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Have you ever read one of those articles that lists words in foreign languages that express concepts in English for which we have no word? Like tartle, from Scots, "to hesitate in recognizing a person or thing, as happens when you are introduced to someone whose name you cannot recall."

Just for fun I want to make a short off-the-cuff list of some common Japanese words that English doesn't really have an easy equivalent for, and vice-versa.

The 和 List

• 面倒臭い (mendokusai*)
• A phrase used primarily by the young and/or deeply annoyed, meaning something along the lines of I can't be bothered with this (shite).
• 宜しく (yoroshiku)
• A catch-all word for commencing or ending situations. You can translate it as please treat me favorably, but it feels wooden and unnecessary in English. It is, actually, unnecessary in English, and that's why we don't have a word for it--but it's indispensable in Japanese, where 宜しく is the bookend to many formal social situations and perhaps most business-related conversations. 
• Without this magic word, conversations would materialize out of nowhere and end roughly, like ending a sentence without a period and just starting the next with a capital letter If I had to force a cognate in English, I'd point to ending telephone conversations.We have this word goodbye, but it's never enough just to say goodbye and hang up the phone--at least not in my family or group of friends. We have to warm up to the bye. First an excuse is in order: Welp, I better xyz before it gets too late. And after that bit of chitchat is done, Alright, talk to you later followed by a response, then See ya, then Bye. It's terribly illogical if you look at it for long enough, but it's the flow of our language.
• おつかれさまです (otsukarasamadesu)
• Like 宜しく above, this is a set phrase that you hear on a daily basis if you work in Japan. It literally means here's a tired respectable person, translates to you must be tired, and has a close cognate in the phrase Good job. Coworkers say it to each other when they pass each other in the hallway instead of Hi or How's it going like Americans do. 
• (One of the great feats of Japanese engineering is the average Japanese male's ability to squash the eight-syllable おつかれさまです into three or fewer syllables.)
• (It might be worthwhile to start saying Good job! to coworkers when we pass in the office. Nobody cares how you're doing even when they ask, and Good job! feels nice and is funny from the get-go.)
• 微妙 (bimyo)
• This word has an English cognate in sensitive, subtle, or delicate. But it also has a slang version where its meaning is abstracted into near-unrecognizability--like we do with cool, for example. In the slang version, ビミョー means No, but in a really vague way, like you don't want to be quoted as having actually said no.
• A fuller and altogether better explanation than mine can be found at this blog.
• -しまう (-shimau)
• This verb suffix has a number of uses (it translates as to finish in most dictionaries, but that's terribly misleading), but my favorite is when it conjugates in such a way as to give a sense of having messed up to whatever otherwise normal sentence you've just said. For example:
• 私は彼にそれをするように言いつけた。I told him to do it.
• 私は彼にそれをするように言いつけちゃった。I told him to do it (which was a bad idea).

The 英 List
I can't think of much for English because I don't know the extent of Japanese yet. That said, there is no awesome equivalent to the following two words--the first I know from experience, the second from casual testimony from two Japanese friends of mine.

• fuck
• Not that you can't swear in Japanese, but there's no fucking word quite as fucking flexible as fuck.
• remind
•  I was surprised when I heard this one. Apparently it's true. I guess it shouldn't be so surprising, since re- is a Latin suffix, not an Old English'n.
• Anyways, how neat!

*I'm transcribing the words for English speakers, not according to ローマ字, so I'm ignoring specifically marking long vowels because English speakers give remarkably few damns about them.

There must be much more interesting ones than these floating around, so if you know any feel free to jot them down in the comments.