‘Can This Love Be Translated’ Stars Kim Seon Ho And Go Youn Jung On Why Some Emotions Don’t Need Words

ATTENTION EVERYONE, this is not a drill: Kim Seon Ho — dimples et al — is back on our screens! I’m sure folks would agree that since his Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha days, there’s been a Kim Seon Ho-shaped hole in the K-drama lead landscape, one that his brief hiatus (not including a star turn in When Life Gives You Tangerines) only made more pronounced. Now he’s returned alongside rising starlet Go Youn Jung in a Hong Sisters production that asks: what happens when the person translating your words to the world might also be translating your heart?

I sat down with both stars to talk about playing against type, the limits of language, and why some emotions don’t need words at all.

Our interview (translated by Haley Jung) happens at the end of a grueling press day for them, and the start of a sleepless day and long-haul flight for me. In the beginning, I’m convinced everyone involved wanted it to be over as soon as possible, but the drama has so many aspects to talk about that time flies by quicker than we’d imagined.

The series follows Cha Mu-hee (Go), a struggling actress who becomes an overnight global sensation, and Joo Ho-jin (Kim), a skilled interpreter who becomes her translator. Shot across multiple countries—from the streets of Seoul to locations across Europe—the show is as much a visual travelogue as it is a layered romance.

Learning To Speak Without Speaking

Literally everyone has been asking them about the myriad countries the show visits (Choi Keeha’s cinematography is simply scrumptious, by the way), so I decide to steer clear of the question and ask about the language experience instead.

Kim trained with actual interpreters for the role, he tells me, one of whom actually worked at an embassy. “One thing I noticed is that the way they look at these people that are speaking,” says Kim. “I realized they tend to focus a lot on reading their lips as well, and also really try to catch everything that the person is saying in the quickest way and jot it down in memos.”

“This is something that’s quite difficult to capture on screen. However, it was something that I kept to my mind as I was giving my performance.”

The role also sparked a genuine interest in Italian. “Before jumping onto this project, I had zero other foreign languages that I speak outside of Korean,” says Kim. “Honestly, even Korean is challenging for me sometimes,” he continues as his team chuckles off screen,

“But through this project, I got interested in Italian, actually. I thought it was very fun to learn.”

The Hong Sisters Return To Form

Go has had previous experience with the Hong Sisters’ distinctive storytelling style, having worked with them already on Alchemy of Souls. “I know how great the Hong Sisters are in creating characters that are so endearing, that are lovable and also very colorful and multifaceted,” she says. “And so I was able to completely place my trust in them this time around as well.”

She identifies what makes their work unique: “One of their unique styles and charms is the fact that their stories carry a sense of fairytale likeness. While it is a story based in real life and it is grounded, at the same time, there are elements that can’t really be seen in the real world, which I think is one of the strengths of their work.”

That fairytale quality is evident throughout Can This Love Be Translated—from the mystical elements woven through the narrative to the knowing nod to Hotel Del Luna (eagle-eyed viewers will spot a “Hotel Death” billboard in one scene). It’s the Hong Sisters doing what they do best: grounding fantastical premises in very human emotions.

Playing Against Type

I notice that Go is very comfortable with silences, with taking her time to think before giving an answer.

For Go — whose recent work includes Hospital Playlist spinoff Resident Playbook, Alchemy of Souls, Moving, and Sweet Home — playing the emotionally expressive Mu-hee while being naturally more reserved created interesting parallels.

I, like many others, have seen a viral edit titled, ‘introvert 1st, actress 2nd’ featuring her looking uncomfortable in various public situations. Most netizens on my algorithm seemed to love the video (which has 1.8M views already), and commented things like “My spirit person😭😭” and “Me is she, She is Me 😍”.

I bring it up carefully, noting that it would be difficult as someone in the spotlight for someone to edit together moments when you’re having a hard time. Most of Go’s characters are bubbly and extroverted, but without spoilers, there are some parallels between her and her character Mu Hee in this situation. She is well aware.

“I actually don’t have a lot of experience going to big award shows,” Go admits. “So I actually was looking forward to shooting a similar scene because I thought maybe if I’m not actually at an award show, I’m only shooting it, then it might feel less nerve-wracking for me.”

“Recently, there was an award show that I appeared in where I was very evidently extremely nervous, and I think that really sort of started it all from the fans’ edits about that,” she says. “I remember one of the comments being, did someone force her to go and public speak or speak up in a class, right? It almost felt like that.”

She goes on to describe the similarities between herself and Mu Hee as someone who “struggles in her career and then out of the blue, she becomes a global top star overnight,” which she channeled in understanding the character.

“But honestly, I think regardless of my personality, in those moments, I feel like I should have been more professional,” she adds, which then leads to a several minute detour where I passionately expound upon the need for introverts in general society, if only to get the extroverts to pipe down for a second.

She doesn’t seem convinced, but smiles and thanks me anyway. It’s all rather sad, and I privately resolve not to like any more edits of people living their social anxiety in public.

In keeping with this, Can This Love Be Translated sees Kim and Go essentially playing against their own personalities. Mu Hee is hopeful and vulnerable and bubbly, while Ho Jin is blunt, reserved, and somewhat of a grumpus (which of course is softened eventually through the power of love, we love to see it). During filming, they discovered they’re opposite MBTI types, a realization which transformed their collaborative process.

“This is something that Yoon Jung and I talked about along the way when we were shooting the series,” Kim explains. “I think the both of us, we have different characters, right? It’s the opposite for us. So I’m actually F in MBTI, she’s complete T. And so it was so much to the point where we would switch characters in reading the lines, and that helped us understand the characters too.”

Lost In Translation

Our ‘yay introverts’ sidebar has left us with time for only one other question, but it’s a meaty, rather meta one about a show about translation.

Considering how a majority of Kdrama audiences do not understand the language, and thinking about how many original phrases get paraphrased or bypassed entirely, do they recommend people watch the original dub with subtitles or change the audio language entirely?

Kim’s response cuts to the heart of the show’s message: “I think that while it is a shame that some things are indeed lost in translation, I feel like because our drama series, the theme of it really is that each of us have our own language and it’s all different between all of us. And so we have to try to understand one another and convey how we feel to each other.”

“I feel like no matter what language you watch it in, if that message is able to be conveyed to those that are watching, I feel like no matter how you see it, our drama series is going to shine on its own.”

Go offers a perfect example of a phrase that resists translation: “하늘만큼 땅만큼 사랑해” (haneulmankeum ttangmankeum saranghae), which literally translates to “I love you as much as the sky and as much as the land.”

“You can’t really express it completely with all of its meanings and nuances into a different language,” she says. “But it’s a phrase that we use in Korea where we want to express the maximum amount of love for someone.”

Why It Works

What makes Can This Love Be Translated feel like a return to form isn’t simply the Hong Sisters’ signature style or the assured chemistry between Kim and Go. It’s that the show understands something fundamental: the best K-dramas have always been about bridging impossible distances — between the living and the dead, between past and present, between what we feel and what we can say.

As Kim puts it, “I feel like no matter what language you watch it in, if that message is able to be conveyed to those that are watching, I feel like no matter how you see it, our drama series is going to shine on its own.”

I can only speak for myself, of course, but shine it does.