adventures in the untranslatable

I knew it was koi no yokan (Japanese: a sense on first meeting someone that it is going to evolve into love) when I realized he was not layogenic (Tagalog, Philippines: a person who is only good-looking from a distance) and could not resist cafune (Brazilian Portuguese: the tender running of one's fingers through the hair of one's mate).

"It was meant to be," he said. "I have always loved la baffona (Italian: an attractive moustachioed woman) who is also a rombhoru (Bengali: a woman having thighs as shapely as banana trees). Such a woman makes me a vrane su mu popile mozak (Croatian: crazy, literally "cows have drunk his brain") schvitzer (Yiddish: someone who sweats a lot, especially a nervous seducer)."

"You're right," I replied. "I really do creerse la ultima Coca-Cola en el desierto (Central American Spanish: to have a very high opinion of oneself, literally to 'think one is the last Coca-Cola in the desert'). Let's just go back to your place because I'm not really in the mood for a baling (Manobo, Philippines: the action of a woman who, when she wants to marry a man, goes to his house and refuses to leave until marriage is agreed upon). I think it's the oka/shete (Ndonga, Nigeria: urination difficulties caused by eating frogs before the rain has duly fallen)."

Horrible use of many foreign languages courtesy of The Mirror