Foreign words with no English equivalent

Wesley From Taiwanese Mandarin. Ma Ma Hoo Hoo Literally means "Horse Horse, Tiger Tiger". It means your opinion of something is below average or "ok" in a less than ideal way.

Tara Seattle I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Solomon Islands for two years and learned to speak Solomon Islands pidgin English. My favorite pidgin phrase that doesn't really translate is "mi les" (pronounced "me laze"). Its origin is roughly to be lazy, but to be lazy for a specific thing. For example, if someone asks if you like a certain food, "mi les" means you don't really like it, but not strongly enough to hate it. Or perhaps if someone asks if you'd like to go somewhere, "mi les" means you don't really feel like it.
Perhaps a good slang translation would be "I'm not into it".

Steve & Marla Wallingford, Seattle … a favorite word to share that's as handy for us here in Seattle as in the cold, dark rainy winters of the Netherlands where it comes from: gezellig (pronounced kind of similar to "challah" bread). It means something akin to cozy-togetherness....a state of being together with friends in a nice cozy spot. Wishing you and your listeners a gezellig New Year!

Matt Woodinville I think that understanding a foreign language allows insight into culture, but more importantly into the way that people form ideas and opinions. Mandarin (like other Chinese dialects) is mono-syllabic (each syllable is a discreet word or concept). They can be joined together to make more complex words, so “QiChi” (pronounced Chi – Chur) means car, but is literally “go-fast”. I think this sort of joining of new ideas is emblematic of asian culture (accepting new things, adopting new concepts, etc).
Anyway, here’s a joke that I enjoy telling to my friends in asia.
If you speak three languages, we say you are tri-lingual
If you speak two languages, we call you Bi-lingual,
But if you only speak one language, you must be an American!

Jeff BBC Article about 'Ilunga', judged the most untranslatable word... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm
Two other words that I've recently encountered along the same lines:
1. attaccabottoni - (Italy) a bore who buttonholes people and tells sad, pointless stories.
2. mamihlapinatapei - (Tierra Del Fuego) looking into each other's eyes, each hoping the other will initiate what both want to do but neither chooses to commence.

Howard Seattle The German word "Umstandskraemer" describes a person who is always looking for problems where there don't seem to be any. It is more descriptive than our "nitpicker", more like "noodge, which I think is originally Yiddish.

Gwendolyn In German, the word famously untranslatable word "Gemuetlichkeit" (ge-MOOT-lich-keit) is translated in dictionaries as "coziness", "snugness", or "sociability". This doesn't even come close to the meaning of the word as I, a native English speaker, understand it. I would also add to that "laid-back, carefree atmosphere", or "the indescribable feeling you get while sitting in a beer garden with a large mug of crisp beer and some good friends on a warm August afternoon under the shade of an enormous chestnut tree". Germans are proud to have this word, as well they should be.