Do you know who translated the last book you read?Â
Often forgotten, translators are essential to bring you stories from all over the world, in your language. And the work does not stop in the universe of the books. Every TV show from another country has its subtitles made by these professionals, as the manual for your new television.Â
âEverything in our life that is not one hundred percent national has someone intermediating in the translation. So, it ends that this is a professional unknown, unspoken, but extremely importantâ, says Regiane Winarski, a Brazilian book translator with more than ten years of experience.Â
Some of Winarski’s works include It, by Stephen King, Fire and Blood, by George R. R. Martin, the series Trials of Apollo, by Rick Riordan, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, by Caitlin Doughty.
She confessed that the idea of becoming a translator appeared later in her life, but the passion for books was always with her. Since forever Winarski read everything that showed up in front of her, and every part of the books, from credits to acknowledgments. It was then that she began to notice the figure of the translator.
However, even loving English, writing and books, she ended up studying chemical engineering in college. It was in the middle of an internship that she realized that it was not for her. So, Winarski began a course of editorial production, with the idea of working with books. She worked for years as an English teacher, but only after her daughter was born, Winarski made the decision to translate books.Â
The work and routine of a translator
Translators work as freelancers, who are called to jobs by the publishers. âOne of the difficulties of being a translator is to find a balance in your agenda, to not end up with little or too much work at onceâ. Winarski’s routine always starts following breakfast, after which she begins to work. She plans a daily number of pages to work on, according to deadlines.Â
âI have planned how many pages of one book I will make and then how many pages of another, and I try to control my time. Not always work. Some days a book takes way longer than what I expected, for example, when a more difficult subject appearsâ.
And that happens. When Winarski was translating short stories from Stephen King, she came across one that talked about baseball. Not only mentioning, but the entire story revolving around the sport. So, she said: âWant to know? I will have to learn this crapâ. Then she stopped working for three days and began studying how the game was played, how the rules worked, and the specific vocabulary. Only then she was able to go back to the translation.Â
The whole process also depends on the rush to publish and the release deadline. Books by famous authors often have a simultaneous launch with the original work, and that makes a super tight schedule. Others, when there is no need for such a hurry, have a more reasonable timescale. Â
The need for recognition
The professionals of this area, as we know, are not valued as highly as they deserve. In an article published recently by The Guardian, the author proposes a reflection: Why translators should be named on book covers. Winarski agrees that they should.Â
People sometimes say that it is a vanity that you want your name on the cover, but it is not vanity, it is recognition. It is work that demands study, dedication, and a lot of time. If you do not highlight the name of those people, they become just another one. When you have people standing out in that field, you create a necessity of appreciation.
Regiane Winarski
This would result in more expenses for the companies, however, on the other half, would produce a larger quantity of qualified professionals. âEveryone wants to read a well-written book and a well-translated book. The good translation will make the book well written in our language tooâ.
To identify those good translations, we look at stories where the text is fluid and that makes the reading process not difficult. âWhen I am reading a book review and the person says that the text is superfluid, natural, that the author writes well, actually, this is a compliment to the translator. The original text is fluid because the translator brought this to the idiomâ.
âPeople often say: âI need to know a lot of English or French or Spanish or whatever language it is to translateâ. I hear this a lot. We must understand the original language well, absolutely, but you do not have to know everything, because we can research. You have to understand the text, but the specific terms we search. What you really need to know is to write in Portuguese. You have to be a person that writes wellâ, concludes Winarski.
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The article above was edited by Gabriela Sartorato. Â
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