just maybe the psychiatrist is imagining patients.

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Translatable but Debatable - המחיש himkheesh

Translatable but Debatable - המחיש himkheesh

Like the word “illustration” in English, hamkhashah can refer to the sort of real-life manifestation that nobody can deny, such as waving a flashlight in a darkened room to demonstrate persistence of vision, or it can refer to a way of making something clearer to the senses without proving it at all — such as a diagram, a skit, or a picture in a story book.

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Translatable but Debatable — הכביד hichbeed

Translatable but Debatable — הכביד hichbeed

I think it’s easier to translate the burdening of a person in connection with a specific task than to translate the general burdening of a person.  We can easily say “You make my job harder” or “You make deciding things more difficult.”  But if somebody makes, life, the universe, and everything more difficult for us, how do we say so in conversational English?

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Translatable but Debatable – עמידה בלחצים (Pressureproofness)

Translatable but Debatable – עמידה בלחצים (Pressureproofness)

If the translation of עמידה בלחצים is literal — resistant to pressure, indifferent to pressure, withstanding pressure, impervious to pressure — it sounds as if the worker simply keeps plodding along without taking the pressure into account, rather than coping with it as necessary.

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