Every language has a word that doesn’t translate. Learning it teaches you a feeling you didn’t have a name for.

Feelings can be universal and still go unnoticed until a language gives them a name. Once you have the word, you start spotting the thing: a particular kind of cosy, a specific regret, the tiredness of being a guest too long. It was always happening to you. What changes is that you can now point at it, which makes it easier to talk about.

Look up two untranslatable words in a language you like and keep them. Notice when the feeling turns up in your own week. It is a small reminder that your own language, like every other, drew its lines in one of many possible places.