Can This Love Be Translated?- Episodes 1-2

When Words Get Tangled, Feelings Don’t

Episode 1 of Can This Love Be Translated? opens on a quietly charged note, set on the final day of filming a reality show featuring South Korean actress Cha Mu-hee and Japanese actor Hiro. The scenery is stunning, the mood is tender, and standing between them, literally and emotionally, is their translator, Joo Ho-jin, interpreting from an off-site location.

Just when everything feels calm and professional, Hiro drops a line that completely derails Ho-jin. He tells Mu-hee that the scenery has meant more to him because she was part of it. Ho-jin freezes, clearly shaken, and when Hiro asks him to translate another message, we’re left guessing. Ho-jin delivers it as, “I need Cha Mu-hee to know I adore her.” But the way the moment lingers makes you wonder, are those really Hiro’s words, or did Ho-jin’s own feelings slip through the translation?

From there, the drama pulls us back to April, one year earlier, where everything truly begins. Ho-jin is in Japan, working as a translator for a Korean writer, and mentions that he’ll soon be heading to Spain for another job. After they part ways, fate steps in. Ho-jin ends up on the same train as Mu-hee, and somehow they both land at the same tiny ramen shop, Momo-chan Ramen.

Sitting beside her, Ho-jin overhears Mu-hee struggling with a translation app. Before he can really step in, chaos breaks out when a young Italian boy suffers an allergic reaction. Thanks to Ho-jin speaking Italian, he helps the family get the boy to an ambulance, a moment that quietly establishes his instinct to help without hesitation.

When Ho-jin returns, Mu-hee has been watching his things, and she asks for his help one more time, this time with something far messier than ramen orders. She’s there to confront her ex-boyfriend Yu-jin, now a chef at the restaurant. Through Ho-jin’s reluctant translating, Mu-hee learns that Yu-jin left her for a woman named Eiko, who is seven months pregnant… despite the fact that Yu-jin only broke up with Mu-hee three months ago.

Mu-hee storms out, understandably devastated, but the situation twists again when Eiko asks Ho-jin to pass along a message. The baby isn’t Yu-jin’s, it’s her ex-husband’s, and if Mu-hee can change Yu-jin’s mind, Eiko is willing to let him go. Mu-hee, fueled by heartbreak and love, convinces Ho-jin to go back in and translate once more, even though he desperately wants no part of this emotional battlefield.

What follows is raw and painful. Mu-hee asks Eiko whether Yu-jin spent time with her during the weeks he disappeared while dating Mu-hee. Eiko admits he did. Accusations fly, truths spill, and even when Ho-jin refuses to translate one particularly sharp comment, Eiko hits back hard, accusing Mu-hee of using her own abandonment and misery to keep Yu-jin tied to her.

When Mu-hee finally breaks down, she asks Ho-jin not to let Eiko see her cry. In a surprisingly gentle moment, Ho-jin pulls her into a hug, shielding her tears. He then lies to smooth things over, pretending they’re just travelers who stopped by out of politeness. They leave the restaurant together, part awkwardly… until Mu-hee runs back, realizing she accidentally took Ho-jin’s phone.

That small mistake leads to something unexpectedly sweet. The Italian boy’s mother calls to thank Ho-jin and offers him her dinner reservation as a gift. Ho-jin invites Mu-hee along, and she says yes. What follows feels like the heart of the episode: the two of them wandering Japan together, sightseeing, talking, and slowly letting their guards down.

Ho-jin learns Mu-hee is an actress, not a famous one yet and on a quiet island, he opens up about Ji-seon, the woman he once loved. He admits he came back to the island on her birthday, hoping to understand how much he still missed her, and confesses that a simple misunderstanding tore them apart.

Later, during a playful bet about which direction a restaurant is in, Mu-hee says if she’s right, Ho-jin has to follow her on Instagram. It’s light, flirty, and easy, until reality crashes back in. Ho-jin gets a call from Na Jin-suk, the man currently dating Ji-seon, who says they fought and that Ji-seon’s Instagram shows she’s in Japan. Ho-jin realizes she’s at the island observatory and, encouraged by Mu-hee, runs there as fast as he can. But just as he arrives, Jin-suk calls again, and the moment slips away.

The episode doesn’t let us sit with that ache for long. Time jumps forward, and Mu-hee lands the lead role in a zombie movie. On set, when a director clashes with a stuntman, Mu-hee boldly offers to do the stunt herself. The shot looks perfect, until the cables snap. She falls from the building.

Mu-hee wakes up months later in a hospital, having been in a coma the entire time. During her absence, the film The Quiet Woman and her character, Do Ra-mi, have become a global sensation. Somewhere else, Ho-jin sees the same news, tying their stories back together in quiet, aching symmetry.

When Fame Gets Loud, Feelings Get Complicated

Episode 2 of Can This Love Be Translated? gently pulls us back into Ho-jin and Mu-hee’s orbit, reminding us that no matter how far apart people drift, timing has a funny way of intervening.

The episode opens with Ho-jin returning to South Korea after three months. A casual comment from his driver about celebrities unexpectedly brings Mu-hee to mind. Acting on impulse, Ho-jin follows her on Instagram, becoming her 10,000th follower, and even sends her a message. At almost the exact same moment, Mu-hee takes a fall on set and gets injured, setting the tone for how strangely intertwined their lives have become.

Back in the present, Mu-hee appears on a German talk show, still visibly overwhelmed by how drastically her life has changed. It’s only been a few weeks since she woke up from her coma, and she can hardly believe her reality: over 10 million Instagram followers and global recognition. But the pressure is already seeping in. When she looks into the mirror, she doesn’t see herself, she sees Do Ra-mi, the character that made her famous.

Meanwhile, Ho-jin returns to his family home, a massive house that once belonged to his grandfather. Instead of peace and quiet, he finds Mr Kim warmly inviting guests to stay as if it’s a guesthouse. We learn that Mr Kim was close to Ho-jin’s grandfather, but Ho-jin is clearly emotionally distant. He asks Mr Kim to tell his mother to remove her belongings so he can sell the house, hinting at unresolved family tensions.

As Mu-hee’s fame grows, fans begin to notice Ho-jin in one of her Instagram photos, sparking curiosity online. Not long after, Mu-hee learns that Vogue Singapore wants to interview her and has hired an interpreter. To her surprise and clear delight, that interpreter turns out to be Ho-jin. During the interview, the topic of the man in her Instagram photo comes up. Mu-hee brushes it off lightly, calling him someone who helped her with directions, but admits there’s something charming about meeting a kind stranger.

Afterward, Ho-jin asks to speak with her privately, revealing that he intentionally took this job because he wanted to ask her something. Unfortunately, Mu-hee’s schedule leaves him waiting through her next appearance, a talk show. While waiting, he overhears her in the makeup room admitting that she can’t stop thinking about their memories together in Japan.

Ho-jin watches her on the talk show, clearly taken by her presence. Later, the two go for a walk, and Mu-hee suggests they finally have the dinner they never got to share. Ho-jin agrees but insists on keeping it short. He then gets straight to the point, asking her to take down the Instagram photo of him because it’s causing misunderstandings. Mu-hee pushes back, pointing out that deleting it might only fuel more rumors. Ho-jin finally admits the real reason, he doesn’t want Ji-seon to know he was in Japan on her birthday. Mu-hee is surprised to learn that he never even went to see Ji-seon that day.

After dinner, Ho-jin tells Mu-hee he’ll let her manager, Yong-u, know his final decision about the photo. On the ride back, Yong-u casually drops a revelation that completely shifts Mu-hee’s perspective: Ho-jin had visited her in the hospital while she was still in a coma, long before her movie became a worldwide hit. Naturally, Mu-hee becomes curious about Ji-seon and starts digging for answers.

At home, Ho-jin looks at a small charm tucked away in a drawer, triggering memories of how he and Ji-seon first met in Japan. She had bought matching charms for them, saying they’d help them find each other again someday. The next time he saw her, though, was when his friend Jin-suk introduced her as his girlfriend.

Ho-jin eventually messages Yong-u, asking that the Instagram photo be deleted, and Mu-hee complies. But while reading the messages on Yong-u’s phone, she notices something else, Ho-jin repeatedly checked on her condition while she was hospitalized. Moved, Mu-hee calls Ho-jin to thank him. Unfortunately, during the call, Yong-u loudly discovers Ji-seon’s identity and blurts it out. Ho-jin hears everything and is clearly upset.

Feeling responsible, Mu-hee goes to Ho-jin’s place to apologize in person. When she admits she was curious, Ho-jin invites her inside, determined to satisfy that curiosity and make sure she stays out of it going forward. He explains that he and Ji-seon met once while traveling but never reconnected until she started dating Jin-suk. When Mu-hee asks whether things between them would have been different if they’d actually gone to dinner that day, Ho-jin says no. He confesses that he’s visited the island on Ji-seon’s birthday every year and still has feelings for her.

Mu-hee laughs it off, clarifying that she just wanted to be sure he didn’t have feelings for her. Ho-jin agrees, and the moment lands with quiet finality. He says they shouldn’t meet again, though he’ll continue cheering her on from afar.

The episode closes on a striking note at a Tokyo film festival. As Mu-hee walks the red carpet, she suddenly sees Do Ra-mi again, this time pushing her. She has a terrifying vision of falling into a dark hole before jolting back to reality, where a Japanese actor has caught her mid-stumble. The moment causes a media frenzy.

Later that night, Ho-jin returns to his hotel room to find Mu-hee crouched outside, in tears. She tells him her “festival”, the metaphor they’ve been using for her incredible streak of luck...feels like it’s coming to an end.

DramaZen's Opinion

Watching the first two episodes of Can This Love Be Translated? felt like slipping into a story that’s quiet on the surface but emotionally restless underneath. From the very beginning, I found myself leaning in, not because of big twists or flashy moments, but because the drama understands how heavy unspoken feelings can be, especially when they’re tangled up in timing, language, and regret.

What immediately pulled me in during Episode 1 was the framing of translation itself, not just as a job, but as an emotional burden. Ho-jin isn’t simply relaying words; he’s constantly deciding what to pass along and what to hold back. That opening scene with Mu-hee and Hiro stayed with me longer than I expected. The way Ho-jin hesitates, the way the line between “translation” and “confession” blurs, it made me uneasy in the best way. I couldn’t stop wondering whether we were already watching a love story begin, or one quietly being sabotaged by fear.

The flashback to Japan is where the drama truly won me over. The ramen shop sequence felt painfully human. Mu-hee confronting her ex, the emotional messiness of that situation, and Ho-jin being dragged into it against his will, it all felt raw and uncomfortable, like real life rarely gives you clean emotional exits. What surprised me most was how gentle the show allowed Mu-hee to be even in her heartbreak. That moment when she asks Ho-jin not to let the other woman see her cry hit me harder than I expected. It was small, but it said everything about her pride, her vulnerability, and how alone she felt.

Their day together afterward felt like a breath of air. Watching them wander, talk, and slowly open up to each other made me feel that bittersweet ache you get when two people connect at exactly the wrong time. I could feel how easily this could have turned into something more and that made it hurt even more when it didn’t. By the time Mu-hee’s accident happened, I wasn’t just shocked; I was emotionally invested enough to feel scared for her, even knowing the drama wouldn’t end there.

Episode 2 shifted the tone in a way that felt intentional and unsettling. Seeing Mu-hee wake up to global fame should have felt triumphant, but instead it felt isolating. As a viewer, I felt that disconnect with her. Everyone else sees a star, but she’s still catching up to herself. The moment when she sees Do Ra-mi in the mirror instead of her own reflection genuinely unsettled me, it captured that loss of self that fame stories often gloss over.

Ho-jin, on the other hand, felt almost painfully grounded in comparison. His return home, his emotional distance from his family space, and his quiet decision to follow Mu-hee on Instagram all made him feel like someone watching life move forward without him. When their paths crossed again through work, I felt that spark immediately, but it wasn’t romantic fireworks. It was restrained, careful, full of things neither of them was brave enough to say.

What stayed with me most in Episode 2 was the slow reveal that Ho-jin had visited Mu-hee while she was in a coma. That detail completely reframed how I saw him. It wasn’t loud or dramatic, but it was deeply sincere. As a viewer, it made me soften toward him instantly. He didn’t show up because she was famous. He showed up because he cared.

Their conversation about Ji-seon felt like the emotional core of these episodes. It wasn’t about rivalry or jealousy, it was about unfinished feelings and emotional loyalty to the past. When Ho-jin said nothing would have changed between them even if dinner had happened, I felt that sting right alongside Mu-hee. And yet, I appreciated that the show didn’t romanticize false hope. Sometimes the most honest answer is also the most disappointing one.

By the end of Episode 2, when Mu-hee shows up outside Ho-jin’s hotel room in tears, I felt emotionally worn, but in a good way. These episodes didn’t rush me into loving the story. They let me sit with it. They let the silence speak. And as a viewer, I felt respected; trusted to pick up on the glances, the pauses, and the things left unsaid.

So far, Can This Love Be Translated? feels like a drama about timing more than romance, about how easily people miss each other even when they care deeply. And after just two episodes, I already feel that familiar ache of wanting these characters to be happy, while knowing the road there won’t be easy at all.