Foreign words that have no English equivalent: Great words we need

Ever said "Oh, I don't want to cause you any trouble"? Well, Thailand has a word for you… Loosely translated, greng-jai is the feeling of guilt or awkwardness that makes you want someone to not do something as it'll be a hassle for them. For example, if someone offers to give you a lift to the airport, but you take public transport instead because it'd mean them going out of their way, that's greng-jai.

In Thailand, it's something bigger than just wanting to be unobtrusive, though – and is heavily related to the concept of keeping face.

Chispa

In Spanish, chispa can mean "spark" in relation to fire or electricity, but it is colloquially used to mean that stage of drunkenness when you're feeling at your best – a little bit merry, perhaps, full of life and happy, but well before the slurring, shambolic and sleepy stage kicks in. Think of it in terms of playing pool. That point after two or three beers when you're suddenly better than you were sober, but before your form starts going rapidly downhill due to drunkenness? That's the chispa state.

Sprezzatura

Very roughly, sprezzatura is the Italian art of appearing nonchalant and effortless, when a lot of time and consideration has gone into perfecting that look and vibe. So someone who spends ages on their hair to give it the just out of bed look would be displaying sprezzatura, as would someone who meticulously packs a case full of casual clothes designed to give an air of carefree cool.

Furbo

The meaning of this Italian concept often depends on what side of it you fall. It embodies what some may regard as wily, clever and smart, but what others may see as sly and sneaky. So it can apply to anything from wangling your way to the front of a queue to getting away with rampant tax evasion and embezzlement. The term is rarely as a pure insult – at worst, there's always some grudging respect for the person getting away with dubious behaviour.

Padkos

The initial assumption is that the Afrikaans word padkos means something similar to packed lunch, but it encompasses more than that. It's basically any food you take to be eaten on a journey, whether the muesli bars a hiker might slip into his rucksack, or hat packet of sweeties you pack into your flight bag in case the mid-air munchies strike.

Jugaad

The closest English equivalent to the Hindi word jugaad is "hack" – and it basically means finding an innovative workaround solution with very limited resources. So that might mean using dental floss as a temporary repair to a ripped mesh pocket, or wangling a paper clip to be an impromptu zip fastener. It has gone beyond Macgyer-esque ingenuity in India, however, where it is now a management-speak philosophy for gaining a competitive edge through improvisational, on-the-cheap thinking.

Vedriti

In Slovenian, vedriti means to take shelter from the rain, waiting for it to stop so you can go on your way again. It's a concept that should be familiar to any traveller who has leapt under a shop awning the moment the skies have opened. But vedriti is also used in a metaphorical sense – ducking out of a bad situation for respite until things start to improve.

Schnapsidee

If you suggest climbing a mountain in your thongs in the middle of night to a German friend, they might reasonably question whether it's a shnapsidee. Literally translating as "booze idea", the word is used to describe ideas and plans that are so ludicrous that they must have been conceived while drunk.

See also: How to be a better traveller

See also: Ten things travellers get wrong