Quotes & Sayings About Translators

The best translators slip into the glove of a text and then turn it inside out into another language, and the whole thing comes out looking like a brand-new glove again. I'm completely in awe of this skill, since I happen to be both bilingual and a writer, but nevertheless a lousy translator. — Alma Guillermoprieto

A satisfactory translation is not always possible, but a good translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved. (Newmark) — Peter Newmark

Translation software is not making translators obsolete. Has medical diagnostic software made doctors obsolete? — Nataly Kelly

These days, information is a commodity being sold. And designers-including the newly defined subset of information designers and information architects-have a responsible role to play. We are interpreters, not merely translators, between sender and receiver. What we say and how we say it makes a difference. If we want to speak to people, we need to know their language. In order to design for understanding, we need to understand design. — Erik Spiekermann

I teach Korean translation at the British Centre for Literary Translation summer school, so I see an emerging generation too, who are around my age. I'm hoping to find time to mentor, and to help emerging translators to a first contract through Tilted Axis. — Deborah Smith

No one has claim to originality in literature; all writers are more or less faithful amanuenses of the spirit, translators and annotators of pre-existing archetypes. — James E. Irby

Scientists in different disciplines don't speak the same language. They publish in different journals. It's like the United Nations: You come together, but no one speaks the same language, so you need some translators. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The most basic barrier was language itself, very few Americans in Iraq whether soldiers or diplomats or news paper reporters could speak more than a few words of Arabic. A remarkable number of them didn't even have translators. That meant for many Iraqis the typical 19 year old army corporal from South Dakota was not a youthful innocent carrying Americas good will, he was a terrifying combination of firepower and ignorance. — Dexter Filkins

My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate. — Heinrich Boll

He wonders again if the dead need translators; perhaps in a moment, in a simple twist of unbecoming, they know everything they need to know. — Hilary Mantel

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. — John Donne

They say nothing!" the little captain raged. "They only putrid gunner, ship engineer. I, Ba-Karkar, must speak for all!"

Ogu kicked him again. "Then ask what kind help Asahel wants, untranslatable epithet male. Or no more untranslatable for you! Never again in putrid boomer prison."

Her husband gave a choked gasp. "Cruel female!"

"No more sex, either," she added. — Julian May

So Custer's Indian scouts get him to the village but they're like "Dude, don't attack this you will definitely die" and Custer is like "DIE? MORE LIKE . . . NOT DIE" and his translators and his soldiers are like "No bro pretty sure we will actually die if we do this" and Custer is like "I appreciate your concerns but I did not get this far by listening to people. LET'S SPLIT UP, GANG WE'LL COVER MORE GROUND THAT WAY. — Cory O'Brien

Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him. — Friedrich Schleiermacher

Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament. — Milan Kundera

Preface WITH THE ADVENT OF multiple modern English translations of the Bible being published over the last fifty years, Christians have come to realize that there can be a wide range of meanings and renderings of various words from the Bible in the original language. As a Hebrew teacher and student of ancient languages one of the most common questions I get is, "What is the best translation?" This is usually followed by the question, "Which translation is the closest to the original Biblical language?" The answer I give to both questions is, "All of them." With few exceptions, every translation and paraphrase of the Bible is done with much scholarship and prayer by the translators. Every translator is convinced that he or she has presented the best renderings for each word and firmly believes they have given the rendering that is closest to the original language. So we now ask the question as to why there are — Chaim Bentorah

The translator constantly learns new things about himself. — Ventseslav Konstantinov

Music Doesn't Need Interpreters and Translators — Ellen J. Barrier

Translators are the shadow heroes of literature. — Paul Auster

All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another — John Donne

A common misconception held that midi-chlorians were Force-carrying particles, when in fact they functioned more as translators, interlocutors of the will of the Force. — James Luceno

Similarly, Haynes (1998, viii) notes that many professional translators, and their organizations, remain remarkably uninformed with regards to the progress made in translation technology. He goes on to observe that many are so largely unenthusiastic about it - with attitudes lying somewhere between skeptical and scathing - their very ignorance seeming to contribute to their fear that their jobs will be threatened by this technology. — Lynne Bowker

Part of it may be that translators are paid by the word, so the more carefully they work on a translation, the less they are paid for their time, which means that if they are very careful they may not earn much. And often, the more interesting or unusual the book, the more painstaking they have to be. For one or two difficult books, I took so long over each page that I earned less than a dollar an hour. But I'm not sure this explains why so many people do not respect translators or would simply prefer not to think about them. — Lydia Davis

The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it. — Jonathan Coe

We are all mediators, translators. — Jacques Derrida

It is useless to read Greek in translation; translators can but offer us a vague equivalent. — Virginia Woolf

I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. — Michael Cunningham

Language is one of the more complex human cognitive functions," Narly Golestani, Group Leader of the university's Brain and Language Lab, tells me during a recent visit. "There's been a lot of work on bilingualism. Interpretation goes one step beyond that because the two languages are active simultaneously. And not just in one modality, because you have perception and production at the same time. So the brain regions involved go to an extremely high level, beyond language"["In other words: inside the lives and minds of real-time translators," Mosaic, November 18, 2014]. — Geoff Watts

Writers rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread. — Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Even though I believe a superlative translation can achieve timelessness, that doesn't mean I think other translators shouldn't attempt other versions. The more the better, in the end. — Lydia Davis

There is an old Italian proverb about the nature of translation: "Traddutore, traditore!" This means simply, "Translators-traitors!" Of course, as you can see, something is lost in the translation of this pithy expression: there is great similarity in both the spelling and the pronunciation of the original saying, but these get diluted once they are put in English dress. Even the translation of this proverb illustrates its truth! — Daniel Wallace

There is so much information in one Hebrew word that translators are hard pressed to decide how much information should be cut. Since the first official translation (the Septuagint), Jewish translators advocated translating Hebrew (for outsiders) at the 'story' level.
pg viii — Michael Ben Zehabe

Those who can't, and can't teach, translate.
(attrib: F.L. Vanderson) — Mort W. Lumsden

You don't find strangers declaring themselves to you awkward?' But then she wouldn't, would she? People must fall in love with her hourly. She must keep a staff of translators to interpret the proposals of love and marriage.
'It's easier to love a woman when you can't understand a word she's saying,' Roxane said. — Ann Patchett

Many of the Central Asians know Russian, and Ted Levin speaks it fluently. I speak Chinese, but Mongolian is completely different, so we had to have translators. — Yo-Yo Ma

It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth. — James Hillman

He'd shot and beaten people because he couldn't talk to them.Violence was the only language nobody could understand. There were no translators. — James Meek

Whether they know it or not, most American playgoers owe an incalculably great debt to translators. Were it not for their work, comparatively few of us would be able to enjoy the plays of Chekhov, Ibsen or Moliere. — Terry Teachout

Some attempts at translating from one language into another one can be pretty funny if the translators don't know what they're doing. — Lori Peckham

Translators need a lot of skills besides fluency in at least two languages; translators need to be excellent writers in their native language and need to be interested in and skilled at terminology research using both paper dictionaries and the Internet. — Corinne McKay

For hundreds of years the use of the word 'man' has troubled critical scholars, careful translators, and lawyers. Difficulties occur whenever and wherever it is important for truth-seeking purposes to know what is being talked about and the context gives no intimation whether 'man' means just a human being irrespective of sex or means a masculine being and none other. — Mary Ritter Beard

If one could read fluently, confidently, in every known language, one would have no need of translators or translations; one could read Homer on Mondays, Akhmatova on Tuesdays, Swahili poets on Wednesdays, and so on. — Abraham Verghese

Nor is it in fact a purely human knowledge bound by the context and categories of the human mind. Rather, metaphysics, which some of his translators render as metaphysic in order to emphasize its non-multiple but unitary nature, is the science of Ultimate Reality, attainable through the intellect and not reason, of an essentially suprahuman character and including in its fullness the whole of man's being. It is a sacred science or scientia sacra, a wisdom which liberates and which requires not only certain mental capacities but also moral and spiritual qualifications. It — Frithjof Schuon

Writer's make national literature, while translators make universal literature. — Jose Saramago

Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. — Edith Sitwell

The difficulties besetting the translators of the LXX were very great. It was almost impossible to reproduce the native inimitableness of a Semitic language in an Aryan tongue. They had to adopt new constructions, some lexical and syntactical forms which were foreign to the older Greek. — John Courtenay James

In antiquity , for instance, one of the dominant images of the translators was that of a builder: his (usually it was him, not her) task was to carefully demolish a building, a structure (the source text), carry the bricks somewhere else (into the target culture), and construct a new building - with the same bricks. — Andrew Chesterman

It is only logical for the translator to become a part of the world of the author. — Ventseslav Konstantinov

The translators of the Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any we see in our present writings; the which is owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole. — Jonathan Swift

Translators have to prove to themselves as to others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just translate well because they have a "flair" for translation, but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to understand various aspects of their work. — Mona Baker

Men talk of "the mistakes of Scripture." I thank God that I have never met with any. Mistakes of translation there may be, for translators are men. But mistakes of the original word there never can be, for the God who spoke it is infallible, and so is every word he speaks, and in that confidence we find delightful rest. — Charles Spurgeon

Usually the German translators do something terrible, especially with Tom Wolfe, which is that they make it local. So if the characters are from Harlem, the translators put all this Berlin slang into their mouths, and that's just terrible. You cringe when you read that. But there really is no good solution to the problem, except learning English. — Daniel Kehlmann

I have a tendency to trust translators, mainly because nobody does it for the money. — Juan Gabriel

I worked with two young women translators. One died and the other received a death threat from the Taliban. — Eliza Griswold

in fact, vast passages from the King James Version of The Bible had been copied virtually verbatim and spread throughout, comprising almost one eighteenth of The Book of Mormon. Koplanski then went on to further question the veracity of Smith's claim that The Book of Mormon had been originally written in the 1st Century. He did this by pointing out that the near identical King James Version passages included within The Book of Mormon also contained the same italicized words that the KJV translators had inserted into the King James Version when it was completed in 1611, some 200 years before Smith discovered and translated the Gold Plates. — Jack L. Brody

The sciences of only one nation, the Greeks, have come down to us, because they were translated through Al-Ma'mun's efforts. He was successful in this direction because he had many translators at his disposal and spent much money in this connection. — Ibn Khaldun

All nonfiction writers, whether they like it or not, are translators. The translator is the perfect journalist. The best journalism endeavors to convey an essential idea or story to an audience that knows very little about it, and that requires translation. To do this successfully, the writer must filter the idea through the prism of his eye, and his mind, and his writing style. — Ilan Stavans

I'faith, 'tis an Occasion of no small Satisfaction to commence this Enquiry into the Romances & Fiction of the English--& their antick Neighbors, the Irish & the Scotch--free at last from the Tyranny of scurvy Translators--& to reacquaint myself with the earliest Works that engender'd my Love for the Novel. O Swift, O Fielding, O Sterne, I hail thee after too long an Absence, keen to revel once more in your rare Inventions and pricking Raillery, along with those of your less-fam'd Countrymen. Prithee look kindly on these Efforts of yr humble Servant to blazon your Glories to the gaping Pucklick. — Steven Moore

When you entered the cavern of another language, you could leave certain people behind, for they had no interest in following you in. You could, by way of translation, emerge from the cavern and share your adventures with them. You didn't have to be an intellectual in a black beret smoking clove cigarettes to be a translator, not at all. You could become one in your blue flannel pajamas, your face smeared with Clearsil. You did. — Elizabeth Mckenzie

As the Italian proverb says, 'Translators are traitors.' At some level we all are traitors to the text, saying a little less than the Greek says (thus leaving some meaning behind) or a little more (when trying to clarify). Under- and over-translation.

A good reason to learn Greek and Hebrew, and an even better reason to read more than one translation. — William D. Mounce

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. — Sergei Lukyanenko

Nowadays we are fond of literal translations ... That would have seemed a crime to translators in ages past ... They wanted to prove that the vernacular was as capable of a great poem as the original. — Jorge Luis Borges

The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either 'explained,' or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I joined a organisation called Wycliffe Bible Translators that had the objective of translating the Bible into all the languages of the world, and to do that you had to study linguistics, and so that was my initial exposure to linguistics. — Daniel Everett

Glory, for the translator, is borrowed glory. There is no way around this. Translators are celebrated when they translate celebrated books. — Tim Parks

...literary translators are the interpreters of human values - and the true peacemakers. — Margaret Obank

Intrinsic to the concept of a translator's fidelity to the effect and impact of the original is making the second version of the work as close to the first writer's intention as possible. A good translator's devotion to that goal is unwavering. But what never should be forgotten or overlooked is the obvious fact that what we read in a translation is the translator's writing. The inspiration is the original work, certainly, and thoughtful literary translators approach that work with great deference and respect, but the execution of the book in another language is the task of the translator, and that work should be judged and evaluated on its own terms. Still, most reviewers do not acknowledge the fact of translation except in the most perfunctory way, and a significant majority seem incapable of shedding light on the value of the translation or on how it reflects or illuminates the original. — Edith Grossman

We need to be skilled into knowing God and His Word, then act as excellent translators of these things to the people in our churches. — Vicky Beeching

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they're no good. — Etgar Keret

I was in the second year of my PhD when I first had the idea - I'd recently started working as a translator, which meant firstly that I was hearing about amazing-sounding books from other translators, and also that I was getting enough of an insider's view of the publishing industry to be aware of all the implicit biases that made it so difficult for these books to ever get published, especially if they weren't from European languages (harder to discover, editors can't read the original, lack of funding programmes, authors who don't speak English). — Deborah Smith

A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him. — Samuel Johnson