An interesting thing happened to me: I had to do what I hate. And, oh boy, I do hate translation!
Now if I were to think about the root of this … problem, I shall probably go back to the reason I started learning the foreign languages in the first place. I simply wanted to read the authors’ masterpieces in original. Believe it or not, I once read Balzac and Zola in French. (Surprisingly, at one time I knew French far better than English – this is a reminder that if a foreign language isn’t practiced, it’s doomed to be forgotten.)
Why such a desire, you might ask. I do remember when my former teacher of linguistics, Mr Rumleanschi, mentioned an Italian proverb during one of our classes that stuck with me forever: Traduttore traditore. (For the record, this happened long before I learned Italian; for a very long time I thought it was Latin, by the way – this is about how treacherous our memory can be.)
So, my belief was, and still is that a lot is lost in translation. This has nothing to do with the professionalism of a translator, it rather deals with the concept that language is culture, and that the way one culture sees the reality is different from the way another does it. I might assume that the proverb was mentioned most probably while we were covering the notion of linguistic relativism. (Funny thing, I do remember the proverb, I forgot the context when it was mentioned – this is about how picky our memory is in terms of what to store in the long term memory.)
So, here I was asked to do the very thing I hated: to translate. Initially I didn’t quite understand what exactly I was supposed to do. I thought I should make some unofficial translation for two people I admired and liked. The event we all should attend was organised in my native language, so I was asked to make sure they get an understanding of what’s going on. This is something I’d definitely love to do.
Now imagine, my reaction when I had to go on stage and make the translation from English to Romanian. To say that I was shocked is to say nothing at all. This shock turned into stress and guess what happened? Fear took control over me (now picture the fear from “Inside Out” – I think my fear was behaving in a similar way when taking the control of me).
I was so freaked out that it became difficult for me to concentrate and remember what the speaker was saying. Luckily the person I was translating for, spoke slowly and delivered the speech in short chunks so that I could remember what was said. I am thankful for that to both speakers❤️ (This doesn’t mean that my panic wasn’t interfering with my translation process, but it tremendously helped me.)
When I watched just a few moments of me doing the translation (I can’t watch myself doing it), I noticed two things:
- How much weight I put on (This is my judgemental side coming into the foreground as well as my inability to accept myself just the way I am.)
- I was looking up to my right trying to remember what was said. (Now that is weird because psychologists claim that when people try to remember things, they look up and to the left, in my case it’s always to the right.)
But why is it that I was so freaked out? First of all it is because I’ve never focused on developing my translation skills. Yes, translation requires the development of certain types of skills. And there’s a huge difference between oral and written translation. Moreover, different sets of skills are required when doing a type of oral translation. So, synchronous and consecutive translation require different skills. People who do not focus on developing the necessary skills find it challenging to cope with the task, and only an incompetent person will think that they are fantastic. (If you don’t believe me, watch the TED-Ed “Why incompetent people think they’re amazing” or study the Dunning-Kruger effect.)
But is it all about the fact that I refused to develop translation skills. Or shall I look deeper and understand why I didn’t want to do it at all.
We do need translators! Even if they can’t exactly translate what is being said or written (remember linguistic relativism), they are the ones that helped connect the world. They helped and are still helping to make sense of this utterly complex world. Great job! All my admiration for you!
But then why do I hate translating? Why didn’t I want to learn how to, i.e. develop the skills? In my glorious past, more than fifteen years ago ( never trust me with numbers, but this is a totally different story), I attended a one-week translation workshop organised by the Association of the Professional Translators of the Republic of Moldova. I loved listening to the professionals. They shared their experience, they shared some tips. And although I truly admired them, I still wasn’t keen on taking up translation as a career (I think great translators earn more than great teachers 😉).
The reason I hate it is probably related to my ego. Come on, I have to translate what other people say, not tell what I want to say. I know this might sound a bit narcissistic (but let’s admit we all have it, just in small doses), but it’s quite challenging to translate something partcularly when you totally disagree with what the person is saying. I remeber one of the participants at that workshop shared her experience tranlating for one of our former presidents, and how ashamed she was because she knew he was saying rubbish, yet she did her job.
I was lucky to translate for wonderful people so there was no cognitive dissonance happening in me. I didn’t have to go against my values. I definitely regretted not having focused on developing my translation skills, but only for a few moments. Gradually my fear subsided, and I was able to function better.
On my first day I told myself that I won’t ever accept translating for anyone. On my third – I had a change of heart. I will, but I will make sure the people know that I’m not a professional translator. I don’t want to develop my skills in this field, I’m happy where I am right now. I’ve found my niche and continue developing in this area.
Now, at the end of my journey in which I was definitely thrown out of my comfort zone, it finally dawned on me. In life, we quite often do what we don’t like. We simple say: “I hate it”. But this hate is probably not hate, but the unwillingness to put the extrra-mental effort to a more challenging task. (Don’t get me wrong, skill development is a must, but I can say that I hate writing articles, and although I have developed my writing skills, it requires a lot of mental energy and effort from my part to do it.) Will I translate when I’m asked to? I will, just to help people when necessary. And I’ll try to enjoy the process.
Falling in English with You :) 