I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.
The existence of another, competing translation is a good thing, in general, and only immediately discouraging to one person - the translator who, after one, two, or three years of more or less careful work, sees another, and perhaps superior, versio...
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.
In our country for all her greatness there is one thing she cannot do and that is translate a person wholly out of one class into another. Perfect translation from one language into another is impossible. Class is the British language.
I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.
Each one of us needs to discover the proper balance between the masculine and feminine energies, between the active and the receptive. (104)
It is useful to study different traditions in order to be free of attachment to any one way of expressing what is beyond expression. (x)
One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit.
If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first glance. We readers, after all, quickly adapt to the style of a translator, stop noticing it, and get caught up in the story.
The Yorubas have a saying, here, my translation in English--a poor fool is a bigger fool rich. In other words, money only allows and enables you to be more of who you are. My bigger translation? You don't jump essence, you jump environs!
Bryan: A friend gave this to me. It's Albanian. You mind translating it? Marko: [translates paper] "Good luck". Bryan: You don't remember me? We spoke on the phone two days ago. I told you I would find you.
To whom shall I offer this book, young and sprightly, Neat, polished, wide-margined, and finished politely? To you, my Cornelius, whose learning pedantic, Has dared to set forth in three volumes gigantic The history of ages—ye gods, what a labor!�...
We are all mediators, translators.
Shakespeare's bitter play [Troilus and Cressida] is therefore a dramatization of a part of a translation into English of the French translation of a Latin imitation of an old French expansion of a Latin epitome of a Greek romance. (p. 55)
Very often conditions are recorded as observable "under thy fingers" [...] Among such observations it is important to notice that the pulsations of the human heart are observed.
Before Gutenberg, libraries were small -- the Cambridge University library had only 122 volumes in 1424, for instance; after Gutenberg literacy became widespread.
If one’s life is so unsatisfying that an unhealthy activity brings a shred of happiness, it is nigh impossible to give it up unless something that brings greater happiness can be enjoyed in its stead. (28)
The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear...
Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest? When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.
The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much.
Every age, and especially our own, stands in need of a ; but the difficulty is in finding men who have the courage to be one, and men who have the patience to endure one.
