* Pick one concept from the assigned reading, not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.
One concept that I found interesting is the notion that meanings are directly translatable. Trenholm (2008) mentions that “one of the attitudes that most interferes with successful intercultural communication is the belief that everything that can be said in one language can be said in another, that meanings are directly translatable into other languages” (p. 355).
In my opinion, one word that can never be translated into other languages is the Brazilian word SAUDADE(S). When one says “Que saudades de você!”, the simplistic translation into English would be “I miss you!”. But saudade is applied not only to people one misses, but also to places one visited, experiences one had, among others. If you want to know more about the meaning of this word, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade.
If you talk to any Brazilian and mention the word saudade, he or she will tell you that there is no way to translate this word in a way that it fairly expresses its deep meaning. As a matter of fact, saudade is my favorite Brazilian Portuguese word.
Ibirapuera
W16 - Discussion Question # 3
16 years ago
Although I don’t speak a different language, I encountered the problem of un-translatable words just the other day. Like we do in English, a lot of words sound the same but have different meanings (such as red and read, or be and bee) in other languages. The other day my boyfriend's mom (who speaks Russian as her first language) was trying to tell me a joke that she heard from her Russian friend but the whole point of the joke was that someone used the wrong meaning of a word. Although she told it to me in English, it just ended up not being very funny because the joke really didn't translate well and by the time she explained why it was clever, the joke was overworked. It just goes to show that some things really aren't translatable as in the case with your word saudade. (p.s. my sister speaks Brazilian Portuguese so now i'm really curious to ask her opinion about this word!)
ReplyDeleteHello Commeleon,
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect example you used to demonstrate that some words are not translatable.
Yes, ask your sister. She probably knows that the word "saudade" only exists in Portuguese. Let me know her thoughts. :)
Ibirapuera