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This Portuguese Untranslatable Word Teaches Us Everything About Life

Nicole Baptista
3 min readSep 15, 2023

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Porto, Portugal.

As a language lover and teacher, I have always been fascinated by words that have no direct equivalents in other languages.

I guess some words have such deep meaning that they are just beyond translation.

For those who aren’t familiar with me, I come from a Portuguese background. In my language, we have a key word that describes a strong emotional state many of us feel on several occasions throughout our lives.

Photo by André Lergier on Unsplash

Countless writers and articles have tried to capture its essence, but none have quite really “hit the nail on the head”:

“Saudade”

If you have a sit-down with a Portuguese friend, they will more than gladly try to explain this word to you. I’m going to do my best in written words.

Perhaps the closest and most accurate definition I found online was this one:

“The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a

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Nicole Baptista
Nicole Baptista

Written by Nicole Baptista

Writer I Poet I Language Teacher. Let's talk: Spirituality, education, feminism. Also baby goat obsessed. Www.nicolebeewriter.com Insta: @nicolebaptistaa

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