I know it is not that deep, but every single time I see or hear someone say “translation is a betrayal of the original source” or “translation means I can never truly grasp what was meant” and mean it, I die a little inside. Do you know how much time, effort, countless nights spent agonising over context, meaning, intention, historical context, research etc. goes into a translation? Do you know about the concept of translation loyalty, how we are taught that it is one of the golden rules? Our loyalty to readers and author alike? How much understanding of a topic does not only go into translation but into interpreting as well? How much determination, frustration and love it all takes? How informed you have to be about hot words, cultural peculiarities, language-specific concepts and the like?
Do you know how much adoration goes into providing another human’s words - one whom you may have never met but by all that is holy and damned, their voice exists and it is worth being heard by all, no matter if they have access to the original language or not -, their thoughts and dreams and hopes and whatever else there is, for all eyes and ears and fingers?
It is demanding work. It makes you doubt and doubt and want to pull your own teeth out sometimes. I have spent minutes analysing a sentence simply to find the correct translation for the word “as”. I have checked sources, researched novels and plays long forgotten, hours before I would actually get to translate. I have spent nights researching, swallowing tears and cries of anger older than me, for interpreting jobs. I have felt unbridled joy upon delivering a valuable translation, could have jumped in exhilaration when elderly people came to me, smiling and thanking me profusely because they are interested in working for a good cause but they would not have been able to understand this conference without my friend and I because the conference was held in English, not German.
My state exams are coming up. I am this close to being a state certified and court-sworn translator and interpreter. Something I’ve been training for for 3 years. I would have never discovered Neil Gaiman as an author without the translation of “Norse Gods”, which I needed as reference material back in school. I would not be able to teach my mum English if not for my Scottish teacher during my time becoming a commercial correspondent and then starting to train as a translator. Without translation, nobody would ever be able to learn another language, or even get to know a different culture.
Translation is an act of love.
It’s in the smile of the Ukrainian kid whom I’ve interpreted for at a gaming conference, who did not speak a lick of German. It’s in the eyes of the Canadian Paralympics delegation stopping in Munich, whom we’re interpreting a sports event, a state dinner and a welcome speech for. It’s in the laughter of refugees whom have been here for months to years, shunned by the government and left to be unheard until the multiple conferences, projects, organisation meetings held to help them, to make sure they are not forgotten. Who joke around with us in bits of English and Farsi - through another interpreter -, forge connections with others attending the meeting, quipping and teasing in broken German and my mother tongue rings as sweet as bells. It’s in the hands of elderly people attending a talk about the banning of uranium weapons, shaking but full of strength, as they thank us for our help. It’s my mother’s smile as I translate medical articles for her, as she never learned English, growing up in the GDR.
Translation is an act of loyalty and love. Of adoration for those who were, who are and who will be, and all the echoes of ourselves.
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
origamiaround
germansingergirl
