Not love, not money. It’s translation that makes the world go round.

In an article in the Huffington Post marking International Translation Day (celebrated on 30 September), Nataly Kelly, Chief Research Officer at Common Sense Advisory and co-author of “Found in Translation”, listed 10 ways that translation benefits us all:

1. Translation saves lives.
2. Translation prevents terror.
3. Translation keeps the peace.
4. Translation elects world leaders.
5. Translation creates jobs.
6. Translation fuels the economy.
7. Translation entertains us.
8. Translation tests our faith.
9. Translation feeds the world.
10. Translation makes us fall in love.

Here’s Nataly’s full article: 10 Ways Translation Shapes Your Life.

Do you agree with Nataly’s points, translators and non-translators? Can you think of other ways translation shapes our lives?

By Marian Dougan

4 responses

  1. I agree with all these points and would add that translation tries to share beauty. One of my friends asked me to read Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet 17 at her wedding – it made me emotional in English but it was the original in Spanish that really made me cry! If only the congregation had been bilingual…

    1. Thanks for that Kim. I’d never read that sonnet – it’s so beautiful! There’s so much wonderful literature and poetry that we never find out about if we stick to our own little world.

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