Cover Photo: A photograph of four people around a table, smiling and clinking glasses over a spread of food.
Photograph courtesy of the author/stamp by Eliza Harris

Translating for My Friends Is My Love Language

Whenever I travel, I make a point to speak the local language as much as possible.

Staseraoggicenapranzoun bicchiere di vinoun’altra bottiglia

cucchiaiyogurt

See you soon.

cinquantaquindici

translationmi chiamomy name is

I love you

Matt Ortile is the author of the essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name and the co-editor of the nonfiction anthology Body Language. He is also the executive editor of Catapult magazine and was previously the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. He has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and MacDowell; has taught workshops for Kundiman, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and PEN America; and has written for Esquire, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, Out magazine, and BuzzFeed News, among others. He is a graduate of Vassar College, which means he now lives in Brooklyn.