Zen and art of translation

To me, translation is more an art than a science. And translators are very much like artists. A proof that translation is an art can be found in the fact that what may seem to be a beautifully crafted translation to someone, may not seem so to somebody else.

Jorge Luis Borges

Translating is like playing music. Some people may like it, other people may not. Mozart was a great composer, but that doesn’t mean that everybody likes his music! Musicians work with sounds, translators work with words. And exactly like in music sometimes a cover can be better than the original, also translations sometime can be better than the original. The great Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, after reading a great translation once said “The original is unfaithful to the translation.” Meaning that the translation was better.

The role of translators, like that of musicians, is not passive or mechanical. You may know how to play the piano, but that doesn’t mean that you can execute Puccini. At the same time you may speak a second language, but that doesn’t mean you can render the message in the same way it was intended by its original author. Translators need to master not only the language but also what’s behind it.

This is because translators are a sort of a bridge between different cultures, that of the source language and that of the target language. In fact, the word translation comes from the Latin “translatio”, which itself comes from “trans” and “fero”, together meaning “to carry across” or “to bring across”).

I recently found this video on the art of translation. It’s rather long (56 minutes). It’s in Italian with subtitles, but also with some parts in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.

Tradurre

The title of the video is Tradurre “Translating” by Pier Paolo Giarolo, published in 2007. The 12 translators appearing in the video are:

Erri De Luca
Fulvio Ferrari
Silvia Pareschi
Luca Scarlini
Nadia Fusini
Donata Feroldi
Elisabetta Bartuli
Rita Desti
Anna Nadotti
Paola Tomasinelli
Maurizia Balmelli
Enrico Ganni.

I find it very inspiring. And I personally have a lot of respect for that translator (Luca Scarlini) at minutes 23, when he says that he started this profession to impress a person who was very important to him. And how he did it? By translating Hugh Selwyn Mauberley by Ezra Pound.

Ezra Pound

Here is an excerpt:
Beside this thoroughfare
The sale of half-hose has
Long since superseded the cultivation
Of Pierian roses.

Enjoy the video!

Francesco Pugliano

A fine example of nicely localized software

 

I’m always very happy when I stumble upon a piece of software with nicely executed localization and today I want to share with you one of the most noticeable example that can be found in Apple iOS 5.

Here is the Setting screen of the iPhone in English:

How would you localize that On/Off switch in other languages?

Easier solution: just translate!

Would that work in Italian? Maybe, if you reduce the font by a lot! Not the best experience for the user though!

But would that work in other languages? Probably not!

To prove my case, here is the German translation of the switch. As you can see, Aktiviert would barely fit, whereas Deaktiviert definitely doesn’t fit:

Smart solution:

Well, at Apple they realized that it was going to be very hard to accommodate that switch in all the languages supported by the iOS. Hence, they decided to change the design of the switch itself for the international markets and use the convention I/O:

I personally believe that this a fine example of implementation driven by localization.

Francesco Pugliano