I remember my attempt to learn the French language couple of years back, and the question that irritated my teacher the most was 'what would you call it in English?'. Because you see, not all words can exactly be translated into another language. Since I also speak Hindi, I should have realized this long time ago, because there are many words on Hindi that I cannot precisely translate in English, although they can very well be described, but cannot be translated.

So, when I came across Fuchsia Macaree's series of ABC of 'untranslatable words' it instantly intrigued me. Macaree is a London based illustrator from Ireland who has listed A to Z of words from languages like Italian, Persian, French, Mandarin, German and Ancient Greek. Not only has she beautifully imagined them in her illustrations, but has also quite aptly described their meaning.

Have a look, it's always a good thing to learn new words from new languages:

















































































Check out more illustrations and some of Macaree's other fun series on her Tumblr website: phewsha.tumblr.com