Untranslatable

I keep encountering words and phrases in French that can't be translated into English. For a mundane example, when Nellie's French teacher hands her a worksheet, she says, "Oup!" (I'm spelling phonetically.) When my French teacher started class, she'd say, "Oup!" It means something like, "Here we go!" but that isn't quite it. You could say it getting into your car. You could say it giving money to the woman in the pâtiserrie, if you did that sort of thing. In English there is nothing equivalent.

Eh bien is similar, as fans of Agatha Christie are well aware. 

People here often say, "Bon courage!" to each other. It's kind of translatable -- it means something like "Have fortitude!" But when's the last time you heard that?

My examples are minor ones but nevertheless they are expressions of ideas. And what's interesting to me is that those ideas are not being expressed in American English. There's an empty space there.

It's a staggering thought really, that venturing into a different language does not simply mean replacing thoughts in one language with the same thoughts in another. It means having opportunities for entirely new thoughts, and new ways to talk to other people.