Comments on: Is “saudade” really untranslatable? https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/ a blog by a multilingual lifelong expat/international, linguist, researcher, speaker, mother of three, living in the Netherlands and writing about raising children with multiple languages, multiculturalism, parenting abroad, international life... Sun, 12 Apr 2020 21:04:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Visiting My Self in the Museu da Emigração Açoriana | Emanuel Melo torontonian azorean writer https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/#comment-30700 Thu, 18 Oct 2018 14:15:21 +0000 http://expatsincebirth.com/?p=2144#comment-30700 […] absence for something lost. There are words in different languages that also capture the essence of saudade.  Ultimately, everyone who longs to return to their home of origin, even when the safety of that […]

]]> By: expatsincebirth https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/#comment-27562 Sat, 26 Nov 2016 17:58:36 +0000 http://expatsincebirth.com/?p=2144#comment-27562 In reply to C.A..

I will send you a mail, then you have it 😉

]]> By: C.A. https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/#comment-27524 Thu, 03 Nov 2016 11:28:55 +0000 http://expatsincebirth.com/?p=2144#comment-27524 In reply to expatsincebirth.

For sure! Please, give me an email for I can send you the translation

]]> By: Mintas Lanxor https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/#comment-27274 Sun, 21 Aug 2016 05:39:57 +0000 http://expatsincebirth.com/?p=2144#comment-27274 It seems to me that any Portuguese or Brazilian person you ask has different but overlapping definitions of “saudade”. I agree with some of the persons interviewed that the uniqueness of “saudade” may have been invented by the Portuguese-speaking people as a myth to make themselves look emotionally unique in their own eyes. One would have to know many languages to categorically claim that they don’t have corresponding equivalents. Even the word itself (which is a general linguistic phenomenon in all languages) means different things in different contexts. It can be nostalgia for your home country, for things that used to be, a melancholy outlook on life as a mild sort of depression (the tragic sense of life), longing for things, locations, or people you’ll never have access to, etc. It never combines all of those things in the same context. Maybe one can say that this words covers many emotions that other languages differentiate with separate words, but even that is a false generalization since Portuguese has synonyms for saudade as melancholy, sadness, longing, the blues, nostalgia, etc.

In my case, I tend to feel saudade or nostalgia for Brazil even though I’ve never been there. This emotion is primarily due to my extensive listening of Musica Popular Brasileira, which I find to be a unique expression of emotion through a fusion of melodic and rhythmic complexity not usually found elsewhere in popular music.

]]> By: José Benardi https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/09/13/is-saudade-really-untranslatable/#comment-26948 Fri, 20 May 2016 14:26:02 +0000 http://expatsincebirth.com/?p=2144#comment-26948 I too perceive that about extranar.

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