Translations

My father uses the term Wax and Gold (sem ena werq- which is a poetic form in his native language) when he describes how a effective translation can be made from one language to another. His language is entirely too complicated for my liking aka it doesnt tickle my fancy therefore I will try to explain to you the best I can. In class on Wednesday, Prof Haidt was talking about that in class and it reminded me of what my father said. For instance, in his language there is the phrase "Afer-bela" which in English word for word means "Eat Dirt" but the underlying meaning is "Go Die" (an insult to someone- i know its harsh but his culture is blunt and harsh unlike the American polite culture). You would only know this if you were a native speaker so fear have not! I feel spanish is the same idea. This is another reason why I think Spanish cannot be thoroughly translated and I think we all understood that there are certain things you cannot translate word for word.