An interesting Japanese word I came across today in an article on ‘untranslatable’ words is 横飯 (yokomeshi) which is used to describe the stress of speaking a foreign language.

It comes from 横 (yoko – horizontal) and 飯 (meshi – boiled rice, a meal, food), and could be translated as ‘a meal eaten sideways’. This refers to the fact that Japanese is often written vertically, while most other languages are written horizontally.

Are there words of expressions in other languages that have a similar meaning?