Untranslatable emotionsUntranslatable emotions
All In The Mind
In English there's no single word to describe an anxiety about how much aeroplane flight is damaging our environment. But in Swedish the word for this anxiety is 'flygskam'. And perhaps, having a word for this specific emotion may change the way we think about it Come on our tour of culture and language to explore some strange destinations and untranslatable emotions.
25:06•3 Nov 2019
Untranslatable Emotions: Naming Feelings You Never Knew You Had
Episode Overview
- Naming specific emotions can increase emotional granularity, helping people distinguish between feelings like anger, despair and anxiety.
- Research mentioned links richer emotional vocabularies with better recovery from stress and being less likely to use alcohol to cope with bad news.
- Different cultures offer unique emotion words, such as Arabic tarab, Welsh hiraeth, Norwegian kos and Japanese mono no aware and wabi-sabi.
- Tim Lomas has created a large catalogue of untranslatable emotions to show how language can enrich wellbeing and expand how people understand love, longing and other experiences.
- Putting a label on certain feelings, such as Swedish flygskam or Japanese shinrin-yoku, can help turn vague experiences into recognised, even therapeutic, practices.
“By having a greater number of words to label our emotions we can improve what's known as our emotional granularity.”
How do people find the right words for feelings they can barely explain? This episode of All In The Mind heads off on a linguistic road trip, showing how emotions are shaped – and sharpened – by language. Reporter Katie Silver chats with people from Norway, Syria, Wales, Spain and beyond, each sharing emotional words with no direct English equivalent.
You’ll hear about Norwegian *kos* – "a state of lovely coziness, of warmth and intimacy" – and Arabic *tarab*, described as "a musically induced ecstasy or enchantment" brought on by long classical performances. Welsh speaker Yolo James talks about *hiraeth*, a deep spiritual longing for a place or past, while Catalan and Spanish speaker Sergi explains *tener duende* as having a kind of emotional magic or soul.
Psychologist Dr Tim Lomas, whose research underpins the episode, explains how he’s collected nearly 1,200 of these so‑called untranslatable emotions. He argues that naming feelings can expand our emotional life and even support mental health. As he puts it, "by having a greater number of words to label our emotions we can improve what's known as our emotional granularity".
Research he cites links richer emotional vocabulary with better stress recovery and being less likely to drink alcohol to cope with bad news. Tim walks through ideas like different “flavours” of love, Japanese concepts such as *mono no aware* and *wabi-sabi*, and newer terms like Swedish *flygskam* for climate-related anxiety about flying. There’s even a nod to invented words from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, such as *sonder*.
If you’ve ever felt something oddly specific and thought, "there must be a word for this", this episode might leave you wondering what emotions in your own life are still waiting to be named.
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