Fun foreign words – Sehnsucht and Duende

Just the words, ma’am? Then skip the first two paragraphs.

I have a glancing familiarity with some languages (French, Danish, Portuguese; minimal smatterings of others). One of the delights is learning words that have no direct translation (and then dropping them casually into conversations, in a puerile attempt at intellectual chest-beating. But I haven’t done that in ages. At least a week. But I digress.) Schadenfreude, Saudades, hygge etc etc etc

One of the other delights of my non-wifey weekends is the Financial Times weekend edition. Most of the meaty fact-based (albeit selected through the prism of serving the global killer elite) reportage, but with

• a colour magazine containing columns by the always brilliant Simon Kuper, Gillian Tett and Tim Harford, and the often very funny Robert Shrimsley, asides from v.interesting features
• the Life and Arts section, with book reviews, essays, “Lunch with the FT”, the Slow Lane, Harry Eyres etc. And the crossword. All this for £3. It will be my Desert Island luxury, if I ever climb those dizzy heights (I’d be there by now, frankly).

All this is a needlessly long introduction to –

Sehnsucht – “a yearning for something that is unobtainable.” (Quirke, 2015)

Duende – “a sort of spirit, something that no amount of training can achieve.” (Eyres, 2015)

Things to do while the algae grow in my fur – re-read Trevanian’s extraordinary novel Shibumi

References

Eyres, H. (2015) Gifts from the court of Federer. Financial Times, 17/18 January

Quirke, A. (2015) Messages from humanity. Financial Times, 17/18 January