When the same words don't feel the same
Finding the right words to talk about ourselves isn't always easy. We may know what we want to say and still feel that the words don't quite capture it. When we speak more than one language, what we want to say doesn't always come to us in the same one. A thought may come to mind in English, a memory in Italian; a word can have a perfectly accurate translation and still not feel quite the same. We may even find ourselves switching languages halfway through a sentence without consciously deciding to.
The languages we speak are tied to our personal history — to the people we grew up with, the relationships we've had, the places we've lived, and different periods of our lives. Over time, words can take on meanings that extend beyond their literal definitions, shaped by the experiences and relationships we associate with them.
When we're talking about something personal, these differences can become more noticeable. We don't always know exactly what we're feeling before we begin to talk about it; sometimes, as we try to put an experience into words, something about it becomes a little clearer.
The same experience may also feel different depending on the language we use to talk about it. A word may feel more immediate in one language, more distant in another, or carry different associations because of the memories, experiences, and relationships connected to it.
How our languages become part of our story
The languages we speak become part of our lives at different times and in different ways. Some have been with us since childhood, woven into our earliest relationships and the voices we grew up hearing. Others may have come later, through school, work, a relationship, or moving somewhere new.
Over time, certain words can become closely associated with particular people, places, or moments. They may remind us of the way someone used to speak to us or seem to belong to a particular period in our lives. Even when a translation is accurate, it may not carry everything a word has come to mean to us.
We may use a language every day and feel completely at ease in it, yet find ourselves turning to another for certain memories or feelings. At other times, a language we learned later may give us a way to speak about experiences we had never put into words before.
No single language will necessarily feel more personal for everyone. The place a language comes to hold in our lives is shaped not only by when and how we came to speak it, but also by the people, relationships, and experiences we have come to associate with it.
When a language feels closer
The language associated with our earliest experiences and relationships can sometimes carry a particular emotional weight. Research on bilingualism and multilingualism suggests that, for many people, a first language may feel more emotionally charged than a language learned later in life (Verkerk et al., 2023).
That doesn't necessarily make it easier to talk about something emotional. In fact, the very immediacy of a first language can sometimes make certain experiences harder to put into words. Speaking about the same experience in another language may create a degree of emotional distance, even when we know exactly what we want to say.
At times, that distance can make something difficult feel a little easier to approach. At others, it can leave us with the sense that the words don't fully capture what we're trying to express.
I think it's important, though, not to assume that moving from one language to another has a particular meaning. Sometimes it may simply be the language that comes more naturally in that moment. When a shift does seem significant, its meaning can only be understood in relation to the person — what they're talking about, the experiences connected to that language, and the relationships in which it has been spoken.
For that reason, I wouldn't think of a first language as necessarily the “best” language for talking about something emotional. What may be more useful is to notice whether something about the experience feels different when it is spoken about in another language — and, if it does, to consider that difference without deciding in advance what it means.
Moving between languages
When we speak more than one language, we don't always keep them neatly separated. We may begin talking about something in one language and find that a particular word, expression, or memory comes to us in another.
Sometimes it's simply the word that comes first. At other times, one language seems to capture something that the other doesn't quite reach. We may only become aware of the difference when we try to say the same thing in another language and realize that, somehow, it doesn't feel quite the same.
These shifts can be subtle. A word may suddenly feel harder to say, an experience may seem closer or more distant, or one language may feel more natural without an obvious reason why. When that happens, the shift itself can become part of what we notice as we try to understand what we're putting into words.
But not every change in language needs to be interpreted. Sometimes the word that feels right is simply the one that comes.
When translation isn't quite enough
Talking about something personal can be difficult enough without also having to search for exactly the right words. When we speak more than one language, we may find that something comes easily in one but is much harder to express in another.
This can become especially noticeable when the language of our daily life is not the one connected to every part of our experience. We may speak Italian at work, with friends, and throughout much of the day, yet find that something deeply personal comes more readily in English. For someone else — or even for the same person at a different moment — the opposite may be true.
I don't think this makes one language more genuinely “ours” than another. Different languages may simply be connected to different parts of our history, our relationships, and the ways we have learned to speak about ourselves.
In a psychological consultation, there doesn't always need to be a perfect translation. A word may come in English while the rest of the conversation unfolds in Italian. Sometimes it takes longer to find a way of saying something; at other times, we may realize that even the closest translation doesn't quite capture what we mean.
There can be room for that uncertainty. We don't have to settle on the right word immediately. Sometimes taking the time to find a way of expressing something can also help us understand more clearly what the experience means to us.
A place for both languages
There may not always be one language that feels right for everything we want to say. Some experiences may come to us more readily in one, while other words, memories, or ways of describing ourselves seem to belong more naturally to another. What feels possible to say in each language may also change over time.
Perhaps what matters, then, is not deciding which language is the “right” one, but allowing the conversation to follow the language in which something can be said most naturally. At times, that may mean staying in one language; at others, moving between the two without needing to translate everything along the way.
For me, offering psychological consultations in both Italian and English means being able to make room for both. Not because moving between languages necessarily carries a particular meaning, but because when both belong to a person's experience, both can become part of the way that experience is spoken about and understood.
References
Dewaele, J.-M., & Costa, B. (2013). Multilingual clients' experience of psychotherapy. Language and Psychoanalysis, 2(2), 31–50.
Pavlenko, A. (2008). Emotion and emotion-laden words in the bilingual lexicon. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11(2), 147–164.
Verkerk, L., Fuller, J. M., Huiskes, M., & Schüppert, A. (2023). Expression and interpretation of emotions in multilingual psychotherapy: A literature review. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 23(3), 617–626.