I Lost in Love Again Thrown Out Into the World State of Mind

Here are my top ten words, compiled from online collections, to describe love, want and relationships that have no real English translation, but that capture subtle realities that even we English speakers have felt once or twice. Equally I came across these words I'd have the occasional epiphany: "Oh yeah! That'south what I was feeling…"

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ane. Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous linguistic communication of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared past two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start.

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Oh yes, this is an exquisite word, compressing a thrilling and scary relationship moment. It'due south that succulent, cusp-y moment of imminent seduction. Neither of you lot has mustered the courage to make a move, notwithstanding. Hands haven't been placed on knees; you've non kissed. Simply you lot've both conveyed plenty to know that it will happen shortly… very before long.

two. Yuanfen (Chinese): A relationship by fate or destiny. This is a complex concept. It draws on principles of predetermination in Chinese civilization, which dictate relationships, encounters and affinities, mostly amidst lovers and friends.

From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the "binding force" that links ii people together in any relationship.

But interestingly, "fate" isn't the aforementioned matter as "destiny." Even if lovers are fated to find each other they may not end up together. The proverb, "accept fate without destiny," describes couples who meet, simply who don't stay together, for any reason. Information technology's interesting, to distinguish in dear betwixt the blighted and the destined. Romantic comedies, of course, confound the two.

three. Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone'southward pilus.

4. Retrouvailles (French):  The happiness of meeting again after a long time.

This is such a bones concept, and and so familiar to the growing ranks of commuter relationships, or to a relationship of lovers, who run into each other only periodically for intense bursts of pleasure. I'k surprised nosotros don't take any equivalent word for this subset of relationship elation. Information technology's a handy one for modern life.

5. Ilunga (Bantu): A person who is willing to forgive corruption the first time; tolerate it the second time, but never a third time.

Manifestly, in 2004, this discussion won the accolade as the world's well-nigh hard to translate. Although at first, I thought information technology did have a clear phrase equivalent in English language: Information technology's the "iii strikes and you're out" policy. But ilunga conveys a subtler concept, because the feelings are unlike with each "strike." The discussion elegantly conveys the progression toward intolerance, and the different shades of emotion that we feel at each stop along the way.

Ilunga captures what I've described as the shade of gray complexity in marriages—Non calumniating marriages, but marriages that involve infidelity, for example.  Nosotros've got tolerance, inside reason, and nosotros've got gradations of tolerance, and for different reasons. And and then, we accept our limit. The English language linguistic communication to describe this state of limits and tolerance flattens out the complexity into black and white, or binary lawmaking. You put up with information technology, or you don't.  You "stick information technology out," or non.

Ilunga restores the gray scale, where many of us at least occasionally detect ourselves in relationships, trying to love imperfect people who've failed u.s. and whom we ourselves have failed.

vi. La Douleur Exquise (French): The centre-wrenching hurting of wanting someone you tin can't have.

When I came across this word I thought of "unrequited" love. It's not quite the same, though. "Unrequited beloved" describes a human relationship state, but not a state of mind. Unrequited honey encompasses the lover who isn't reciprocating, equally well as the lover who desires. La douleur exquise gets at the emotional heartache, specifically, of beingness the one whose love is unreciprocated.

seven. Koi No Yokan (Japanese): The sense upon offset coming together a person that the ii of yous are going to autumn into love.

This is different than "dearest at offset sight," since it implies that you might have a sense of imminent honey, somewhere downward the road, without nonetheless feeling it. The term captures the intimation of inevitable honey in the future, rather than the instant allure unsaid past love at first sight.

8. Ya'aburnee (Arabic): "Yous bury me." Information technology's a declaration of one's hope that they'll die before another person, considering of how hard it would exist to live without them.

The online lexicon that lists this word calls information technology "morbid and beautiful." It'southward the "How Could I Alive Without You?" slickly insincere cliché of dating, polished into a more earnest, poetic term.

ix. Forelsket : (Norwegian):  The euphoria you experience when you're get-go falling in love.

This is a wonderful term for that blissful state, when all your senses are acute for the honey, the pins and needles thrill of the novelty. There's a phrase in English for this, but it's clunky. Information technology'due south "New Relationship Energy," or NRE.

ten. Saudade (Portuguese): The feeling of longing for someone that you love and is lost. Some other linguist describes it as a "vague and abiding desire for something that does non and probably cannot exist."

It's interesting that saudade accommodates in one word the haunting desire for a lost love, or for an imaginary, incommunicable, never-to-be-experienced love. Whether the object has been lost or will never be, it feels the same to the seeker, and leaves her in the same place:  She has a desire with no future. Saudade doesn't distinguish between a ghost, and a fantasy. Nor practice our broken hearts, much of the time.

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sebastianforead1983.blogspot.com

Source: https://bigthink.com/the-present/the-top-10-relationship-words-that-arent-translatable-into-english/

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