The process of completing a translation from one language to another is much more complex than it seems to most people who have not had experiences translating. Anita Raja is a translator who translates German texts into the Italian language. In an essay she wrote titled, Translation as a Practice of Acceptance, Raja speaks about her experience as a translator and the difficulties that she finds in the texts that she translates. She also noted that translating is not her main source of income, so she picks pieces to translate that she finds most compelling. Translating texts involves much more than taking a single word and finding a word in the other language that matches the definition, because the translator also needs to translate the entirety of the piece of writing— the culture, mood, style, etc.
Raja stated that there are two types of relationships involved in translating a text. There is the relationship between the language, and the other between the mode of writing (Translation as a Practice of Acceptance, 2). If one was to simply translate a text word for word, and not take int consideration the other aspects of the text, then the translation will not be a successful one. Even though it is important that the translator does not change the text around so much that it changes the whole context or the text, the translator usually will have to make some changes, according to their judgement, that will help for the translation to be understood. Raja also wrote about the inequality that is involved in translating a text between the original and the translation. The original will always be incomparable, because it is what the writer wrote, and it is what it is intended to mean. The translator has to use their best judgement for what the intentions of the writer were, and also often has to find different words or phrases to use so that the translation closely signifies the original text. Raja used a great example to explain the difficulty that sometimes happens when translating. She was translating the poem, Böhmen liegt am Meer (“Bohemia Lies by the Sea”). In this poem, it mentions that the houses are green, because in Germany this conveys a welcome and hospitable environment, whereas in Italy this conveys something different. This presents a challenge to the translator— does she keep the color of the houses because that is what the writer chose, or does she change the color because culturally there is a difference in meaning? Raja said that translators are also given the option of placing “untranslatable wordplay” into the text when the text is nearly impossible to translate.
The process of translating can seem so simple, yet once one realized how many layers there are to words and phrases that can be completely different in another language, then it is clear how difficult it truly can be to translate a text accurately. Making some changes to a text is acceptable and often times necessary for the text to be translated in a way that readers will understand what the original writer is saying.