In many cultures, unique words and expressions of each society abound. Many of them do not have a clear explanation and sometimes cannot even be translated, but they perfectly portray the feelings or emotions of those who use them.
Japan, for example, has many expressions that do not have a specific translation into Spanish or another language. However, its meaning transcends to other cultures and although we cannot define it in a single word, we enjoy and use that expression in its native language.
If something defines Japanese culture, it is its deep feeling about existence and life. There are very particular words to refer to nature, to certain human connections and wonderful stories of love and nature (like that of sakura) that give meaning to existence.
From this sense we went through 11 beautiful Japanese words that describe sensations, experiences, perceptions and even unique emotions. Those kinds of terms that sometimes in their original language say everything, but to create a translation it is almost impossible to capture their true essence.
11 Japanese words with beautiful meanings:
- Ikigai: a reason to exist; what makes you get up every day in the morning.
- Ukiyo: A floating world, living in the moment away from the hassles of life.
- Mono no aware: the bittersweet taste that leaves a brief, agonizing moment of transcendental beauty.
- Wabi-sabi: finding beauty in life’s imperfections and calmly accepting that it is part of the natural cycle of growth and decay.
- Fuubutsushi: sensations, aromas, images or anything that evokes memories.
- Yugen: deep and mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe and its effect on us. Those sensations that the cosmos causes in us and we don’t know how to express.
- Shouganai: That things are out of your control, that it can’t be helped.
- Boketto: the act of contemplating with a gaze lost in the distance.
- Komorebi: sunlight streaming through the leaves of a tree causing dancing shadows.
- Amaoto: the sound of raindrops.
- Unkai: the wonderful sea of clouds that can be seen from the top of a mountain.
When we try to name a sensation, action or moment, poetic and extraordinary words can often emerge. Those that allow us to somehow express a wonderful feeling or something that we thought was inexplicable.
With Japanese words we allow ourselves to name what had no name in our culture. But at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to create new expressions, words that somehow manage to evoke what the universe or the environment provokes in us.
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