Welcome to our page dedicated to Translation Quotes! If you’re a language enthusiast, a professional translator, or simply curious about the world of translation, you’ve come to the right place. This page is a treasure trove of insightful and inspiring quotes related to the art and science of translation. Whether you’re looking for motivation, a deeper understanding of the translation process, or just some witty and thought-provoking words about language, you’ll find it all here.
Translation is more than just converting words from one language to another; it’s a bridge that connects cultures, ideas, and people. Throughout history, renowned writers, linguists, and thinkers have shared their wisdom on this fascinating subject. Here, we’ve gathered a collection of translation quotes that will not only resonate with those in the field but also provide valuable insights for anyone interested in the power of words. Feel free to explore these quotes, use them to enhance your presentations or projects, and embrace the beauty of language. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the world of translation through the words of the wise!
There is a new venue for theory, necessarily impure, where it emerges in and as the very event of cultural translation. This is not the displacement of theory by historicism, nor a simple historicization of theory that exposes the contingent limits of its more generalizable claims. Judith Butler
As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings. Boris Pasternak
Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. Voltaire
I translated an Emile Zola book, ‘The Belly of Paris,’ because I didn’t find an existing translation that captured his sense of humor. Humor is the first victim of translation. Mark Kurlansky
When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what’s going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda’s poetry. I don’t actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don’t know why, but it calms me, calms my brain. Tea Obreht
I’ve always loved cuneiform; I’ve always loved the way it looks. I love that it’s the world’s oldest script. And the creative potential of bad translation or misunderstanding or something has always been at the core of the idea of ‘Dirty Projectors.’ So the cuneiform is pretty playful – basically, just a joke. David Longstreth
I’m not a best-seller, but through translations, I’ve accumulated some money. Manuel Puig
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence. George Steiner
What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best. Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
The other thing that I started doing for myself was, I went through my diary of ideas that I keep and made sure that the translation of the comic to the movie was good. Guillermo del Toro
The best translations are always the ones in the language the author can’t read. Jorge Amado
Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit. Jonathan Lethem
Rational intelligence is dangerous and leads to ratiocination. The painter is a medium who doesn’t realize what he is doing. No translation can express the mystery of sensibility, a word, still unreliable, which is nevertheless the basis of painting or poetry, like a kind of alchemy. Marcel Duchamp
I feel French is very close to Urdu. Both languages are beautiful. Sadly, their beauty is lost in translation. Amisha Patel
Translation is an act of recreation. Ken Liu
I’m interested in the murky areas where there are no clear answers – or sometimes multiple answers. It’s here that I try to imagine patterns or codes to make sense of the unknowns that keep us up at night. I’m also interested in the invisible space between people in communication; the space guided by translation and misinterpretation. Taryn Simon
I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it’s often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation. Pharrell Williams
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I’ve learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. Michael Cunningham
And after I started working for the Bureau, most of my translation duties included translations of documents and investigations that actually started way before 9/11. Sibel Edmonds
It was my great good fortune, while I was still a student at college, to have possessed a copy of an English translation of his great work ‘The Sensations of Tone.’ As is well known, this was one of Helmholtz’s masterpieces. C. V. Raman
Above all, the translation of books into digital formats means the destruction of boundaries. Bound, printed texts are discrete objects: immutable, individual, lendable, cut off from the world. Tom Chatfield
Translation is at best an echo. George Borrow
I don’t know whether machine translation will eventually get good enough to allow us to browse people’s websites in different languages so you can see how they live in different countries. Tim Berners-Lee
Human writing reflects that of the universe; it is its translation, but also its metaphor: it says something totally different, and it says the same thing. Octavio Paz
I write in a slangy colloquial speech that has not been common in the Israeli tradition of writing, and that is one of the things that gets lost a little in translation. Etgar Keret
Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable. David Mitchell
For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act? Cyril Connolly
Pound’s translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later. Robert Morgan
During the 20th century, Chechnya was written about by local poets and novelists, as well as writers from Russia and Central Asia, but very little is available in English translation. Anthony Marra
True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation. Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. Havelock Ellis
‘The Sound of Things Falling’ may be a page turner, but it’s also a deep meditation on fate and death. Even in translation, the superb quality of Vasquez’s prose is evident, captured in Anne McLean’s idiomatic English version. All the novel’s characters are well imagined, original and rounded. Edmund White
Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I’ve found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other. Marilyn Hacker
The Japanese version comes with a translation, but that’s different from the lyrics, so people could look things up and find a translation of their own if they’re interested. Utada Hikaru
Translation makes me look at how a poem is put together in a different way, without the personal investment of the poem I’m writing myself, but equally closely technically. Marilyn Hacker
I want to go to a country where I don’t speak the language. I want to be lost in translation. Cyrille Aimee
A translation is no translation, he said, unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it. John Millington Synge
I guess the toughest things in translations are word play, which can never be reproduced exactly. Paul Auster
If you’ve got some to say to Ric Flair, you come say it to me, and I’ll make the translation. Roddy Piper
No translation can possibly be perfect. Every production and every performance is a different path up the mountain, and nobody ever makes it all the way to the summit. Terry Teachout
I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned. Jung Chang
Each language has its own take on the world. That’s why a translation can never be absolutely exact, and therefore, when you enter another language and speak with its speakers, you become a slightly different person; you learn a different sort of world. Kate Grenville
One of the things in Obamacare is that for the elderly, is every five years, you must have end-of-year counseling. Translation, ‘suicide counseling.’ Rafael Cruz
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. Paul Auster
When you’re looking that far out, you’re giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual, so it doesn’t need translation. It’s like poetry, it touches you. Story Musgrave
An object is chiral if it cannot be brought into congruence with its mirror image by translation and rotation. Vladimir Prelog
Scarlett Johansson has a smile she tries to suppress in every movie she makes. She’s been trying to keep a straight face since she appeared with Bill Murray 11 years ago in her breakthrough, ‘Lost in Translation.’ Steve Erickson
I wrote the first draft of ‘Madame Bovary’ without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek. Lydia Davis
How does a poet teach himself or herself? I think chiefly by imitation, chiefly by practising it as a deliberate technical exercise often. Translation, imitation, those were my methods anyway. Derek Walcott
Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. Michael Cunningham
In the language of politics, there is only one translation for the phrase ‘hope and change,’ to wit: ‘big, fat government.’ P. J. O’Rourke
The guitar for me is a translation device. It’s not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn’t a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination – a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works. Pat Metheny
I’ll try anything, but the pig testicles in Taiwan were a little much. Eh, it wasn’t half bad. There was this one dish I had there, the translation is, ‘The Monk Jumps over the Fence.’ It’s a fish dish with all these spices. It was beautiful, man – it was poetry. It had a whole story. Steven Adams
I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. Maya Angelou
By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow. Brian Ferneyhough
Scarlett Johansson was wonderful in ‘Lost in Translation,’ and then, seemingly within a couple of weeks, she became completely Hollywoodised. I was shocked. I didn’t recognise her. I hope to God it’s just a phase. Ian Holm
You don’t have to say something directly to affect someone. You can make a piece of music without words that can capture a feeling of tragedy or struggle or anger or triumph. It’s the translation of the human experience into another form. El-P
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 the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. Maya Angelou
I love working with the actors eye-to-eye. I think something gets lost in translation, not only through a monitor, but when you leave the area where the actual scene is taking place. Drew Barrymore
I wanted as little formal linguistic theory as I could get by with. I wanted the basic linguistic training to do a translation of the New Testament. Daniel Everett
I wrote ‘Yellow Submarine’ for the Beatles. I wrote the screenplay for ‘The Games,’ about the Olympic Games. I wrote ‘Love Story,’ both the novel and the screenplay. I wrote ‘RPM’ for Stanley Kramer. Plus, I wrote two scholarly books and a 400-page translation from the Latin, and I dated June Wilkinson! Erich Segal
The Hindus say, ‘Nada brahma,’ one translation of which is, ‘The world is sound.’ And in a way, that’s true, because everything is vibrating. Julian Treasure
The goal of Bible translation is be transparent to the original text – to see as clearly as possible what the biblical authors actually wrote. Leland Ryken
Translations are very important these days, since an average person can only know 2-3 three languages. We have so many languages in India and poems are being written in as many of them. Gulzar
And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it. Cornelia Funke
If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream. Rene Magritte
A screenplay is really an instruction manual, and it can be interpreted in any number of ways. The casting, the choice of location, the costumes and make-up, the actors’ reading of a line or emphasis of a word, the choice of lens and the pace of the cutting – these are all part of the translation. David Nicholls
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. Lydia Davis
It was real Cheyenne. I would get the translations the night before, but it was very difficult because it was not like any other language you would be familiar with. Joe Lando
In Washington, the translation of E Pluribus Unum has been lost. The belief that we are one nation – united in purpose – caring about and for one another is no longer the practice. Madeleine M. Kunin
I want my words to survive translation. Kazuo Ishiguro
I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation. Robert Morgan
During the decade following the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, the problem of translation – namely, how genetic information is used to synthesize proteins – was a central topic in molecular biology. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Even when she was alive, Esther Kreitman’s novels, short stories and translations received far less attention than the work of her famous brothers, I. J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Clive Sinclair
A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. Ezra Pound
If I make a speech, I need a translator. But music does not need a translation. People understand me through the sound. That I think is very important. This is just one planet, like one family. Mstislav Rostropovich
Even though I believe a superlative translation can achieve timelessness, that doesn’t mean I think other translators shouldn’t attempt other versions. The more the better, in the end. Lydia Davis
There is the intent of the writer and the interpretation by the artist. What the writer intended and what the artist interprets is not a 1-to-1 translation. It’s a crossing of ideas that generates the stories that you see in print. Jim Lee
It’s not a natural translation, transition, to take something from stage to screen. Onstage your action is communicated through the spoken word primarily, and on screen it’s communicated through pictures. So it’s always been kind of unnatural to take something that lives on the stage and turn it into moving pictures. Tracy Letts
Though most of my titles are translated into about 7 to 8 languages, I feel that translations, to some extent, can lose the flavour of the colloquial words used otherwise in the regional narrative. Sudha Murty
Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn’t occur to people – or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original. Lydia Davis
I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong. John Lennon
It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand. Fredrik Bajer
I thought that strange syntax was the language of story books. I didn’t realize those were poor translations… English from Edwardian times. Sandra Cisneros
I feel sometimes that I’m in a constant state of being lost in translation, and I guess that why I write songs. Laura Marling
Of course we may have any number of translations of a given text – the more the better, really. Lydia Davis
Chinese readers are buying books in translation, particularly non-fiction about China, in large numbers. Evan Osnos
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. Robert Frost
A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services. Edward Sapir
I often visit Maria Tatar’s ‘The Grimm Reader’ for a cold dose of courage. Her translations come from the Brothers Grimm, whose now-famous collection of ‘Kinder- und Hausmarchen’ (‘Children’s and Household Tales’) was first published in 1812. The book was not intended for young readers. Kate Bernheimer
Where words can be translated into equivalent words, the style of an original can be closely followed; but no translation which aims at being written in normal English can reproduce the style of Aristotle. Gilbert Murray
I love the song ‘El Rey.’ And for years, I never knew what the song was totally about. It was something new for me. I’d never sung a song in Spanish before. Then I got the translation and saw what a really cool song it was. George Strait
Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered. Leonard Cohen
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn’t; translations seem to be of their time. Tom Stoppard
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is. Jonathan Miller
Film has lost something in the translation to high tech. It’s become so super-real. It’s with digital this and stereo that, and everything’s like a CD. Nicolas Cage
I assume that we are all limited by our own brains and experiences and can only understand other people and other creatures through a kind of translation that brings them closer to us. Karen Joy Fowler
Yes, translation is by definition an inadequate substitute for being able to read a masterpiece in the original. Terry Teachout
I do a lot of recipe creation. Translation: cooking tempting dishes that must be eaten. Ruth Glick
