Beautiful Illustrations For Words That Are Not In English

New Zealand-based media designer Anjana Iyer searched through languages around the world for various interesting words that have no direct translation into English and attempted to capture their meanings with refined illustrations. The posters from her “Found in Translation” project provide literal explanations of the words’ meanings as well.

Aware (Japanese)

aware

Schadenfreude (German)

Schadenfreude

Backpfeifengesicht (German)

Backpfeifengesicht

Shlimazl (Yiddish)

Shlimazl

Gattara (Italian)

Gattara

Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan)

Mamihlapinatapei

Waldeinsamkeit (German)

Waldeinsamkeit

Friolero (Spanish)

Friolero

Culaccino (Italian)

Culaccino

Bakku-shan (Japanese)

Bakku-shan

The tongue-in-cheek illustration series is part of the “100 Days Project”, a web-based platform that invites various aspiring and acknowledged artists to repeat their chosen creative activity for 100 days, documenting their results on the project’s site.