The usual superficial rubbish from the Guardian whenever they publish an article on language learning or linguistics. The author assumes that a long, even paragraph length, explanation of a term in one language which cannot be rendered by just one word in another language, is thus untranslatable, when in fact it just has a long translation in the 2nd language. The author then tries to force-fit a one or two word translation in the 2nd language which is close, but does not completely render the sense of the word in the first language. Thus is perpetuated the myth of a one-to-one correspondence between languages despite the fact the end of the article acknowledges that the concepts and things denoted in one language may not perfectly correspond to a narrower or wider concept in another language. However there is a lesson here for language learners: prefer longer translations! This not only insures getting as near as possible the complete sense of a L2 word, but avoids misunderstandings based on L1 words having more than one meaning themselves.
