Amae, Saudade, and Schadenfreude

In this chapter, we focus on three emotion terms that are hard to translate to English and that have often been discussed as examples of culturally specific emotions: amae, a Japanese concept related to the experience of mutual dependence in relationships; saudade, an emotion concept present in Portuguese-speaking contexts related to longing and nostalgia; and Schadenfreude, a German emotion concept that describes a feeling of pleasure at another person's misfortune. For each emotion, we examine its linguistic roots, explore its components, and discuss its function in the respective cultural context. We argue that each of these emotion terms refers to a category of experiences that fulfil a salient function in the respective cultural context; these meanings are not readily or fully available for English speakers without immersing themselves in the socio-cultural context in which the emotion terms are commonly used.