7

"Yaourt" (French)

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What It Means:

To sing along in nonsensical noises that vaguely resemble the lyrics of a song.

When we tell you that the French have a colloquial verb that literally means "to yogurt," odds are your imagination will instantaneously jump to one particular image. We know what you're picturing. It's not that. Hell, you couldn't possibly be more wrong -- it's not breakfast-related at all.

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"Yum, extra nuts."

According to Lucy Wadham, a British novelist who lived in France for nearly a quarter century and wrote a nonfiction book in an attempt to decode Frenchness for her fellow Brits, the French are obsessed with English-language music. So much so that they feel an uncontrollable urge to sing along with it, even if they not only don't know the lyrics, but totally don't know the language that they're singing in. This peculiar pastime is known as "yogurting," and it can send music through such absurd transformations as turning Queen's "I Want to Break Free" into "I Want a Steak Frites." Conversely, it can actually transmogrify "Smells Like Teen Spirit" into the deep social commentary that people always thought it was.

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"With the fights trout, I piss dangerous!
Hippy car cow, entertain us!"

6

"Attaccabottoni" (Italian)

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What It Means:

A person who corners you to tell you long, meaningless stories, usually about his oh-so-miserable life.

Sometimes life is sad. We get it. If, for example, your beloved dog had to be put down because it contracted rabies and literally ripped the town sheriff a new asshole, it's completely understandable that you're feeling down, and nobody will accuse you of being a killjoy when you tell them about it. But then, well, there's that one guy. You know him: He's the one who shows up at every social event with the specific agenda of boring and depressing the absolute shit out of any- and everybody by perpetually babbling on about the unbroken chain of catastrophes that is his life.

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"And then my cat spilled his water, and it got my socks all wet. I mean I just put them on. And then-"

5

"Epibreren" (Dutch)

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What It Means:

Pretending that you're doing something super important, while in reality you're being super lazy.

This Dutch word perfectly describes that particular flavor of procrastination that anyone who's ever done hard time in a cubicle will perfectly understand. You know how it goes: You're staring at your computer monitor filled with 36 open tabs of cat gifs (but only three with porn! We're proud of you!) when a co-worker walks up and asks for your help on an important project. You'll be damned if you're going to do actual work, so you quickly open an Excel spreadsheet and start typing random numbers, looking harried and busy. "So sorry, bro, I've got to get this, uh, meta-inventory report out by five."

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"Yeah, man. These sheets aren't going to spread themselves."

4

"Soare cu Dinti" (Romanian)

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What It Means:

Weather that looks great until you actually step out in it. Specifically, a beautiful sunny but frigid day.

You wake up and look out the window at a splendidly sunny day, so you forgo the jacket and gleefully stroll out the front door like a character in the opening credits of an '80s sitcom, only to have Mother Nature bite you straight in the left ass cheek with her prickly fangs, which in this case are also icicles. We didn't pull that toothy image out of thin air, by the way. The phrase "soare cu dinti" originates in the homeland of Pimp Dracula himself, Romania, and literally translates to "sun with teeth."

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"You can run, but you won't escape."

3

"Utepils" (Norwegian)

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What It Means:

That first beer you drink outside when the weather finally turns warm.

It's more than a little surprising that, in a culture where the spring is so closely associated with a weeklong holiday celebrated by getting precariously shitfaced, no American has ever come up with a term for a celebratory beer enjoyed in the faint spring breeze under the newly warm rays of our good friend Mr. Golden Sun. The Norwegians, on the other hand, having no such linguistic shortcomings and apparently enjoying the outdoors in much the same way we Americans do (i.e., drunk), have a word for it, and that word is "utepils."

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"Eat a dick, soare cu dinti."

2

"Drachenfutter" (German)

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What It Means:

A gift a man gives to his wife to apologize when he's done something stupid (typically staying out way too late).

Hey, guys: Raise your hand if you've ever bought your wife or girlfriend a gift in order to make up for some terrible thing you did. You never said that was why you were buying it; it's one of those unspoken truths that make a relationship function. Well, now raise your hand if one night, while staying out too late, you decided to stop somewhere and pick up a peace offering along the way -- which, since the only stores open at 3 a.m. are those of the shady convenience variety, ended up being a pair of red panties folded into the shape of a rose (on a stick).

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"And just like the noble boy shorts, I will always support you, while not getting all up in your shit."

Yeah, that didn't work out so well for you, did it? But apparently you just need to step up your gift-giving prowess and do a bit more planning, because in Germany they have a term for averting your spouse's fury by way of a wee bit of good old-fashioned bribery: "drachenfutter." The situation is seemingly so common in Germany that, on Saturday night (or Biernacht, as it's known in German), scores of soon-to-be-plastered guys show up at bars with wrapped gifts tucked under their arms to be used as peace offerings should they actually manage to stumble into the right house at the end of the night. And if they don't, well ... mugger deterrent, we guess?

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"Oh, God, lilies are my favorite! My horoscope said this would happen."

1

"Tartle" (Scots)

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What It Means:

The momentary consternation you feel when you go to introduce someone and realize that you've forgotten his or her name. Can also function as a verb.

It's happened to the best of us. You're at a party (you social butterfly, you) when an old buddy from high school approaches you. "Hey, Steve, you old bastard!" he says vociferously, because for the purposes of this illustration your name is Steve. "Who's this with you?" And that's when, as you turn to introduce him to your date, you realize that you've completely forgotten this guy's name. Did it start with J? Or K? Why is "Aloysius" ringing a bell? You really should remember, because you spent not-insignificant chunks of your adolescence trying to score cheap convenience store beer by his side and holy shit, what kind of an astronomical asshole is he going to think you are for forgetting his freaking name?

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"Dude, seriously? We have the same name."

You, dear friend, have just tartled all over yourself. And apparently the Scottish know this feeling better than anyone, because they've coined a one-word term for it (we have to assume this is somehow related to the fact that they also have a variety of whiskey named after them).

To wrap things up with a continuation of our theme of partying and alcohol, here's a little word-association trick for you: Imagine you're throwing a soiree at your place, when Sean Connery unexpectedly shows up. He saunters up to you as only a former 007 can saunter, glances toward his date, and then says, in his big-ass Scottish brogue, "Pardon my tartle." Now, imagine you misunderstood him and he's actually apologizing because his date is an anthropomorphic shelled reptile who just dropped a long, slow deuce on your brand-new carpet.

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"Did you have to yell 'Cowabunga!' while you did it?"

You may still forget people's names left and right, but we can now guarantee that "tartle" is one word you'll never forget.

Related Reading: Did you know there's a Japanese word for a beautiful girl, if only viewed from behind. There's also a German word for the excess weight from emotional overeating. Prefer filthy foreign phrases? We've got those too.