237 Quotes About Translation

Il aime que les langues se parlent en sous-main, qu'elles tissent des dialogues impalpables, invisibles à l'oeil qui ne les traduit pas. Qu'on ne distingue plus les affluents du fleuve principal.

So many people consider their work a daily punishment. Whereas I love my work as a translator. Translation is a journey over a sea from one shore to the other. Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the frontier of language with my booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors.

Naturally, translators who dare to complain about these mistakes [e.g. false friends] are labelled hairsplitters and pedants (FR: pédants pinailleurs), but it is a badge we should wear with pride.

Canlı, esnek, devingen, değişken öğelerden oluşan yazın dili, düzanlamlar doğrultusunda bir kalıplaşmaya, geleneksel bir kurallaşmaya zorlandığı an ölür. Gerçekte yazın metinlerinin, salt dilbilimsel temelli bilgisayar çevirisine elverişsizliği de, bu özelliklerinin doğal bir sonucudur.

Translator is a journey over a sea from one shore to the other. Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the frontier of language with my booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors.

Et puis il faut écouter Donald Trump, parce qu'il est contagieux : au Brésil, en Hongrie, en Turquie, en Italie, en Autriche et ailleurs, la violence des mots et des actes s'intensifie. Dans ces pays, qui se croient è l'abri grâce aux leçons de l'histoire, de plus en plus de citoyens tendent l'oreille vers l'Amérique et écoutent, eux, la langue de Trump.

A desire to believe (despite all evidence to the contrary) that words are at bottom the names of things is what makes the translator’s mission seem so impossible.

One can, of course, speak several languages. There are speakers who are competent in more than one language. Some even write several languages at a time (prostheses, grafts, translation, transposition) . But do they not always do it with a view to an absolute idiom? and in the promise of a still unheard-of language? of a sole poem previously inaudible?

The problem, of course, is that languages are not only languages. They're also worldviews -- and therefore, to some extent, untranslatable ...