There’s been a full-strength, fine-flavour storm in a teacup brewed over a BBC article announcing the world’s most untranslatable word to be “ilunga” from the Bantu language of Tshiluba.

Reporting the findings of a translation company survey, the BBC claims that “ilunga” is a word from south-eastern DR Congo, meaning ‘a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.’ However, there is no independent evidence supporting that this is in fact the actual case. Ilunga is apparently a reasonably common family name in the DR Congo, but has nothing to do with a conditionally forgiving person.

Ouch! Talk about getting lost in translation!

Other issues arose with the very term “most untranslatable” – so let’s just go with “most difficult to translate” due to cultural context, accompanied by their approximately equivalent English translations. As for their German, French or Italian translation – you’ll just have to consult the experts for that, and fingers crossed that they’ve done some better groundwork!

Here are the rest of the top ten foreign words that pose problem in English translation:

• Shlimazl – a chronically unlucky person (Yiddish)

• Radioukacz –a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain (Polish)

• Naa – a word to emphasise statements or agree with someone (Kansai area, Japanese)

• Altahmam – a kind of deep sadness (Arabic)

• Gezellig – cosy (Dutch)

• Saudade – a certain type of longing (Portuguese)

• Selathirupavar – a certain type of truancy (Tamil)

• Pochemuchka – a person who asks a lot of questions (Russian)

• Klloshar – loser (Albanian)

And the most difficult English words to translate? Well just try and find the Russian, Dutch or Spanish translation for these top five!

• Plenipotentiary

• Gobbledegook

• Serendipity

• Poppycock

• Googly