What is "lost in translation"

a. (context idiomatic English) Unable to understand due to having been poorly translated.

Lost in Translation is a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It was her second feature film after The Virgin Suicides (1999). It stars Bill Murray as aging actor Bob Harris, who befriends college graduate Charlotte ( Scarlett Johansson) in a Tokyo hotel.

Lost in Translation received critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Bill Murray, and Best Director for Coppola; Coppola won for Best Original Screenplay. Murray and Johansson each won a BAFTA award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Leading Role respectively. The film was a commercial success, grossing $119 million on a budget of $4 million.

Lost in Translation is a novel written by Nicole Mones, published by Bantam Dell in 1999. It is the story of an American woman trying to lose her past by living as a translator in China. Emotionally charged and erotic, this widely translated bestseller has been universally praised for its authoritative portrayal of a China rarely captured in contemporary fiction. The novel’s accolades include the Kafka Prize for the year’s best work of fiction by any American woman, the Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Association Book Award for the year’s best novel from the five northwestern states, and the New York Times Book Review’s Notable Book and Editor’s Choice.

"Lost in Translation" is a narrative poem by James Merrill (1926–1995), one of the most studied and celebrated of his shorter works. It was originally published in The New Yorker magazine on April 8, 1974, and published in book form in 1976 in Divine Comedies.

The poem opens with a description of a summer Merrill spent as a child in a great house in The Hamptons, with his governess, waiting patiently for a rented wooden jigsaw puzzle to arrive in the mail from an Upper East Side Manhattan puzzle rental shop.

"Lost in Translation" is Merrill's most anthologized poem, and has been widely praised by literary critics including Harold Bloom.

Lost in Translation may refer to:

Lost in Translation is the soundtrack from the 2003 film of the same name, directed by Sofia Coppola. The soundtrack was supervised by Brian Reitzell and was released on September 9, 2003 through Emperor Norton Records. It contains five songs by Kevin Shields, including one from his group My Bloody Valentine. Other artists featured on the soundtrack include Air, Death in Vegas, Squarepusher, Phoenix and The Jesus and Mary Chain.