There is nothing I hate more about being bilingual than having a word in one language that I can’t directly translate into the other language but not because there isn’t a translation,
but because the translation lacks the proper accuracy to really nail the word at its core.
An example:
I am German but also fluent in English because the internet basically raised me and, well, you can’t really go anywhere without being confronted with English content as a small kid if your preferred fandoms weren’t that popular in your own native language.
But anyways, I digress.
So recently I wanted to introduce my dad to The Magnus Archives - only problem being his English isn’t exactly the crème de la crème if you get what I’m saying. So in a hyperfixated rage I started writing a German translation of the first episode for him - only to realize that German doesn’t really have a proper equivalent for the word “researcher”.
The most commonly used translation for researcher in German is “Forscher”.
Problem being that “Forscher” is commonly associated with people in lab coats running around and conducting experiments and in this case we are talking about people who are researching in a journalistic sense.
Now there is an alternative, we could also use a common loanword but the loanword is “Rechercheur” which was obviously inspired by the French language and if you think “Forscher” sounds like a hand full I can tell you that “Rechercheur” is so much worse.
So now I’m angry because I’m stuck; but at the same time fascinated by the way language travels and how associations with words are formed.