The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with a few sections written in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Each day the Bible is read and preached in many different languages around the world. This makes translation a very important job in the church.
In September of 1992, I went to Hong Kong for two weeks. I was living in Louisiana at the time, and the Louisiana Baptist Convention had a partnership with the Baptists of Hong Kong. As part of that partnership, I accompanied a group from Louisiana on a two-week preaching mission. During the two weeks that I was there, I had the privilege of preaching in a couple of Chinese-speaking churches–Aberdeen and Christ Church. In both congregations, I had a translator. It was my first experience of preaching through a translator. Doing so required some adjustment in my sense of timing, but I got the hang of it. Before the time was up, I had gotten to the point that I liked it. While the translator was translating what I had said, it gave me the chance to think about what I wanted to say next.
A good translator can help a speaker and sometimes protect a speaker from himself. I heard of a young missionary who had just received his PhD degree and was assigned to a new mission field. When he arrived on the mission field, he was very proud of his degree and of the position to which he had been appointed. During his first week on the field, an older missionary who had served many years in the country, served as his translator when he spoke to a group of church members. As the young missionary stood up to speak, he included a lot of language that he had learned in his doctoral studies, and he also talked about some issues that scholars spend much time debating. He then paused for the old missionary to translate into the native language what he had said. The veteran missionary stepped forward, smiled, and said, “He says he’s real glad to see all of y’all here tonight.”
All of us, regardless of what language we speak, face a translation problem. The problem is not one of translating the gospel into another language; it is the challenge of translating the gospel into action. We can’t just talk about our faith. We need to practice our faith. We can’t just speak in generalities about love. We need to take the love that we have experienced in Christ and translate it into specific acts of kindness and ministry. People understand what we do better than what we say.
Translating our faith into concrete actions is one of the most critical translation jobs of all. It requires commitment and dedication. How is your translation of the faith going? What do people hear and understand from you?
Lynn Jones is a retired pastor who lives in Oxford. He does supply preaching for churches in his area and often serves as an interim pastor. Jones is also an author, has written two books and writes a weekly newspaper column. He may be contacted at: kljones45@yahoo.com.
Telegram offers a convenient way to translate messages within the app. The feature was launched with an update in early 2022, along with Message Reactions, Spoilers, and Themed QR Codes, among others. Telegram has been working extensively on Interactive Emojis (emojis that appear with an on-screen animation). While it previously introduced seven interactive versions of emojis like fire, star eyes, and startled face, it recently added animated emojis for several food items like a hot dog and a piece of cake.
While WhatsApp is testing the ability to increase its file transfer limit up to 2GB, Telegram already allows users to share files that are up to 1.5GB in size. Telegram offers other useful features like custom notification sounds and auto-delete durations that let users customize their experience with the app. Given the open nature of Channels and Groups on the platform, Telegram is often used as a search engine as well.
Related: How To Delete Telegram Messages For A Specific Day Or Date Range
Message Translations is among the newer features added by Telegram. Since the application allows up to 200,000 members in a group, it is very likely that public groups will have users who live in different parts of the world and communicate in different languages. Telegram Channels on the other hand allow unlimited users. Telegram's in-app translation feature can come in handy here. It can translate messages with the tap of a button, saving users time and effort that might be spent copying a message and then translating it with Google or a different app.
Translate Messages On Telegram
To enable in-app translation on Telegram, users will need to tap the three-bar icon at the top-left corner of the app and select Settings. In the menu, tap on Language. Tap on the toggle next to Show Translate Button to enable in-app message translations. Right below this, users can select languages they are fluent in under Do Not Translate. Select the language in which messages should be translated under Interface Language. Once the setting is enabled, users can tap on any message and select Translate from the pop-up menu that appears. Telegram will display the message translated into the selected language of choice. Users also have the option to copy the translated message or translate it into another language.
The in-app message translation feature is available on all Android devices that are supported by Telegram, i.e., devices running Android 6.0 and later. For iPhone users, the feature is available on models with iOS 15 and later. Additionally, the application also informs users that it translates messages with the help of Google with a disclaimer that reads "Google may have access to the messages you translate." Telegram also notes that the list of available languages depends on the phone's operating system.
Next: How To Enable Two-Step Verification On Telegram
Source: Telegram
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The Pipa Project will host a bilingual reading of two picture books from Brazil at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art on Saturday, April 30 starting at 11 a.m.
The Pipa Project is an initiative to promote Brazilian picture books in translation.
“Chapeuzinho Amarelo” by Chico Buarque will be presented at 11 a.m. and “Marcelo, Martelo, Maremelo” by Ruth Rocha will be presented at noon.
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The books will be read by UMass Portugese translation students, storyteller Fernanda Rivitti and musicians Rafael Freire and Paul Arslanian. They were translated by the students and Tal Goldfajn, professor of Portugese.
Admission to the event is free with museum admission.
Scandinavian literature is famous for its crime novels and bleak landscapes. Perhaps most famously, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Laarson, translated by Reg Keeland, took the world by storm (although Keeland still isn’t listed on the book’s cover). Published in 2005, it had sold 30 million copies worldwide by 2010, and was ranked by The Guardian as one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
But looking past Stieg Laarson, what Swedish books available in English translation should you read? Please don’t assume that all Swedish literature is cold crime investigation and psychological thrillers — you should know that childhood classic Pippi Longstocking, about the antics of a wild, strong, mischievous red-pigtailed girl, came from Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, translated by Florence Lamborn.
So in order to give you this list of grim dystopias and creative speculative fiction, of stark realist literary fiction and emotional contemporary literature, I drew from a variety of genres and authors.
Some disclaimers: Marginalized authors, particularly authors of color, are less likely to be published and also less likely to be translated, and there is an unfortunate lack of them on this list. (Please let me know if I’m missing someone crucial!). This is also a list of translated literature specifically: In Every Mirror She’s Black is a recent novel by Stockholm-based Nigerian American author Lola Akinmade Åkerström, but it was written originally in English.
Over the past month, I have read, read, and read in order to recommend you these 11 Swedish books available in English translation, and I have loved every minute of it. So get reading!
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.
They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears by Johannes Anyuru, Translated by Saskia Vogel
Annika claims to be a woman from the future. Yes, she did take part in an act of terror, but that was before she remembered and tried to set it right. Yes, she does sometimes remember how to speak Annika’s language, but Annika’s body is not actually her own. She is a young girl from a future where Islamophobia has become a legal, contracted part of being a citizen of Sweden, in which people disappear constantly for being enemies of the state. As the protagonist, a writer, hears more of her story, he begins to believe her. He has to decide what future he wants to believe in, and what it means for the future of his wife and child. It’s a book of intense emotion and burning questions with searing answers. Is she really from the future? And if she is, did she actually manage to change it?
Content warnings for violence, torture, terrorism, shooting, police and militia brutality, hate crimes, Islamophobia, xenophobia, death by suicide.
The Love Story of the Century by Märta Tikkanen, Translated by Stina Katchadourian
Tikkanen’s novel in verse is a profound and painful story about a woman struggling with her alcoholic husband. It’s a book about the painful impact of substance abuse on a family, a book about love, fear, and violence in a relationship, a book about resilience and anger. “What sort of influence do I have on you / when I’ve made you believe / that all the thoughts I think / are against you? / How can you have gotten the idea / that my road to freedom / goes over your body?” writes Tikkanen in his painfully honest, rich book that is finally freshly available in English translation.
Content warnings for alcoholism, manipulation, suicidal ideation and threat, emotional and domestic abuse, sexism.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman, Translated by Henning Koch
Ove is a grumpy old man who lost his wife six months ago and is planning to die by suicide any day now. But things keep getting in the way. The new neighbors drive a trailer into his mailbox. A teen doesn’t know how to repair a bicycle. A stray cat is attacked by some neighbor’s mean dog. It’s a vivid book about a man who has lost a lot, who has fought, especially against the “white shirts” or bureaucracy, for everything he has. As he grudgingly takes care of the Cat Annoyance and connects with neighbor Parvaneh, his barriers begin to crack and his death continues to be postponed — until, one day, the “white shirts” threaten one of his neighbors, and he decides enough is enough. It’s a feel-good, touching story about grief, love, and growing old.
Content warnings for fatphobia and suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts.
The Helios Disaster by Linda Boström Knausgård, Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles
In this poetic, strange book, Knausgård gives us a retelling of the birth of Athena. Young Anna bursts from her father’s skull in full armor and is promptly discovered and sent into a foster care family, her father institutionalized. In her new house, she slowly becomes part of the family, buying candy for her new brothers and learning to ski and split wood. But one day, she discovers that she can speak in tongues, a wild unleashing of language that the church begins to leverage even as it exhausts her. The book is intense and psychological, as people try to get to the bottom of who Anna is and what is causing her deep depression and silence, as she tries to gain control of her own body and mind.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation and attempts, self-harm, institutionalization, blood, neglect, violence.
Valerie, or The Faculty of Dreams by Sara Stridsberg, Translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner
In 1968, radical feminist and self-titled man-hater Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM manifesto, shot Andy Warhol. Twenty years later she would be found dead in a grimy hotel room in San Francisco. In this book, Stridsberg dives into her life in a fantastical and confused rambling narrative that aims to reconstruct a queer, bold, sex-working woman who was built around anger and heartbreak. Through this tough story in which Stridsberg fully admits she can’t know everything, she is nevertheless able to bring together a vision of this difficult woman’s persona, and give her an unapologetic voice.
Content warnings for death, poverty/classism, substance abuse, sexual assault/rape, child abuse, sex shaming, domestic abuse, self-harm, institutionalization, suicide.
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Translated by Ebba Segerberg
This iconic bestselling 2004 novel, famously adapted into film, features a 12-year-old boy named Oskar meeting centuries-old child vampire Eli. It first starts when a body of a teenage boy, emptied of blood, is found in the suburb of Blackeberg. Oskar quietly hopes that it might be a reckoning for the bullies who torture him at school — meanwhile, he’s befriending his new, strange neighbor who only comes out after sundown. The horror novel is an absolute mainstay in the vampire genre, and it’s a great book that ties the supernatural into a weave of issues around coming of age, violence, bullying, family issues, and other emotional turns.
Content warnings for anxiety, bullying, pedophilia, genital mutilation, self-harm, violence.
Fair Play by Tove Jansson, Translated by Thomas Teal
“History will call them: close friends, besties, roommates, colleagues — anything but lovers — history hates lovers…” The creator and illustrator of the Moomins, Tove Jansson, “lived alone.” Or so her bio said. Except her home was connected via attic to the house of her long-term, committed sapphic love, graphic designer Tuulikki Pietilä. Fair Play tells a story that’s very similar to that of Tove and Tuulikki. Jansson presents a series of vignettes about Mia and Jonna, two women connected by an attic, who spend their summers at an island home, giving each other the independence they need, arguing, making peace, and overall showing their quiet, understanding love, all while creating and making art.
Willful Disregard by Lena Andersson, Translated by Sarah Death
Writer Ester Nilsson thinks she’s a pretty reasonable person. She’s sensible and sure of herself. She’s in a comfortable relationship that she thinks is quite safe and going quite well. But when she gives a lecture on artist Hugo Rask, and the artist himself appears in the audience, she discovers that she’s not as sensible as she thought she was. She falls head over heels into unrequited love, and despite always seeing herself as such a careful person, she now throws herself completely into this destructive, determined love, a deeply misguided surrender that sows suffering wherever it goes. We aren’t always meant to sympathize with Ester — but as she deals with this obsessive imbalanced love, she interrogates what love is and should be, and the philosophical questions are thoughtful and interesting.
Content warnings for imbalanced relationship, obsessive behavior, manipulation, anxiety.
The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Translated by Alice Menzies
A grandfather is coming to visit his children: his son, now a father who feels constantly scrutinized by his working wife and by other parents, and his daughter, who finds herself pregnant in a relationship she was determined to keep casual. The grandfather is impossible to deal with, self-centered and judgmental. Both his children dread his chaotic arrival into their lives. This novel is a fantastic look into the fraught memories and difficult relationships between parent and child, loaded with loss, grief, and generational difference. It’s touching, painful, and rich. I particularly related to the son’s struggle to feel like he is enough as a father, even as I grated against his unfair reactionary arguments with his girlfriend. It’s a rich and vivid book from a fantastic author.
Content warnings for Islamophobia, xenophobia, manipulative/abusive relationships, antisemitism.
The Polyglot Lovers by Lina Wolff, Translated by Saskia Vogel
This witty, exciting book won the 2016 August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious. In it, Ellinor finds herself stranded in a snowstorm in Stockholm, trapped in the center of a weird argument between an ex-wife, a literary critic, and author Max Lamas, who is on his way to Italy, dreaming of a polyglot lover who will understand him in any language. Through Lamas, Wolff explores the psyche and actions of a misogynistic jerk, a desperately unlikable protagonist who puts himself first in sex and in his writing, before plunging into the impact of his misogynistic and exploitative choices.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, sexism, emotional abuse.
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck, Translated by the author
We open with Vanja, a woman on her way to do market research in the colony of Amatka. In the grim dystopia that Vanja lives in, every item must be “marked” often, or named, to keep it what it is. You must name your pencil, a pencil, now and then, and never call it anything else, or it could dissolve into sludge. People who aren’t careful to do so risk being labeled dangerous and taken away. Glimmers of how this quietly terrifying world came to be peek through the cracks as Vanja falls for housemate Nina and makes tentative friends with retired doctor Ulla and the local librarian. And then things begin to get interesting. It’s a spectacular work of speculative fiction, originally written in Swedish and then translated into English by its author.
Want more books in translation content? I have lists for you of books in translation from Argentina, Brazil, Catalonia, Central Africa, France, Japan, Mexico, Southeastern Europe, and Ukraine. 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.
