We have just run into a translation problem of a new kind. It is this: there appears to be no exact cognate in Dutch of the word embarassed when the embarassing thing is not also shameful. All the translations the three of us could come up with involved shame, awareness of (morally speaking) fault.
We were talking about Douwe's little adventure yesterday and I tried to say that in speaking of leaving the school to go home, he was not ashamed of having left; he still thinks he was right on. But he is embarassed that he made his little friend's mother so frightened; he had not expected that and was, well, embarassed.
And I couldn't say it. Neither could anyone else for that matter. Closest we could get was things involving the concept of "regret".
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