It would be no exaggeration to say that I have a history of both triumph and tragedy in the kitchen. Delia Smith I am not. I don’t believe in recipes; I’m not going to be told what to do by all those egotistical, narcissistic celebrity chefs; I cook by my own rules. The result is that I am somewhat hit and miss when it comes to delivering edible, safe meals and have acquired a reputation as ‘the Queen of Cordon Bleurgh’. Last Sunday’s rhubarb fool fooled no one; it was rhubarb soup. My hand-made, stone-baked margharita pizza was so monstrously yeasty it looked like something James T. Kirk once did battle with, my Boxing Day sprout risotto still makes my brother retch at the very mention of it and the only surprise about my marrow surprise was that my partner was able to go to work the next day. Have I made my point? I think so.

However, on Friday evening the culinary gods had finally decided to give me a break. I made that old Tuscan classic Cacciucco alla Livornese, a throw-it-all-in fish stew. My better half sat down at the table with some trepidation, but relief soon spread across his face. It looked (and smelled) genuinely delicious. He wouldn’t have to give it to the cat when I wasn’t looking, after all. ‘Buon appetito!’ we chimed in unison, forks and spoons at the ready. Or as we say in English … er, actually, what do we say in English? How do we convey the sentiment that we want someone to have an enjoyable gastronomic experience when presented with a plate of tasty nosh? As we chewed on our squid rings, we tried to think of the English equivalent. Here are the contenders (none are convincing):

Good appetite!/Have a good appetite! Clearly no one has ever said this.
Enjoy your meal!/Have a nice meal! Only spoken by McDonalds employees. Doesn’t count.
May the sauce be with you. Only really relevant when eating chips with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Tuck in/Get stuck in! What are we, pigs?

Of course, the sad truth is that there is no equivalent expression for Italy’s Buon appetito, France’s Bon appetit, Germany’s Guten appetit, Spain’s Buen provecho, Uzbekistan’s Yoqimli ishtaha … OK, you get the gist. The translations offered on www.omniglot.com aren’t much better: Happy eating … Chow down … Get your laughing gear around this … the Goodfellas-inspired Eat already! and the unbelievably lame This looks nice.

What does this gastronomic gap in our idiomatic repertoire say about anglophone culture? Has the British so-called ‘food is fuel’ mentality stunted our culinary language? What is the reason for our lack of refined dinnertime expressions? Maybe we English speakers are just content to stick our heads in the trough and chow down; we don’t want to spend precious seconds on culinary niceties. Who knows?

What about at the end of a meal? What do we say to express satisfaction? It doesn’t get any better, I’m afraid:
I’m full.
I’m stuffed.
I’m fit to burst.
I’m dreadfully sorry but if I eat any more I may physically explode.

… think Mr Creosote in that horrendous Monty Python scene. In fact, an Italian tutor once told me that she found the way English people describe their satisfaction at the end of a meal exceptionally vulgar. ‘You English just shovel it down and then say you’re full. That’s not very elegant.’ In Italian, she told me, the correct expression would be ‘sono satio/a’ – I am sated. We’ll take this on board. Here is a sneak preview of next Friday’s dinner table conversation:
Would you like another helping of chicken a la marmite?
No thanks, darling. [scraping food into bin] I am sated.

As a translator, I use dictionaries nearly every day. But contrary to what many people might believe, I don’t simply look up words in a bilingual dictionary and then write down the first definition offered. Translation is about much more than approximately equivalent words. That’s why actual people are needed to carry out translation, rather than machines being employed. Only people can understand the context and see which of a variety of possible translations is the best choice.

Monolingual dictionaries are much more useful for translators than bilingual ones and I wish people, including translators themselves, appreciated this fact. Monolingual dictionaries explain a language’s words in its own words. That is to say that rather than simply offering possible equivalents or near-equivalents, a monolingual dictionary offers you an understanding of how the speakers of that language define and use a word and what associations they get from it. This in turn helps translators pick the best possible translation. One cannot translate word-for-word; one translates the context as well, and the context includes all of the source language and culture.

Translators should focus on studying monolingual dictionaries first and only once they have fully understood a word from the perspective of the speakers of a given language ought they turn to a bilingual dictionary to get a list of possible translations. As a translator, my first reference tool will always be a monolingual dictionary, and I use it not only when I have a query about a specific word but any time when I want to learn more about the source languages I translate from. It’s the one book that can be read over and over again and yet still offer new and useful information.

This is a guest post by Dr. B.J. Epstein who can be reached via her translation blog Brave New Words or her website.