(Credit: Netflix)

Imagine you move to a whole new country for work, right? You are excited, nervous, maybe more overwhelmed, but you are also ready to be That Girl, in this case That Boy. The one who knows five languages and kills it at his job without breaking a sweat. Sounds good for a K-drama, right?

But then the first assignment you get is this grumpy, mildly famous actress who is… not normal. Like, every conversation with her feels like a trap, and every look of hers makes you question your existence. And suddenly, your job, which was just about translating words, turns into figuring out what the hell is going on with this lady.

Can This Love Be Translated? is a show about this mess. It is a romance, sure, but it is also the most awkward, tense, slow-building situationship you have ever seen, and it is NOT fun. Along with Joo Ho-jin, you are also questioning whether you misunderstood a hint. Half the time, he doesn’t know if our lead, Cha Moo-hee, is complimenting him or if it is just a pure insult.

Many viewers watch a K-drama with the intention of getting lost in those cute moments, but this show will make you stay because every scene between these two is full of romantic tension.

And if you are worried that the tension won’t last long, don’t worry, because these two will take their own sweet time to fall for each other. There is no dramatic moment where someone confesses their love under the stars. This show is all about patience, as if all the awkward silences and weird energy from the world have been poured into it. Every time you think something is going to happen… it doesn’t, even after some of the best eye contact scenes you’ll witness.

The whole thing is built on restraint, and that will cause you the impatience you never wanted. At times, you’d feel the urge to skip to the episodes where they finally confess, but that’s when you’ll have to get your shit together if you don’t want to ruin it. And after a while, you get sucked into the push and pull of it all. The way they annoy each other, protect each other, and talk without really talking. Like, you know these two are meant to crash into each other eventually, but the universe just keeps throwing in plot points.

And let’s talk about him, the interpreter. He is smart, but way too good at pretending everything is fine. And he is so used to making other people’s voices heard that when it comes to his own, he freezes. And the way he obeys Cha Moo-hee… don’t you just love it when a man does that!

So if you have been craving something slow and romantic but also maddening, Can This Love Be Translated? is your new obsession.