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Translation of Peng Shuai’s original social media post Durham Herald SunMonday, February 7, 2022
Translation Management Software Market Size to Grow by USD 1.58 billion| Market Research Insights Highlight Exponential Increase in the Volume of Data as Key Driver | Technavio - KPVI News 6 - Translation
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Translation Management Software Market Size to Grow by USD 1.58 billion| Market Research Insights Highlight Exponential Increase in the Volume of Data as Key Driver | Technavio KPVI News 615 Fantastic Books From Southeastern Europe Available in English Translation - Book Riot - Translation
When I was in college, I found myself in a Balkan Folklore course. It would change my regional focus — I would end up writing my senior thesis about a book by Milorad Pavić, and the professor of that course became my advisor. So I was particularly excited to read the stack of books I brought home for consideration for this list. I dug deep into my research, and ended up with 13 amazing reads for your consideration — and discovered a few new all-time favorites.
I used the definition of Southeastern Europe as: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Moldova, and Slovenia. I tried to make sure that each country was represented in the list below.
Many of these countries have been through turmoil in the past century. After Yugoslavia broke up in 1991, new borders were drawn and secessions, violence, and new political regimes criss-crossed the region. The shift into nation-building, into questions of language and memory, into trying to make sense of violence and politics, sparked a new push in national literature, a resurgence that led to new novels in Croatian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and more.
These countries (of about 12.5 million people) are connected by region, but they’re made up of a huge mosaic of cultures, ethnicities, languages, and, of course, literatures. Yet many of the modern authors from these countries remain relatively unknown, and too few books from the region made their way to us in English translation. In addition, not nearly enough authors of color from the region have been translated.
I also want to take a moment to mention that the Romani oral and written traditions are vital for understanding the literature of the Balkan region. But in all my research, I wasn’t able to find available English translations of Balkan Romani works, despite the work of authors such as Jovan Nikolić, Alija Krasnići, Lilyana Kovatcheva, Akile Eminova, and Georgi Parushev. There are translated versions of these works, just not yet into English, or not available in English.
Please note that while I took great care to list content warnings where I could, sometimes things fall through the cracks. Please do additional research on the recommended titles if needed.
Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knežević, Translated from Croatian by Paula Gordon and Ellen Elias-Bursač
This novel focuses on a close sisterhood and friendship, often destructive. Catherine is coming of age in 1970s Titograd alongside her dear friend Milica, a talented, bold aspiring actress, and her crush, a future football star. But as they grow up, things change. Milica falls into the wrong habits. Her crush is long gone. Catherine is trying to stay afloat as she grows, as trauma and bitterness inflect the edges of who she is. It’s a compelling novel about motherhood, pain, and a close friendship that reminded me of the fraught dynamic between Elena and Lila in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.
Content warnings for terminal illness and parental death, G-slur, sexual harassment and assault, toxic relationships, substance abuse, alcoholism, suicidal ideation.
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones, Translated from Italian by Clarissa Botsford
On the eve of her grandfather’s death, in a desperate attempt to retain her autonomy amidst the strict gender essentialism of northern Albania, Hana takes advantage of an ancient and rare custom: she will become a man, with all of its privileges, rights, and protection. In exchange, she must remain a virgin, or her rights are revoked. Now, Hana is moving to the U.S. to start over in the house of her cousin, but she has a complicated relationship with her gender and body after years of living as a man. This novel is a brilliant satire that uses absurd contradictions to poke holes in the gender essentialism and heteronormativity of our world.
Content warnings for gender essentialism and sexism, fatphobic and ableist language, and rape attempt.
A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska, Translated from Macedonian by Christine E. Kramer
Zlata and Srebra are conjoined twins, connected at their heads. Their life in Skopje is often difficult — they are treated poorly, isolated, and their family doesn’t have much. The two girls have very different hopes for the future, and both often dream about the day that they’ll somehow find the money that could allow them to get surgery to be separated. The older they grow, the more they despair of the possibility — and when Srebra decides she wants to get married, it threatens their already fragile stability. In this metaphor for the transformation of Macedonia, Dimkovska writes a long, tightly woven story about identity and what it means to have independence.
Content warnings for alcoholism, ableism, sexual harassment, R-slur, G-slur and anti-Romani sentiment, suicide, and young death.
Everything Happens as It Does by Albena Stambolova, Translated from Bulgarian by Olga NIkolova
In this strange, surreal novel, a twisting family story unfolds in a web of stories and timelines. Boris is a young, strange boy in the Bulgarian countryside who feels most at home coated in bees; Phillip is a pathologist who stumbles one day on Maria, an enigmatic woman with fog in her eyes; Valentin and Margarita are their twins, both identical and eerily different. Out of them all, Stambolova weaves a story of images and surrealist strangeness, with Maria and her magic at its center. People who can’t stand to see loose ends dangle will be driven wild by this book — people who enjoy a healthy dollop of ambiguity and implied supernatural-ness will fall in love.
Content warnings for child death, parental death, G-slur.
Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare, Translated from Albanian by Arshi Pipa
A young boy grows up in Gijrokastër, Albania, a steep stony city that was under Italian or Greek control — often changing hands — and eventually occupied by Germans, all between 1939 and 1944. The novel by Albanian novelist Kadare is a beautiful, often funny, surreal book about years of life in the city as told by a child. He doesn’t understand much of what he hears and sees, which adds an ironic gloss to it all: from the coded language around gender and sexual subversion to the old-fashioned town’s fears of magic to the way he falls in love with the airplanes, not understanding why the adults discourage his love for the aerodrome. It’s a very well-written historical fiction novel with a lot of heart — a novel where the city itself is alive.
Content warnings for violence, homophobia, sex shaming, murder, fatphobia.
18% Gray by Zachary Karabashiliev, Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
This Bulgarian bestseller was finally translated into English in 2013. In Karabashiliev’s novel, Bulgarian émigré Zack goes to Tijuana after the sudden and distressing disappearance of his wife. In the city, he tries to intervene to save a stranger’s life, only to end up fleeing to the U.S. in a van that apparently is carrying quite a bit of weed. This event jumpstarts a road trip across the U.S., as Zack flees his own past. He photographs the U.S., speed-bumps over unexpected, often dangerous detours, and endures flashbacks as he has conversations with his missing, beloved Stella.
Content warnings for violence, paranoia, shooting, xenophobia.
My Heart by Semezdin Mehmedinovič, Translated from Bosnian by Celia Hawkesworth
In this autobiographical novel, Bosnian author Mehmedinović writes about the events that unspool after his first heart attack, up until and continuing after his wife’s stroke. What might sound bleak is actually rich with love: it’s a story about memory and the way the two support and hold up each other through their times of need. He also takes a chance to highlight the painful inadequacy of hospitals and the impersonal care they give that too often neglects the emotional and mental needs of their patients.
Content warnings for passing suicide mention, heart attack/stroke, hospitalization, Islamophobia / xenophobia, PTSD and trauma.
The Appointment by Herta Müller, Translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm
Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009 for her books on life in Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. In The Appointment, a young girl working in a clothing factory in Bucharest is called in for questioning: she has been sewing notes into the linings of men’s suits, asking the far-off men to marry her so she can escape the country. As she heads to her interrogation, her mind drifts. The stream-of-consciousness story and its beautiful prose richly paint a world of fear and constant dread, touching on the people in her life who have been damaged or killed by the regime.
Content warnings for alcoholism, sexual harassment, deportation, grooming, violence.
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić, Translated from the Serbian by Christina Pribićević-Zorić
This one might not be for the faint of heart. I wrote my thesis on this strange, wild story: a book about the lost people the Khazars, who may have converted to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — at the point of their conversion, the story breaks into three books, expressing different stories and opinions representing each religion’s sources and stories. The novel is packed with magic, mysticism, dreams, and destiny — it denies us explanations and challenges what it even means to try and create a single history of a people who were dispersed out into the world, whose own viewpoints have been, perhaps irreparably, lost. There are countless things to discover in its pages.
Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Kiš, Translated from the Serbo-Croatian by Michael Henry Heim
This collection of short stories will appeal to fans of Jorge Luis Borges and other fantastic authors of surreal and fabulist tales. In his haunting, eerie stories, a woman sees her family’s future murder in a dusty mirror; a woman learns about her father from an encyclopedia in the Royal Library of Sweden that chronicles the lives of all everyday people in order to battle inequality; a fictional history of an antisemitic book is outlined, its threats and its power made very clear. The stories are strange and rich.
Content warnings for antisemitism, violence, use of the G-slur.
Farewell, Cowboy by Olja Savičević, Translated from Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth
Farewell, Cowboy features a young woman named Rusty who returns to her bleak Croatian childhood neighborhood to care for her mother, who is dependent on substance abuse. She has to cope with leaving her life behind and face her past. The book is one of disillusionment and pain. Rusty unpacks the stories behind her brother’s death by suicide at 18, a death caught up in the violence and anger of the youth in town, which connects back to old obsessions with “cowboys and Indians” and a modern-day western being filmed in town. The translator really worked to keep the slang feel of a lot of the dialogue, and it’s effective.
Content warnings for substance abuse, sexual assault, suicide, grief, anti-Indigenous stereotypes, racist terms and slurs, mental illness, homophobia.
The Cyclist Conspiracy by Svetislav Basara, Translated from the Serbian by Randall A. Major
This strange novel is told completely through fictional historical documents, everything from blue prints to letters to maps. It tells the story of a secret Brotherhood that meets in dreams, contemplating bicycles in order to gain esoteric knowledge. They work to influence world events in ways that are so deeply secret that sometimes they aren’t even certain they’re involved. It’s absurd and wild, a vivid satire of conspiracy theory and secret society stories, and readers who enjoy these sorts of reads that function as both puzzle and self-discovery will love this one. It’s especially relevant as the group questions reality itself, and argues over truth and facts, something that will read frustratingly true.
Bolla by Pajtim Statovci, Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston
Arsim is a young married man in Kosovo who falls hard for a young Serbian man named Miloš, who he meets in a café. The problem: Arsim cannot possibly be with Miloš, not for real. And when war breaks out, he and his growing family have to leave Kosovo, propelling him to a new level of darkness. Arsim is not a likable character: in fact, he’s awful, irresponsible and bad to his wife. But it’s a well-written novel, a story about repressed desire, about trauma, homophobia, and its impact. Arsim’s scars reverberate and damage him again and again as he tries to find his way back to Kosovo.
Content warnings for ethnic prejudice, homophobia, xenophobia, domestic violence and abuse, suicidal ideation, rape, ableism, mental illness, and fatphobia.
Before Brezhnev Died by Iulian Ciocan, Translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth
These short stories, some interconnected, take place in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia. In the tales, families struggle with housing crises and deadening poverty in a society that preaches that everyone is doing well and living for their honest work. A pensioner seeks justice for his dead wife, who was crushed by a falling crane. A veteran grates after a kid throws a tomato at his head from above. Country and urban life clash. Cicocan, a novelist and presenter of a Radio Free Europe broadcast about current affairs in the Republic of Moldova, included this book in his trilogy of Moldova, with The Realm of Sasha Kozak and In the Morning the Russians Will Arrive.
Content warnings for suicide, alcoholism, sex shaming, abortion, domestic violence.
The Fig Tree by Goran Vojnovič, Translated from the Slovene by Olivia Hellewell
The Fig Tree is one of my new favorite novels: a rich intergenerational story rooted by Jadran, a man trying to find his own way in the midst of a family with complicated, tangled roots that extend particularly between Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. As he tells the story of his family and tries to figure out the circumstances of his grandfather’s death, Jadran has to confront the legacy of anger and loss that he’s inherited, the role of memory (is it cruel and bleak, or soft and hazy?), and grapple with whether freedom, in all its solitude and independence, is worth the loneliness that accompanies it. It’s a rich story about love and the stories we tell, that made me tear up more than once.
Content warnings for family death, memory loss / dementia, suicide, alcoholism, fatphobia.
Want more books in translation content? I have lists for you of books in translation from Catalonia, Argentina, France, Mexico, Central Africa, and Japan. If you have recommendations or requests for future lists of books in translation, or if you want me to know about a book I might have missed, let me know on Twitter.
READY, FIRE, AIM: Lost in Translation - Pagosa Daily Post - Translation
Ever since I was in grade school and learned all the semi-English words every schoolboy picks up on the playground, I’ve felt pretty secure in my ability to express myself in my native tongue. The proper English vocabulary taught in the classroom, by our teachers, has also been useful on occasion.
But I recently found out that there are 7,138 distinct languages — other than English — spoken in the world, and many of those languages use words that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate into English.
Some experts feel that a human cannot fully appreciate a sensation and emotion, unless they have a word in their language to describe it.
If this is true, then we Americans can’t really understand how people, who speak other languages, experience the world. This could be a good thing, or a bad thing.
For example. The Bantu word mbuki-mvuki refers to an irresistible urge to remove your clothes while dancing. (Emphasis, I suppose, on the ‘irresistible’ part.) This is a feeling I have never personally experienced, mainly because the English language contains no direct equivalent, but also because I am generally shy about dancing naked, even — I presume — if everyone around me spoke Bantu, and had happily shucked off their clothes.
Another example hits closer to home for me: the German word schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another person. I’ve had exactly this experience myself, even though I’ve never tried to find an exact English translation for that word. But my grandfather was German, so maybe it’s inherited.
I’m also fairly sure that my ex-wife Darlene savored feelings of schadenfreude on practically a daily basis, while we were married.
The Inuit people of northern Canada have a word, iktsuarpok, which can be only poorly translated into English, meaning roughly, a sense of intense anticipation while waiting for someone, to the point where you keep going outside to see if they have arrived. To fully appreciate the meaning of iktsuarpok, we need to remember that “going outside to see if they have arrived,” to an Inuit, means stepping out into a raging blizzard at 40 degrees below zero.
Not being an Inuit myself, I would merely glance out the igloo door, now and then, and try to feel contented, chewing some whale blubber.
All of this research into world languages got me thinking about my native tongue (English, mixed with the local vernacular) and about some of the words that we don’t yet have here in America, but which would be useful in describing our feelings, on the odd chance that we wanted our feelings described.
Here are my suggestions for some new American words we could use to communicate our irrepressible urges and feelings of intense anxiety… that people from other lands will have trouble translating.
cybergiggles
A momentary feeling of elation upon learning that the value of your Bitcoin increased by 2% overnight, typically resulting in the purchase of those expensive red tennis shoes you’ve been lusting after on the Zappos website.
avolation
An irresistible urge to squeeze every single avocado in the supermarket bin.
facehooked
A deeply disturbing sense that social media is collecting extremely personal information about you — including your toothbrushing habits, and the color of your underwear — and selling the information to the Chinese.
vaccinsanity
An intense desire, on the part of certain politicians and public health officials, to spend billions of dollars on an experimental chemical mixture, and then try to compel innocent men, women and children to allow the mixture to be injected into their arms.
nostalusion
An inexplicable yearning or nostalgia for the cute girl who sat next to you in high school trigonometry class, who actually couldn’t stand you.
ameriscence
A feeling that only a true American can experience — the feeling that you have been born in the greatest country in human history; that the Founding Fathers created a perfect government (which unfortunately is currently controlled by a bunch of senile criminals); that our free market capitalist economic system provides liberty, justice, and access to wealth for each and every citizen except those who don’t deserve it; and if only every other country could be like America, the world would be an infinitely happier place.
Daily Post readers are invited to use any or all of the above words, free of charge, whenever the need arises. Although I invented them, I feel no ownership. In my humble opinion, ‘feelings’ like anxiety and nostalgia are universal and cannot be ‘owned’ by a single person. If these words help you communicate with the people around you, that will be my just reward.
To anyone who speaks one of the other 7,138 other world languages, I say: Good luck trying to translate these little linguistic nuggets!
Louis Cannon
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.
Circle Translations Celebrate 5 Years of Translation Service Excellence - EIN News - Translation
Vainius Paulauskas, CEO of Circle Translations, says, “This milestone is just the start of much greater things to come. What makes us so unique is the ability to provide content that will be fastidiously translated as well as our ability to accurately reshape any contextual medium. We are also happy to discuss price quotas to meet the individual needs of our clientele. It is an honor to be a part of the global community for the past five years and we truly look forward to serving our clients for many years into the future.”
Circle Translations has established itself as a reliable translation agency that has built a strong international clientele by providing a wide variety of services such as:
-Subtitle translation
-Closed captioning
-Data collection
-Annotations
-Technical translation
-Translation and Localization
-Patent Translation Services
With more than 70 million words translated each year, they have placed emphasis on trust and quality--which has proven to be of key importance when working with videos or documents that require translation into a foreign language.
They have a dedicated subtitle translation agency section and are well experienced, producing over 20,000 hours of content each year. Circle Translations differs from most systems and software in that there is a human element behind every single translation. Their team of professionals work studiously to complete projects by hand with a turnaround time of a rapid 24 hours. Transcripts and translation services are provided in over 60 different languages and are supported in a variety of formats—ensuring that they provide an all-rounded service.
Inclusivity is a must in this day and age, translations and subtitles allow for a greater connection between content, its creators, and viewers—allowing people from all walks of life to participate and understand a video across shared platforms regardless of language barriers. It also ensures that the videos reach a wider audience and appeal to viewers on a global scale. With Circle Translations, content creators are able to confidently publish videos that have impeccably translated subtitles in a variety of languages-- catering to a broader audience.
The localization manager at Kilo.Health, a client of Circle Translations, reviewed the company stating: “We always receive a great delivery from Circle Translations; they always meet our deadlines, translations are accurate, they offer great communication throughout the translation process and have great prices compared to competitors.”
Over the past five years, Circle Translations has become extremely well-known and established within the industry– working with startups and established companies such as Electronic Arts, Amazon, and Binance. Companies all over the world put their trust in the translations agency as they have been featured on numerous popular networks such as CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC.
For more information about Circle Translations and the services provided, individuals can visit their website at circletranslations.com. A free quote from the translation agency can be requested on their website by just entering a few personal details, and a representative will get in touch.
About Circle Translations
Established in 2017, Circle Translations is one of the leading localization agencies in the Baltic states. As a Lithuanian translation agency, they provide top-of-the-line translation services at extremely competitive prices. Boasting clients from all around the world, Circle Translations ensures that the content submitted will be carefully translated at immediate convenience. In addition to high-quality translation, they also provide DTP, proofreading, and editing services. Each aspect of their translating process is meticulously crafted as it is of prime importance to custom tailor the text to their client’s desires.
As a professional translation agency, they ensure that the content that clients receive is culturally appropriate according to the language, region, and target country. With a selection of more than 120 languages, clients have reported a margin of 30% growth in their user base after using their translation services.
Vainius Paulauskas
Circle Translations
info@circletranslations.com
The importance of video subtitles | Circle Translations
Friday, February 4, 2022
Lost In Translation: Language Gaps in Social Media Labels - Lawfare - Translation
On Nov. 4, 2020, a QAnon adherent reposted a series of English-language conspiracies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election on Twitter. The tweets, which were in Spanish, reshared links to English-language misinformation about a U.S. Postal Service whistleblower in Michigan and debunked claims of vote-changing software. While Twitter applied an information label to the debunked voting software tweet, that label did not automatically translate to Spanish. Nor did the label translate when browsing Twitter with Spanish-language settings. This incident exemplifies the ways in which online platform policies can negatively impact non-English, minority or marginalized groups of users. It also raises an important question about how platform labels appear for people who browse the internet in languages other than English.
Before the 2020 election, various platforms introduced new policies to combat the spread of misinformation over social media. One of these strategies involved creating new labeling for content that has been fact-checked as false or misleading. Major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok, have existing labeling policies for different kinds of content. Some platforms focus on “source labels” that provide users with more information about the content’s source, such as whether it is a state-funded broadcaster. Other labels focus on the veracity of the content itself, such as the labels Twitter applies to synthetic and manipulated media or content about vaccine safety. TikTok also applies labels to dangerous content, such as stunt videos or dangerous viral challenges, to discourage users from trying potentially dangerous stunts themselves.
Platforms hope that by contextualizing content with labels they can encourage users to engage more critically with the information they consume online. For sensitive content that does not necessarily violate platform policies, labeling is an attractive alternative to removal as it enables platforms to leave potentially sensitive content online while hopefully limiting its ill effects. In practice, however, research about the empirical effectiveness of content labels suggests mixed results.
Labeling Practices
Regarding the behavior of users, some research has shown that labeled content gets shared less on social media. But when it comes to affecting users’ beliefs, labeling can have mixed results. Some research argues that the timing of labels is important: If users have already been exposed to misinformation, seeing a “disputed” flag after the fact does not alter their original belief. Labeling information can also lead to what some scholars call an “implied truth effect,” where unlabeled false claims are more likely to be interpreted as true. However, labels must be noticeable and understandable to users to be effective, demonstrating the importance of placement in addition to timing. Thus, the broader implications of labeling practices are still a matter of dispute. Regardless, social media companies continue to employ labeling policies in response to sensitive content.
When it comes to the practice of labeling content, however, the language diversity of content is sometimes overlooked. Social media companies operate on a global scale and therefore cannot assume that their users will understand English. Even among people in the United States, almost one in 10 speak English less than “very well.” Given the language diversity of social media users, we explored how information labels appear for users who browse the internet in languages other than English.
Non-English Content
We focused on three kinds of English-language labeled content—2020 election misinformation, vaccine misinformation, and content from state media organizations—in our audit of Facebook’s, Twitter’s, YouTube’s and TikTok’s labeling practices. We assessed how a sample of these labels, originally in English, appeared for users browsing the platforms in nine languages—Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, French, Russian and Bengali. These are some of the most widely spoken languages online, representing significant geographic diversity and supported by the platforms we evaluated.
We hoped that platforms would translate the content labels into users’ preferred languages. Translated labels are easier to read and therefore more likely to be effective. And if the platforms did not translate the labels, we expected platforms to display them in English, rather than hiding them altogether. While some platforms translate labels quite well—TikTok, for example, translated the labels for every language we tested—other platforms do not.
Facebook translated the election content label into all the languages we tested except for Spanish, Russian and Bengali. In these three languages, the label was only partially translated: part of the label was in English, while the other part was translated. Facebook fully translated their state media label and vaccine misinformation label into every language we tested.
Figure 1. Image of a partially translated label on Facebook.
Figure 2. Image of a fully translated election-related label in Arabic.
While Twitter translated its vaccine misinformation label into all languages we tested, it did not translate its election misinformation label or state media label at all. These two labels appeared in English for every language we tested.
Figure 3. Image of a partially translated label on Twitter containing both English and Spanish text.
Figure 4. A fully translated English to French label on Twitter.
Figure 5. An RT tweet with the language preference set to Bengali. Twitter did not translate its state media label into any language we tested.
YouTube
YouTube’s approach to translating its content labels concerned us most. Unlike the other platforms, which fall back to displaying labels in English in the absence of a translation, YouTube hid the label altogether. For example, the election misinformation label was simply missing when viewing YouTube in any language we tested other than Spanish. Similarly, the vaccine misinformation label was missing in the Portuguese, Russian, and Bengali interfaces.
Figure 6. A video on YouTube with an election label translated into Spanish. Of the languages we tested, Spanish was the only language where the label did not disappear.
Figure 7. The same video on YouTube as before, but with the language preference set to Russian. Note that the label is missing.
Consequences of Poor Translation
Examining label translation for English-language content may seem contrived—after all, if a user can understand English-language content, one might assume that the user could understand an English-language label as well—but it is still a plausible misinformation vector. Political misinformation spread widely through American communities during the 2020 presidential election, some of which were primarily immigrant and non-English speaking. There are several ways that English-language misinformation can create unique challenges for non-English audiences.
First, some people may know enough English to pick out important details from English misinformation, while still not knowing enough to understand an untranslated content label. For example, a post might include references in English to “vaccine” and “deadly side effects,” or “stolen election” and “voter fraud.” Such a post might promote distrust of vaccines or decrease faith in the election. A lack of English fluency might also limit one’s ability to judge the post’s credibility, highlighting the need for a translated content label.
Second, misinformation on social media often has a visual component (for example, memes and videos). These visuals could be misleading or harmful on their own, even without understanding any accompanying text. For example, photos of allergic reactions—vaccine related or not—superimposed on a photo of a vaccination clinic might cause viewers to rethink vaccination, regardless of whether they understand the textual component of the image. Posts that contain visual media are far less limited by the language barrier, and research has shown their unique potential for harm.
Third, English-language misinformation can be shared in non-English-speaking communities, where members might discuss the misinformation in languages other than English. For example, someone might share a piece of English election-related misinformation in a group chat whose members may not all speak English. Members of the group may repeat the misinformation in another language but not mention the associated content label.
Figure 8. A Twitter user (now suspended) reshared English-language misinformation threads in Spanish.
In all of these cases, a translated label for the original content is important. While we looked at only a small segment of content and labels, our results have broader implications for responses to misinformation online. In particular, our findings emphasize the importance of fully testing labeling mechanisms, especially for communities in which people do not speak or browse the internet in English. We have seen repeatedly that platform responses can result in biases, stigma and injustice toward certain groups of users. And labeling that disappears or does not translate can reinforce discrimination and inequity, especially among marginalized communities.
Platforms have the resources to translate and properly apply labels so that everyone—English speaking or not—can benefit from their additional contextual information. While it’s tempting to rapidly roll out responses, investments in testing, implementation and impact need to happen to ensure that, no matter what language people speak, the labels they see are clear and accessible.
Table 1. Summary of findings.
Note: Data accurate as of December 1, 2021. “Partially translated” means that one component of the label was translated, but other components were not. “Translated” means that the entire label was translated. “Not translated” means that the label was shown in English. “Hidden” means that no label was shown at all. Exceptions are noted in blue. Note that we tested a sample of labels for each platform, so our analysis is not exhaustive. There may be additional labels that do or do not translate properly in each of the categories we evaluated.
Can a Translation Be Better Than the Original Book? - Book Riot - Translation
Can a translation of a book to be better than the original? If you’re thinking, “no, it can’t,” it might be because a translation is dependent on the original book for its very existence. A translation requires the original, but the original absolutely does not require the translation. Everything the translator does depends on what the original author did first. That author came up with the concept for the book and that author brought it to life, creating, in the case of a novel, the plot, characters, settings, etc. You might conclude that a translation is a derivative work and therefore can’t be as good as the original.
I disagree. In my opinion, the quick answer to this question is “yes, absolutely a translation can be better.” But I want to follow this conclusion with “but it’s complicated.” Let’s get into why.
Yes, a Translation Can Be Better Than the Original
I think a lot about a point I’ve heard translators make, which is that when we read translations, the translator wrote every word in that book. Every word! Yes, the original author created the book’s story and ideas. But the translator put it in language we can understand, and there is so much artistry that goes into this process. Translators are artists too.
So much changes when moving from one language to another. Translation is not simply a matter of plugging in new words to replace the old. It requires taking the original material and transforming it into a new language with entirely different structures of thought. Certain verb tenses might exist in one language but not the other, so the translator has to find a creative way to get the meaning across. Translators have to translate idioms that exist in the original but not the new language. They capture shades of meaning contained in one word in the source language that has no equivalent in the new.
Since translation requires creativity and artistry, it’s entirely possible for the translator to be a better artist than the original author. The translator might use language that is more evocative than in the original or has a better rhythm to it. They might use a broader range of vocabulary or bring forward images and resonances that were only latent in the original. They can, if they choose to, smooth over awkward places in the original or tighten up loose and sloppy writing.
Ultimately, there are so many differences between any two languages and so many decisions a translator must make, that an excellent translator can produce work that is more artful than the work they started with.
But It’s Complicated
What does it mean for one book to be “better” than another? It’s a question no two people will answer in exactly the same way. Critics have argued about this question for centuries! The same problem exists when comparing originals and translations. One person’s idea of “better” is always going to be different from another’s. So who’s to say if a translation is better than the original?
There’s so much room for differing opinions. Readers might disagree on whether a particular translation makes for a good book. Some readers may love a translation and find it beautiful and artful, while other readers find it dull or pretentious. Likewise, readers who know both languages and can compare the original and the translation might disagree on what makes a better work of art. One reader might value the awkward style in the original, for example, while the other prefers the more smoothed out version of the translation. It’s not an easy, cut-and-dry decision to make.
Whether a translator should even try to be better than the original is an open question. In the same way readers don’t always value the same kinds of writing, translators don’t always agree on how they should translate. One can argue that translators shouldn’t improve the source material. According to this idea, a translation might, arguably, be better than the original, but it’s not a good translation. It might be a better book, but that comes at a cost — the cost of not accurately giving readers the experience of the original.
Conclusions and Further Reading
At its best, a translation will be a genuine work of art, one that lives and breathes on its own. It won’t be merely a derivative of the original, but a kind of response to the original, a careful remaking of it. It has to be a remaking of the original since every word in it will be different. It’s possible that the translation will be a more artful, “better” book than the original (depending on who makes the judgment). But it’s more likely that the translation will just be different. It will capture some parts of the original brilliantly, some parts of the original will be lost, and it will add some new elements as well.
If you want to read more about translation, I recommend Kate Briggs’s This Little Art, a brilliant book about translating Roland Barthes and the nature of translation itself. Polly Barton’s book Fifty Sounds (forthcoming from Liveright on March 15) is a wonderful memoir about becoming a translator and also a study of language and the nature of translation. Finally, the article “All the Violence It May Carry On Its Back” by Gitanjali Patel and Nariman Youssef from Asymptote Journal is a fascinating, troubling look at diversity in the field of translation.
If you would like to read more about what Book Riot has to say about translation and get many great reading recommendations, check out our translation archives.
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