A handful of readers finish off the thread. One writes:
There's a word in German that I absolutely love and which doesn't have an English equivalent (as far as I know): Regenbogenfamilie. The literal translation would be 'Rainbow family'. Its meaning: families in which kids are raised by two same-sex partners.
Another:
Your reader cited "vavoso" [sic] as a Spanish word with no English equivalent that he remembers from his childhood. However, it's "baboso," not "vavoso." (I can tell that your reader learned to spell this word as a child!) The closest literal translation we have in English is "slob" or "drooling," but a more idiomatic rendering would be something such as "doofus" or "dummy."
My favorite Spanish word with no English equivalent is "empalagarse" (the reflexive verb form) or "empalagado" (the adjective form). It refers to the unpleasant feeling one experiences after eating too much of something too sweet and rich (close to "cloying" in English, if "to cloy" could be used reflexively (e.g., "I'm cloyed" or "I cloyed myself")).
Another:
While “Fremdschämen" has its appeal, longtime listeners of Howard Stern know that he uses the almost too-perfectly evocative term “douche chills” to describe the feeling of embarrassment one experiences on behalf of another. (I’m fairly certain Stern coined it back in the '80s; my friends and I have been using it for at least 20 years, and I’ve heard it used regularly among the stand-up comedy crowd here in NYC.)
As for another word with no English equivalent, my personal favorite is the German “Weltschmerz” (literally, “world pain”), used to describe the melancholia/romantic pessimism/powerlessness/apathy one feels comparing the actual state of the world to one’s idealized version of it. Insert Obama reference here.
Another points to the politically incorrect "tard tingles" as a variant of "douche chills". One more:
Your reader is wrong to claim that US English does not have the equivalent of "wanker". Of course it does: Jerk-off.
The Dish 