Skip to 0 minutes and 6 seconds What do a street in one of today’s global cities, the manual for the latest appliance you bought, a decent science fiction movie, or the dressing room of a top football or rugby club have in common? They’re all multilingual spaces, the spaces of translation, whether you see it or not. The first image that comes to mind when you think of a professional translator is that of the professional interpreter at the European Union or the United Nations. Think of the last ten people that you met this morning on your way to work. The bus driver or the taxi driver who took you there, the person who made you a coffee. The chances are, there were all multi-lingual.
Skip to 0 minutes and 48 seconds The truth is that translators really come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. And in the next four weeks, you will discover that translators are found in all walks of life, all around the world, and they can be men women, and children, who act as translators, often without even realizing it. Very often, people only notice translations when things go wrong. For example, a mistranslation can cause diplomatic tensions. This would suggest that all other translation is simply good. Yet the question, what makes a good translation, is far more complex than that. The stereotypical translator, interpreter looks a little bit like me, female, youngish, often bespectacled, sitting in a booth with headphones on, and with a look of extreme concentration.
Skip to 1 minute and 36 seconds We do not often stop to think about how translation works or about what it means to be an interpreter, to be a translator, or perhaps to work with professional or improvised translators. If you look closely enough, you will see that translation is everywhere. And possibly, there’s a translator hidden away in each and every one of you.
