Untranslatable Words Card Set

The School of Life Untranslatable Words 

 We’re hugely dependent on language to express how we really feel, and yet words often feel curiously vague or frustratingly inaccurate.

There are lots of moods, needs and feelings that our own language has not yet properly pinned down. The perfect word - even if it comes from abroad - helps us explain ourselves to other people, and its existence quietly reassures us (and everyone else) that a state of mind is not really rare, just rarely spoken of.

We’ve designed these cards to reflect the excitement we find in encountering and old photograph or an object in a flea market or antique stall, one that feels familiar yet foreign and is thus infinitely evocative.

How to Use the Cards

You might…

• Turn to these cards to find a word that speaks most powerfully to your mood.

• Sort through and select a card to send to a friend as a memento of a particular feeling you associate with them.

• Play a game with your partner by taking it in turns to remember a time you may have felt or known the untranslatable word to be most true.

20 cards included