“I’m fine” doesn’t become “Sto bene”.
In English, “I’m fine” often means “don’t ask me.”
In Italian, “sto bene” is a promise.
Break it, and you betray twice.

I learned this not from a textbook, but from my own voice — cracked, unsteady — saying “Sto bene” to a friend who looked at me and said nothing. He didn’t need grammar. He heard the lie in the pause.

This happens again and again.

A colleague says “Va tutto bene” after a tense meeting — not with calm, but with exhaustion. He isn’t stating a fact. He’s drawing a line: “I won’t speak of this again.” No dictionary records that boundary.

I read a novel translated from English where every “Sure!” became “Certo!” — and the character sounded eager, almost joyful. But in the original, “Sure” was quiet, polite, maybe even tired. The word was correct. The world was lost.

Translating isn’t matching vocabulary. It’s listening for the silence between syllables — the weight a word carries in its native air — and choosing, in your own language, the closest thing to that truth.

Because words aren’t containers. They’re vessels. And sometimes, the vessel must be reshaped to carry the same water.

• In English, “sorry”’s said for a spilled coffee.
• In Italian, “scusa”’s reserved for real harm.

Translate one as the other, and you don’t correct — you distort.

The honest translator doesn’t ask: “What does this mean?” But: “What’s this trying to protect?”

And sometimes, the only faithful choice is to leave the word untouched — to write “fine” and let it stand, foreign but true — then add, quietly: “Not ‘bene’. Not a promise. A shield.”

If you translate to be correct, you build a bridge no one crosses. If you translate to be true, someone will walk across — and recognise you on the other side.