Translation is a strange thing.

In Chinese, we have two words: jìsuàn (to calculate) and suànjì (to scheme). In English, both can collapse into “calculation.” On the page, they look identical. But once placed inside life, the flavor changes immediately. Some people are calculating numbers. Others are calculating you.

Language does not differentiate through vocabulary alone. It ferments through context.

I have always felt uneasy about certain translations especially those rendered from French or German with immaculate grammar and perfect rhythm. The sentences are correct, polished, almost theatrical. Everything aligns. And yet nothing settles.

It is not that I don’t understand them. It is that I understand them too clearly. So clearly that there is no air left inside. No seam. No space to enter.

But if a sentence cannot be translated at all, it cannot be shared. And if it can be translated perfectly, perhaps it did not need sharing in the first place.

What truly requires communication always sits in the middle. It crosses over but not entirely. You understand half of it, and the rest must be completed by intuition.

Names often look strange in different languages. Not because they were mistranslated, but because they were never meant to align perfectly.

Perhaps the real power of language is not in delivering us smoothly to one another. It is in making us feel the resistance.

That moment of friction when something doesn’t quite pass through may be where understanding actually begins.



—— XC Scribbles · 壹佰零柒 CVII 🪞