Dance and Travel

  As a Portuguese learner and Brazilian culture and music passionate, I couldn’t stop noticing that some words do not have a translation in other languages. In my experience Portuguese language is charming and full of words that hold a tremendous amount of feeling and symbolism. Indeed, Brazilian culture is deeply intertwined with music, rhythm, traditions, and feelings. Some feelings and gestures do not have a translation. Here are my personal list with the 7 most meaningful words in Brazilian Portuguese that simply cannot be translated completely into English. 1 )Saudade Probably the most untranslatable Portuguese word. It is a nostalgic and profound state of melancholic longing for a person, place, a situation or anything that exists. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. In English can be expressed with melancholy, longing, or nostalgia. Ex. Que saudade daquela época onde a gente ainda era criança e se divertia c...

As a Portuguese learner I had soon to face the problem of learning new vocabularies. Among them it is impossible not making reference to one of the most important: “Saudade”. If you have been in Portugal or in Brazil at least once in your life, you should have heard about this feeling. Yes, because I am talking about “a feeling” which is untranslatable in other languages and that is a key word to understand the culture and the two countries as a whole. As a consequence, in this article I am going to explain the etymology of the term first, then I will try to give a definition. Finally I will propose possible translations of the word. The etymology of Saudade is controversial, however the prevailing theory affirms that it derives from the Latin Solitate which means “solitude”; from that term derives the modern for of Soledad” in Spanish and Solid ã o in Portuguese. Nevertheless, the form Saudade involves also the influences of Saudaç ã o, greeting, and Saude, health, salvat...