mind
- esprit (peace of mind = tranquillité d’esprit)
- tête (it’s all in the mind = c’est tout dans la tête)
- avis (to my mind = à mon avis)
- raison (his mind is going = il n’a plus toute sa raison)
- intelligence (with the mind of a two-year-old = avec l’intelligence d’un enfant de deux ans)
esprit
- wit (avoir de l’esprit = to have wit)
- mood (je n’ai pas l’esprit Ii rire = I’m in no mood for laughing)
- mind (avoir l’esprit vif= to have a quick mind)
- spirit (esprit d’équipe = team spirit)
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
by Guy Deutscher
So concepts like “mind” or “esprit” cannot be natural in the way that “rose” or “bird” are; otherwise they would have been identical in all languages. As early as the seventeenth century, John Locke recognized that in the realm of abstract notions each language is allowed to carve up its own concepts-or “specific ideas,” as he called them-in its own way. In his 1690 Essay concerning Human Understanding, he proved the point through the “great store of words in one language which have not any that answer them in another. Which plainly shows that those of one country, by their customs and manner of life, have found occasion to make several complex ideas, and given names to them, which others never collected into specific ideas.”