Translator, Poet, Writer, Editor
It’s not an exaggeration to say that translators are obsessed with context. If you ask how to translate a word, a translator will almost invariably say, “What’s the context?” Why? Because words often have different shades of meaning — or even completely different meanings — depending on how they’re used. Context is necessary because words…
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I’m going to say it up front: despite what you may have heard, poetry can be translated. In another language, a poem will sound different. Trade-offs will be made, and the music and associations will be transformed. But, in a good translation, they won’t be lost. For a highly interesting behind-the-scenes look at translating poetry,…
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I had never thought about the concept of “flow” in connection with translation until I attended a talk by Evgeny Terekhin at the 2020 conference of the American Translators Association. Evgeny described translating in the flow state and said he could tell when reading a translation if a translator was working in this state or…
I’ve been thinking lately about a thought-provoking conversation from a while back between translators Tim Gutteridge and Tim Parks about how to approach the translation process. I am especially drawn to this formulation by Parks: “Once we have read and really got close to the text, then writing well in the target language is a…
March 8 is International Women’s Day, and a perfect occasion to discover some great women writers in translation. While Elena Ferrante‘s name has been on everyone’s lips for a while now, and Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018, there are loads of other talented women writers from abroad who haven’t achieved…
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How do we know if a translation is good? Most people probably think of accuracy first, but we shouldn’t forget about style. Of course, a translation must accurately reflect the meaning of the source. But the way it expresses this meaning is also important. The style should always be tailored to the context and the…
Happy International Translation Day! This celebration takes place on September 30 in honor of Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, and who is the patron saint of translators. Little could Jerome have known, as he sat down to his arduous task, that 1,600 or so years later, machine translation would become a reality.…
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“In a foreign language — without interpreters — you express what you are able to say, not what you want to say.” ‒ Hans-Dietrich Genscher I saw this quotation in a tweet (thank you, Ale Checcarelli) and it got me thinking. When learning a foreign language, you need to stretch what you are able to…
One of the things I love about being a translator — and all the translators I know feel this way, too — is that I am always learning about new things. I recently translated a special issue of the magazine Beaux Arts on the 50th anniversary of the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory in France. It’s…
Perhaps you have never purchased translation services before and suddenly find yourself needing to hire a translator or interpreter. There are lots of reasons you may need to hire a translator. Maybe your company is expanding abroad. Maybe you are organizing a meeting with international speakers. Maybe you found an interesting piece of family history…
