ABSTRACT
Language has a powerful influence on how people perceive, experience, and understand the world. The concepts people have at hand, for instance, shape how they interpret and articulate their lived reality and can even affect what constitutes reality itself (e.g., which phenomena are even noticed at all). In that respect, one way to influence outcomes like well-being is to help people refine and enrich their conceptual tool kit, such as providing a more detailed lexicon for them to process and understand their emotions. Such initiatives have already been successfully used in school, but a potentially new avenue of exploration involves engaging with other languages, and in particular, the intriguing phenomenon of untranslatable words (i.e., those without an exact equivalent in one’s own language). By reflecting on such words, people may be empowered to enrich their understanding and experience still further, with potential benefits to well-being.
