Saturday, March 20, 2021

Foreign and familiar: Learning more than just words that don't translate into English - The Advocate - Translation

I have a confession.

I’ve started watching Korean dramas.

At night, an hour of Korean almost-soap-opera relaxes me and sends me into sweet dreams. I’ve watched several series, but my favorite is “Crash Landing on You” (on Netflix). If you can handle subtitles, persevere through the first hour and you will likely be hooked.

I’m a longtime believer in the power of fiction to offer insights into other cultures, thereby offering insights into our own. Korean dramas are no exception.

“Crash Landing on You” made me think about “saudade,” a Portuguese word I learned years ago. It means a feeling of longing for someone, despite knowing the person may never return. Even though it doesn’t translate directly into English, I understood it because I’ve felt it. It was foreign and familiar.

I finished watching “Crash Landing on You” two months ago and still can’t quite shake it. Ironically, I have “saudade” for a show about “saudade.” The Portuguese writer Manuel de Melo describes “saudade” best — “a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy."

Words we don’t have in English spark little joy particles all around my brain and heart. Thankfully, in recent weeks, I’ve learned several from a variety of sources.

In a conversation with a Swedish friend this week, she paused to find the best word to express her feelings on the topic at hand. She speaks masterful English and comes up with the right word more quickly than I do, so I waited patiently. When she opted for a Swedish word, I paid attention, knowing this would be a word I would want to know.

She said that doing the work we were discussing has been an “ynnest.” She went on to explain that the literal translation of the word is “favor, indulgence, privilege, grace,” and that the word can, in a legal sense, mean favor or privilege, as opposed to a legal right to something — as in, being granted a special privilege or favor.

“But in everyday language it is used as a description of the emotion or moment of insight into the honor, delight, appreciation, gratitude of being in a particular situation,” she said.

My Swedish friend is an opera singer by training. COVID has, of course, affected her life in a major way.

To explain the meaning of the word further, she said, “Besides being happy to be paid to sing opera, it is an ‘ynnest’ to get to share the music I love with other human beings looking for an experience of beauty or excitement out of the ordinary hum-drum of daily life.”

Recognizing my interest in the words we don’t have in English, she offered a few more she wished existed in English, including “lyhörd.” She said that a room that is lyhört has thin walls that you can hear everything through, but a person who is lyhörd is someone who is sensitive, listens carefully, picks up on the subtle signals in people and situations and is able to respond accordingly.

Earlier this year, I read a book called “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home,” by Nora Krug. Krug writes a lot about the importance of the forest in German life and culture. She wrote that the Grimm Brothers started a German dictionary in 1838 which lists more than a thousand nouns and adjectives containing the word “wald,” which means “forest” in German. Her personal favorites are “waldeinsamkeit,” which means “forest solitude” and “waldumrauscht,” which means surrounded by a rustling forest.

Lastly, in a conversation this week with a Chinese friend, she mentioned the word “yuánfen,” which encapsulates a Chinese belief that people can be destined to meet, often in fateful coincidences. While it can be used regarding love, it is also applied to other relationships. As I understand it, no friendship is above or beneath the concept of “yuánfen.” However, my young Chinese friend says the word is not used loosely, but reserved for when relationships reach a deep level.

Learning words that exist in other languages that don’t translate directly into English feeds my soul and gives me much to ponder about how language and concepts develop.

Every week, I read my column to my husband before sending it in. This week, I was struggling to find an ending so I read it to him sans ending and said, “I’ve been working on this column since the day before yesterday.”

He started laughing.

I turned around and asked, “What’s funny?”

He said, “In Spanish, the word ‘antier’ means ‘day before yesterday.’”

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