Quotes About Translation

Just as typography is human speech translated into what can be read, so photography is the translation of reality into a readable image.

Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.

Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.

English is not my language.

I had to know at least two languages.

I have a good ear for languages.

I suppose I try to be a translator of sorts, striving to translate emotion and vision into words, to express the life force of animals and landscapes, to give them voice. I pore over the lustrous details of nature and human nature. How different is this from a monk devoting his life to an illuminated manuscript?

When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.

But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana . That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right.

I speak only one language, and it is not my own.

A writer who wants to be translated and published abroad faces a very difficult challenge: first of all, he must make sure that his book is cosmopolitan in the best sense of the word, that it is interesting to a global audience. Nobody is going to read about problems that they don't care about.

Above all, translators must be native speakers. It's not because they speak the language better -- I understand that sometimes a foreigner can learn a language better than native speakers. It has more to do with having an intimate knowledge of the society for which the book is being translated.

We read privately, mentally listening to the author's voice and translating the writer's thoughts. The book remains static and fixed; the reader journeys through it.

It's beginning to sound like the part we play is 'mediator'," Vasiht'h said, the mindline tacky with the memory of embarrassment, like something spilled and left without cleaning. "Goddess knows I've untangled enough squabbles in my family to know sometimes what you really need is a third party to translate.

But however good you get at translating personality into line or paint it's no go if your personality isn't worth translating.

When misunderstandings arise, remember that we speak different languages; take the time necessary to translate what your partner really means or wants to say. This definitely takes practice, but it is well worth it.

Thus a translation of a translation brought us together, but I can see now that we were still very far apart, farther apart indeed than languages, even though we had laughed together, for our laugher was cruel, as laughter often is. I was laughing at the awkwardness of a Chinese mind, the translator's; Su-ling at the awkwardness of a Western mind, mine.

In Spanish, the word esposas means both 'wives' and 'handcuffs'.

Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo all mean 'capital' in their respective languages.

The voice collects and translates your bad physical health, your emotional worries, your personal troubles.

You are in physical existence to learn and understand that your energy, translated into feelings, thoughts and emotions, causes all experience. There are no exceptions.

A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen.

The faithful do not die; perhaps they become translated from this perishable world to the world of eternal existences.

En aquel momento no se lo conté a nadie, ni a mis amigos ni a mi familia: no encontraba la manera de traducir lo sucedido a gramática y sintaxis.