Word.ws English Dictionary

lost in translation

lost in translation adjective: unable to be understood due to having been poorly translated.

Adjective

lost in translation (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Unable to be understood due to having been poorly translated.
    • I tried reading the instruction manual but many of the steps were unfortunately lost in translation.
    • The message of the Japanese Prime Minister's speech was lost in translation.

Questions about lost in translation

What does lost in translation mean?
Lost in translation means unable to be understood due to having been poorly translated.
What part of speech is lost in translation?
Lost in translation is an adjective.

Words near lost in translation in the dictionary

  1. lost in action
  2. lost in the sauce
  3. lost in the shuffle
  4. lost in thought
  5. lost in time
  6. lost in translation
  7. lost it
  8. lost media
  9. lost medias
  10. lost motion
  11. lost neutral

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lost in translation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lost in translation.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lost in translation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lost_in_translation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.