Editing Untranslatability (section)

===Verb forms===
English lacks some grammatical categories which are present in some other languages.

There is no simple way in English to contrast Finnish {{lang|fi|kirjoittaa}} or Polish {{lang|pl|pisać}} (continuing, corresponding to English 'to write') with {{lang|fi|kirjoitella}} or {{lang|pl|pisywać}} (a regular [[frequentative]], 'to occasionally write short passages at a time', or 'to jot down now and then'). Similarly, {{lang|fi|hypätä}} and {{lang|pl|skoczyć}} (to jump once) contrast with {{lang|fi|hyppiä}} and {{lang|pl|skakać}} (to continuously jump; to be jumping from point A to B).

Irish allows the [[prohibitive mood]] to be used in the [[passive voice]]. The effect is used to prohibit something while expressing society's disapproval for that action at the same time. For example, contrast {{lang|ga|Ná caithigí tobac}} (meaning 'Don't smoke' when said to more than one person), which uses the second person plural in the imperative meaning "Do not smoke", with {{lang|ga|Ná caitear tobac}} (best translated as 'Smoking just isn't done here'), which uses the autonomous imperative meaning 'One does not smoke'.

Italian has three distinct declined past tenses: thus {{lang|it|fui}} ({{lang|it|passato remoto}}), {{lang|it|ero}} ({{lang|it|imperfetto}}), and {{lang|it|sono stato}} ({{lang|it|passato prossimo}}) all mean 'I was'. The first indicates a concluded action in the (remote) past, the second a progressive or habitual action in the past, and the latter an action that holds some connection to the present, especially if a recent time is specified ("{{lang|it|stamattina ho visto}}" for 'this morning I saw'). The {{lang|it|passato remoto}} is often used for narrative history (for example, novels). Nowadays, the difference between {{lang|it|passato remoto}} and {{lang|it|passato prossimo}} is blurred in the spoken language, the latter being used in both situations. What difference there exists is partly geographic. In the north of Italy the {{lang|it|passato remoto}} is very rarely used in everyday speech, whereas in the south it often takes the place of the {{lang|it|passato prossimo}}. The distinction is only alive in Tuscany, which makes it dialectal even if hardline purists insist it should be applied consistently.

Likewise, English lacks a productive grammatical means to show [[indirection (linguistics)|indirection]] but must instead rely on [[periphrasis]], that is the use of multiple words to explain an idea. Finnish grammar, on the contrary, allows the regular production of a series of verbal derivatives, each of which involves a greater degree of indirection. For example, on the basis of the verb {{lang|fi|vetää}} ('to pull'), it is possible to produce:
*{{lang|fi|vetää}} (pull),
*{{lang|fi|vedättää}} (cause something/someone to pull/to wind-up (lie)),
*{{lang|fi|vedätyttää}} (cause something/someone to cause something/someone to pull),
*{{lang|fi|vedätätyttää}} (cause something/someone to cause something/someone to cause something/someone to pull).

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Finnish
! English
! Translation/paraphrase of boldface verb
|-
|align="center" | Hevonen '''vetää.'''
|align="center" | A horse '''pulls.'''
|align="center" | pulls
|-
|align="center" | Ajomies '''ve<span style="color: blue;">dät</span>tää.'''
|align="center" | A driver '''<span style="color: blue;">commands</span>''' the horse '''to pull'''.
|align="center" | causes something to pull
|-
|align="center" | Urakoitsija '''ve<span style="color: blue;">dätyt</span>tää.'''
|align="center" | A subcontractor '''<span style="color: blue;">directs</span>''' the driver '''<span style="color: blue;">to command</span>''' the horse '''to pull'''.
|align="center" | causes someone to cause something to pull
|-
|align="center" | Yhtiö '''ve<span style="color: blue;">dätätyt</span>tää.'''
|align="center" | The corporation '''<span style="color: blue;">assigns</span>''' the subcontractor '''<span style="color: blue;">to have</span>''' the driver '''<span style="color: blue;">command</span>''' the horse '''to pull'''.
|align="center" | causes someone to cause someone to cause something to pull
|}

Hindi has a similar concept of indirection. {{transliteration|hi|Karna}} means 'to do'; {{transliteration|hi|karāna}} means 'to make someone do'; {{transliteration|hi|karwāna}} means 'to get someone to make yet another person do'.

Most [[Turkic languages]] (Turkish, Azeri, Kazakh) contain the grammatical verb suffix ''miş'' (or ''mis'' in other dialects), which indicates that the speaker did not witness the act personally but surmises or has discovered that the act has occurred or was told of it by another, as in the example of {{lang|tr|Gitmiş!}} (Turkish), which can be expressed in English as "it is reported that he/she/it has gone", or, most concisely, as "apparently, he/she/it has gone". This grammatical form is especially used when telling jokes, or narrating stories.

Similar to the Turkic ''miş'', nearly every [[Quechua languages|Quechua]] sentence is marked by an evidential [[clitic]], indicating the source of the speaker's knowledge (and how certain they are about the statement). The enclitic ''=mi'' expresses personal knowledge (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirmi'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver - I know it for a fact"); ''=si'' expresses hearsay knowledge (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirsi'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, or so I've heard"); ''=chá'' expresses high probability (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirchá'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, most likely"). Colloquially, the latter is also used when the speaker has dreamed the event told in the sentence or experienced it while intoxicated.

Languages that are extremely different from each other, like English and [[Chinese language|Chinese]], need their translations to be more like adaptations. Chinese has no [[Grammatical tense|tenses]] per se, only three [[Grammatical aspect|aspect]]s. The English verb "[[copula (linguistics)|to be]]" does not have a direct equivalent in Chinese. In an English sentence where "to be" leads to an [[adjective]] ("It ''is'' blue"), there is no "to be" in Chinese. (There are no adjectives in Chinese, instead there are [[stative verbs]] that do not need an extra verb.) If it states a location, the verb {{transliteration|zh|zài}} ({{lang|zh|在}}) is used, as in "We ''are'' in the house". In some other cases (usually when stating a judgement), the judgment verb {{transliteration|zh|shì}} ({{lang|zh|是}}) is used, as in "I ''am'' the leader." And in most other cases, such structure ("to be") is simply not used, but some more natural structure in Chinese is used instead. Any sentence that requires a play on those different meanings will not work the same way in Chinese. In fact, very simple concepts in English can sometimes be difficult to translate, for example, there is no single direct translation for the word "yes" in Chinese, as in Chinese the affirmative is said by repeating the verb in the question. ("Do you have it?" "(I) have".)