Living in Translation: The Beauty and Chaos of Becoming
Living in Translation: The Beauty and Chaos of Becoming
Series: In the Making
Goal: Illuminate the vulnerability and beauty of life
TLDR – Living in Translation: The Beauty and Chaos of Becoming
Living in a foreign language is both beautiful and disorienting. It’s more than vocabulary; it’s a transformation of identity and perception.
Keywords: living abroad, language learning, identity shiftMistakes in translation become moments of growth, showing how fluency isn't perfection; it's presence.
Keywords: language barriers, personal growth, cultural transitionSilence, stumbles, and uncertainty shape a deeper understanding of connection and self.
Keywords: emotional connection, self-discovery, cross-cultural communicationLiving in translation reveals that identity is not fixed. It’s adaptive, evolving with every new word, mistake, and moment.
Keywords: evolving identity, self-reflection, life abroadWe are all in translation: becoming, adapting, learning to be understood without needing to be perfect.
Keywords: becoming, humanity, vulnerability, personal storytelling
Table of Contents
Living in Translation: The Beauty and Chaos of Becoming
Living in translation means constantly surrendering control
Finding a New Version of Yourself
Living in Translation: The Beauty and Chaos of Becoming
There’s something radical and profoundly disorienting about living in a language that isn’t your own.
When I moved to Norway, I thought I was just learning vocabulary, new nouns, strange verb conjugations. I imagined the process would be linear, almost mechanical: memorize the words, use the words, become fluent.
I quickly learned that language is not a coat you slip on. It’s a second skin you grow into. Every mispronunciation, every half-understood sentence, every blank stare across a coffee shop table wasn’t just a communication gap… it was a moment of becoming.
Like the time I confidently shouted “politet!” instead of “politi.” Combining the Norwegian words “police” and “potato”. The word doesn’t exist, but my voice echoed through anyway. My husband laughed, I did too. In that moment, I wasn’t laughing at the mistake. I was laughing at the uncertainty. At the strange, disjointed reality of being both seen and not understood.
Another time, someone asked me if I wanted to go for a swim. I thought they were asking if I wanted to join them in the bathroom. So I nodded, uncertainly, and gave a crooked smile… hoping the rest would make sense eventually. It didn’t. That, too, was a lesson not just in language, but in letting go.
Living in translation means constantly surrendering control
Saying “yes” when you’re only 60% sure, and trusting that kindness will meet you where clarity does not. It means feeling articulate one moment and infantile the next. It means expressing your deepest thoughts in a vocabulary that sometimes only lets you skim the surface.
Here’s what they don’t tell you: this in-between space this limbo, awkward, beautifully vulnerable space. It is not failure; it’s a threshold.
When you’re in translation, everything becomes a little more alive. You watch people’s faces more closely. You listen for tone, for nuances, for emotion behind the words. You become a student of humanity. In the process, you begin to understand that fluency isn’t just about speaking perfectly it’s about being fully present, even in your imperfection.
Some days I feel fluent. Other days I cobble sentences together like broken shells on a beach.
Finding a New Version of Yourself
Somewhere between the silences and the stumbles, I’m finding a new version of myself. Not a polished one. Not a fluent one… but a more patient, more curious, more forgiving one. A version of me who knows that understanding doesn’t always come from words and that sometimes, connection is born from the very act of trying.
Living in translation has taught me that identity is not fixed. It shifts. It adapts. It bends and expands and reassembles itself in real time. The self I was in my mother tongue is not the same self I am in this new language. Maybe that’s the point.
We are all in translation, in one way or another. Learning to speak a little more kindly. To listen more deeply. To show up, even when we don’t know quite what to say.
This isn’t just about learning a language. It’s about becoming someone who no longer needs to have all the right words to be fully present.
Maybe that’s the most radical fluency of all.
— Making Us
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