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Hannah is a senior writer and self-publisher for the anime section at ScreenRant. There, she focuses on writing news, features, and list-style articles about all things anime and manga. She works as a freelance writer in the entertainment industry, focusing on video games, anime, and literature.
Her published works can be found on ScreenRant, FinanceBuzz, She Reads, and She Writes.
Some K-dramas feel engineered in a lab to hijack your heart, and Netflix’s upcoming Can This Love Be Translated? absolutely fits the bill. With Kim Seon-ho and Go Youn-jung leading the cast, the series leans hard into fantasy-romance wish fulfillment, blending celebrity glamor with slow-burn emotional tension. It’s the kind of premise fanfiction writers have been perfecting for years.
Premiering January 16, according to Netflix, the drama centers on a famous star and the interpreter hired to translate her words as she travels the world filming a television program. But language barriers don’t just complicate press events, they complicate feelings. As they move from country to country, misunderstandings pile up, glances linger, and the question becomes whether emotions need translation at all.
A K-Drama Where Romance Gets Lost in Translation
At its core, Can This Love Be Translated? uses one of romance’s most beloved devices: two people who desperately want to understand each other, but keep missing the mark. The interpreter isn’t just translating dialogue; he’s filtering emotion, intent, and vulnerability. That imbalance creates a constant push and pull that feels tailor-made for angst lovers.
Kim Seon-ho’s casting only heightens that tension. Known for playing emotionally layered characters, he brings warmth and restraint to roles that hinge on unspoken feelings. Pairing him with Go Youn-jung, whose screen presence effortlessly balances elegance and sincerity, gives the series a dynamic that feels intimate even amid glamorous, globe-trotting settings.
The travel-show backdrop adds another layer of romantic fantasy. Each new destination becomes a reset button for their relationship, offering fresh chances for connection and fresh opportunities for misunderstanding. It’s episodic yearning at its finest, where scenic views contrast with the quiet loneliness of two people stuck just short of emotional clarity.
Why Can This Love Be Translated? Feels Like Fanfiction in the Best Way
There’s something undeniably fanfic-coded about this setup. Celebrity falls for the one person who sees them without the spotlight. A professional boundary that slowly erodes. Emotional confessions that almost happen but don’t, yet. These are the tropes readers bookmark, reread, and scream about in comment sections.
Netflix seems fully aware of that appeal. The premise isn’t trying to reinvent romance; it’s refining it. By leaning into heightened emotion and soft, introspective moments, the drama promises the kind of slow, indulgent storytelling fans crave after a long day of reality.
If Can This Love Be Translated? delivers on its concept, it won’t just be another 2026 K-Drama release, it’ll be the show viewers obsess over weekly, dissecting every glance and mistranslated phrase. Sometimes love doesn’t need new words. It just needs the right story to say everything out loud.
Release Date January 16, 2026
Network Netflix
English (US) ·