The School of Life Untranslatable Words Cards

A set of 20 cards which explain the meaning behind untranslatable words from around the world.

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.

This set of cards define some of our favourite words from the world’s languages and married them up with complementary images to create cards that bring some of our most important feelings into focus. We’ve created them to prompt greater reflection about the nature of language and the emotions.

Brand: The School of Life

The School of Life is an educational company with a mission to help you understand yourself better, and their eclectic and contemporary product range has been designed around this aim. The School of Life’s ideas fall into six key categories – self-knowledge, relationships, work, calm, sociability, and leisure and culture – and these ideas are shared through the organisation’s various channels. In addition to books, games, homeware and curiose, The School of Life offer online classes and courses, a library of eBooks and a YouTube channel, all based around their philosophy of life. So, what might start as a gift to yourself or another, could blossom into an enjoyable journey down a path of self-discovery and wellbeing.