Narrative medicine programs can today be found almost all over the world, but they are usually directed at first language speakers. As a result, not much attention has been paid to questions about language and culture in narrative medicine’s approach to healthcare. One of the main goals of narrative medicine is to enhance the narrative competencies of healthcare professionals – the ability to listen to, acknowledge and absorb the stories of patients (Charon et al. 2017). Likewise, there is growing evidence that this can help to create a more humanistic and patient-centered healthcare (Charon et al. 2017; Milota et al. 2019). But what is the role of language, linguistic awareness and linguistic and cultural belonging in narrative medicine?