Boketto
Meaning: Staring off into the distance with your mind pleasantly empty, thinking of nothing at all.
Language: Japanese
Literally: vacant gazing
Category: Everyday
Origin: Japanese ぼーっと; the Japanese give this restful blankness its own word.
More untranslatable words — Everyday
- Pålegg — Anything you might put on a slice of bread — cheese, ham, jam, egg, whatever — gathered u…
- Pana poʻo — Scratching your head to help yourself remember something you've forgotten.
- Friolero — A person who feels the cold far more than everyone else — always the first to reach for a…
- Empalagar — To be overwhelmed by something so sweet it turns sickly — used of food, and of people who…
- Puente — The day taken off to 'bridge' a midweek public holiday to the weekend, turning it into a…
- Magari — One word doing the work of 'if only', 'I wish', 'perhaps' and 'you bet' — the tone decide…
More Japanese untranslatable words
- Komorebi — The dappled light that filters through leaves and scatters across the ground.
- Wabi-sabi — Finding beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and the worn or incomplete.
- Tsundoku — Buying books and letting them pile up unread — a habit, not a crime.
- Mono no aware — A bittersweet awareness of impermanence — the gentle sadness and appreciation that arise…
- Ikigai — The thing that makes you want to get out of bed — the intersection of what you love, what…
- Ma — The meaningful negative space between things — a deliberate pause in music, an empty room…
From our tongue twisters
- 隣の客はよく柿食う客だ (Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da) — A tricky spiral on ka/ki/ku that accelerates as you try to keep the syllables distinct.
- なまむぎ なまごめ なまたまご (Nama mugi, nama gome, nama tamago) — A nimble warm-up for the Japanese 'na / ma / ge' syllables.
- 東京特許許可局 (Tōkyō tokkyo kyokakyoku) — A machine-gun of 'kyo' / 'kyoku' sounds.