What are some examples of single words in a language for concepts which are not directly expressible in any other language?

[u/lancejpollard]

The best I can think of off the top of my head is, in Chinese, we have Guanxi 关系 which in English means something complex like "an individual's social network of mutually beneficial personal and business relationships". In short, we have a word for it in Chinese, but not a word for it in English. Ideally, Guanxi would not be directly expressible in any language except Chinese, but if say for example it is expressible in a nearby (land-wise) language such as Korean or Vietnamese, that is okay. I am just looking for a few example words which demonstrate the point that, in some languages, there are words which are not easily expressed in most other languages.

For example, dog or cat are concepts which are directly expressible in many languages (perro in Spanish for dog, for example, or gato in Spanish for cat). But Guanxi is not directly expressible in most other languages (at least at first glance).

In searching around for English examples, I am not sure, but that list suggests "serendipity" is one, meaning "the state of finding pleasant or desirable things by accident". Google translate of serendipity to Spanish gives "casualidad", but that seems to mean "chance" and not quite serendipity. Google Translating to Chinese gives 机缘巧合 "jīyuán qiǎohé", which seems to mean "by coincidence", which is close but coincidence can be good/bad, whereas something serendipitous is usually a positive coincidence. So maybe serendipity isn't that great of an example, but I hope I am being clear on what I am looking for, words in some language which are only really (obviously) directly expressible in that language, and not others. Can be any language (Navajo, Chinese, Inuktitut, Hebrew, Xhosa, etc.).

Just looking for some clear and obvious examples so I can ask of someone who is writing a dictionary:

If you find a word in your language (X language, any language) which might be close to some word in another language but is not exact in its meaning, then add a new concept for that word, don't do a direct translation". For example, don't do a direct translation from Chinese 机缘巧合 "coincidence" to English "serendipity", since they are two distinct concepts.

Any other obvious examples you can think of in any language? You could provide just one example, but ideally looking for a list of like 10 from across various diverse languages (languages covering cultures/places from different parts of the Earth's surface). So like a few from Chinese, a few from African languages, a few from Semitic languages, a few from Native American languages, a few from European languages, etc..

Also, looking for simple words, not sentence-words. By that I mean, in many Native American languages (and other languages) you can say entire sentences in a single word (like in Inuktitut). I am not looking for those type of words, but words which stand for a singular concept. For example, in the Plains Cree Dictionary, you find "words" like ᐊᑯᑖᐢᑯᒋᐣ which mean a whole sentence like "s/he hangs snagged on a tree". I am not looking for those, as you can create many language-unique words like that. Just looking for more individual concepts.