translation
"A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it's there when there are little imperfections- scratches, bubbles. Ideally, there shouldn't be any."
"Translation is like the clasping of two hands: on the one hand translators need to understand the meaning of the source text; on the other they need to grasp the target language. When the two are put together, the meaning of the source is beautifully expressed in the target language."
"A translation is like health: if it's good, you don't notice it. But if it's not (or if some reviewer thinks it is not), it becomes very important and can ruin a whole book, just as even a minor health problem can ruin your whole life. Every translator knows that the people who review books usually say nothing at all about the translation; you can be very pleased if you read: "The author has been well served by his/her translator" or "... in the felicitous translation of ..." But woe to the translator if anything is wrong: in that case the flaws of the translation can easily take up a whole paragraph or more."
"Balina worked with Professor of English Emeritus James McGowan on the translations of poems by German
poet Wolfgang Borchert. "Translation is like a sculpture, basically shaping up the material like it was clay, and
then refining it," agrees McGowan, who is known for his translations of the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
"Just because the words are similar from one language to another, it does not mean the meaning is similar." "
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.