To translate is to betray
It is said that to translate is to betray. It is an ancient proverb, but one that is still alive today. Indeed, perhaps now that we are so interconnected, and it is so common to have to produce or read texts in languages foreign to our roots, this old proverb takes on a very clear meaning. Every translation is born from an act of love—and, at the same time, from a small act of infidelity. Because translating means touching someone else's words, shifting them into a new light, trying to bring them to life in a language that is not their own.
"No two words coincide perfectly. Every language has its own breath, a secret rhythm, a unique way of looking at the world. And so, in the transition from one language to another, something is inevitably lost: a shadow, a nuance, a subtle scent that cannot be captured. This is the betrayal.
Yet, perhaps, it is also salvation. Because translating is not just repeating: it is rewriting, recreating, bringing back to life. The translator is not a mere intermediary, but a craftsman of words, an interpreter who seeks fidelity not in the letter, but in the spirit. To betray, then, can mean to love too much: to accept that every linguistic love requires a loss, and that every loss, if understood, can be transformed into beauty."
These poetic and beautiful words, which I found in an old essay from my university days (terribly distant times, but I have no intention of revealing how distant), perhaps did not yet imagine the advent of machine translation programs. Or perhaps they did, but saw them as limited to the technical/scientific field.
And instead…
The progress of machine translation systems, especially the most advanced ones based on complex models, has opened up remarkable opportunities: they allow us to understand an article and enter into a conversation in a very short time, and even to launch into unlikely literary works of little depth, such as fan fiction. I confess that after decades of writing limited to reports, reports, data interpretation, scientific articles, medical texts, and limited to the workplace, where the style must be as unliterary as possible, after a few attempts (perhaps even successful) to write something less dry than a medical article, I found myself having to emotionally engage audiences completely foreign to my world about the ‘human’ side of my work. When speaking, it is not difficult: words become heated, images enchant, emotions come out on their own, enthusiasm, despair…all very easy.
When I was asked to write about some of these experiences to include in a book, along with those of many other humanitarian workers, it was a pleasure. Even though the editor had carefully crafted my words to make them more beautiful, concise, and engaging.
Will I be able to do it on my own, without anyone to embellish my words?
Working with emotions is a game of massacre between the faithful transcription of reality and the emotions that rise directly from the stomach, hard enough to make you fly, dry enough not to fall into useless pity or, worse still, into pathos.
Training yourself to write in the hope of conveying something beautiful, engaging, of showing something of your own world is a very pleasant challenge.
The next step is to invent a story from scratch, with few links to reality, a game of fantasy, a flight of dreams and images that crowd the mind, asking to come out.
And in all this, what about translations?
Well, those are always a drama.
If I spend time finding the phrase that reflects a thought, the word that touches the heart, the image that evokes a whole world… what can a poor automatic translation program know about it?
Okay, fan fiction isn't really high literature, and I'm no Dante Alighieri. But I'm not a minor novelist either.
I'm just someone who discovered the pleasure of storytelling late in life and wants to connect with others who share the same passion.
Is there a need to translate my work? Probably not, maybe yes, the question is whether it will remain faithful to what I wrote, but flow well in the new language, perhaps even with a certain style.
The problem is that I know nothing about the style of the new language in which I have been assisted with the translation.
I don't know the literature, I can't distinguish the style, I don't understand if a sentence sounds romantic, nasty, crude, tender… I don't know, and I am forced to trust these programs, knowing all the limitations they suffer from.
The use of machine translators in fan fiction is a valuable resource—it opens the door to a wider audience at virtually no cost—but it is not a complete solution if the goal is to maintain quality, the author's personality, and the reader's full engagement. It is useful as a starting point or as a multilingual “draft,” but for a result that does justice to the text, human intervention (even if only for revision) is necessary.
But the basic problem remains: editing, like a good translator, costs money. And money, as we know, doesn't grow on trees.
What a silly image: let's shout the truth to the world: writing is an inexpensive hobby, and that's one of the reasons why it's so popular.
Writing well is not for everyone, and writing something worth spending money on translations… well, I don't think that's me.
So, I accept the challenge: a challenge that doesn't exist, since there is only one contender.
The Automatic Translator wins the challenge with itself.
I'll just watch, and hope that something of the meaning I wanted to convey with these words remains.
Thank you for reading this far.
PS: I wrote all this nonsense myself, it's not the automatic translator's fault: it's entirely my own.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
