I was recently confronted with the limits of my mother tongue. It’s a language everybody loves for its sound, for the richness of its cultural and literary past. People love it because it reminds them of the amazing food they had and the wonderful places they visited during their vacation. Yet, it’s a language that not many people talk.
During the 2nd Writers’ and Literary Translators’ International Congress in Istanbul I met a lot of people from many different countries, and once I came back home I was hoping I could get to read a few of the things they had written. So I understood their disappointment when I had to tell them that everything I had was in Italian: translations, of course, but also other texts.
Furthermore, when I tried to pick a few of the things they were writing in Swedish in Facebook (lots of Swedish writers in Istanbul!), I felt very frustrated, because I could only partially figure out what they were talking about: I was quickly fed up with Google Translator and its deceptive (yet impressive, watch out, translators!) translations.
So please bear with me while I try to write in English. It’s NOT my mother tongue. It’s not even the language I translate from, and still it’s the language everybody seems to be speaking right now in the world, so this is the language I chose to make myself understood. And even though it’s not perfect, it’s probably better than Google translator, for a few more years, at least.
Enjoy these thoughts, share your opinions with me and let’s make this a platform of exchange. Looking forward to seeing you here!
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