Since all texts are anchored in their culture, it follows that culture-bound items in the source text can present problems for translators, especially if there are notable differences between source and target cultures. The problems are often described as extralinguistic, that is, referring to the surrounding physical and sociocultural reality ‘outside’ language, as opposed to intralinguistic translation problems, which arise from differences between source and target language systems and language usage (Nedergaard-Larsen 1993: 238, note 1). In Translation Studies, the term realia is used to refer to concepts which are found in a given source culture but not in a given target culture. However, the boundaries of the term are somewhat fuzzy. Concepts may cross linguistic and cultural borders; loanwords or calques are introduced into the target language via for example transmission of international news (tsunami, hijab). Once such items are absorbed into the target language, they no longer meet the criterion of unfamiliarity in the target culture though they are still characteristic of their original culture.