CAUTION: MEANINGLESS RANT ABOUT RANDOM ITALIAN WORDS AHEAD.

I warned y’all.

The other day I was hanging out with some Japanese acquaintances of mine. It’s something us poor mentally unstable kids studying Japanese do in order to actually learn something practical, meeting foreign people who are struggling with languages just as much as we do. We meet, we talk (or at least try to, in some sort of brain wrecking mixture of Japanese, Italian, broken English and wild hand gestures that would put every mime actor in shame since how the do you say *insert word here* in English-slash-Japanese?) and drink. Mostly drink, a few sips of Spritz can make you outdo any language barrier.

Ahem, back to the main point: we came across a few Italian expressions, ways of saying, that we just couldn’t translate and had a really hard time explaining. Something like “qualcosa che non quadra” (literally “something that is not squared”, try and guess what it could mean, another way of saying it is “i conti non tornano”, literally “the sums don’t balance”).

All languages have peculiar expressions that can’t be translated, not literally, it’s one of the most interesting things about idioms. But one particular word we couldn’t explain, no matter how hard we tried.

It’s DISAGIO.

Now, what’s disagio? The closest literal meanings we can give are “awkwardness”, “inconvenience”. Since I feel like pretending to be an erudite little , I’ll even put the pronunciation: /diˈzadʒo/. mind you, the disagio is not just a noun. It’s a state of mind, a way of living, and – unfortunately – a constant discomfort that plagues one’s existence.

It’s a particular locution dumb youngsters (heh) like me use quite often, and it doesn’t have one precise meaning for us. It does have a definition you can find on the dictionary (uncomfortable situation or condition, sense of pain or inconvenience felt because of the inability to adapt, or more generally a sense of embarrassment), but we use it for everything, no joke here, it’s like parsley, you’ll find it everywhere.

You lose the bus and arrive late for your first class? Disagio. You can’t find a boyfriend because you’re a shy potato? Disagio. You can’t stop yourself from craving that Oreo cake you saw on Instagram? Disagio. You found yourself a study area that will keep you up at night and slowly consume your life and soul? Freaking disagio.

You can’t escape from it, you can’t deny it, it’s part of your being like the double chin that pops up whenever you’re reading fanfictions sprawled on your bed at 3 am. At a certain point, you come to accept it and it becomes a sort of source of pride. Trust me, I’m pretty sure you’ll find the non-disagiati, those ever-the-perfects dudes that seem to have swallowed all the luck available around you (yours, your best friend’s, your parents’ and your dog’s) pretty boring to say the least. The standard disagiato will always have an embarrassing story to tell, and they’re pretty hilarious. So, if you ever get the chance to come in Italy, and you hear a bunch of dudes using this interesting (not really?) term, just know that they’re poor potatoes struggling with life, so give them love. They can be pretty interesting, and the least judging people (since they’re usually the ones being judged), so they’ll be easy to talk to.

Rrrright, I’m done with another completely meaningless rant. Lately I’ve been sort of gloomy, I kinda needed the meaninglessness.

Peace~

Quick question:

How do you say disagio in your language?