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Anita Raja\u2019s powerful piece, where she equates translation to acceptance, is wildly thought-provoking. Besides being an articulate and wonderful writer, Raja has a way of telling things how they are, and you as the reader, are more than happy to oblige and accept it as truth. Furthermore, though my trade is not translation, I have recently been opened up to the world that Raja describes. It is complex and challenging, and surprisingly very personal. Looking at two contemporary, twentieth-century women writers, Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Bachmann, Raja develops on concepts and characteristics of translation that are not unfamiliar to me. Below, I identify her positions and thoughtfully weave in my own commentary and feeling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the outset of her piece, Raja is very quick to address the inequality that translation poses. The best translator is ready to accept that, but not surrender to the fact that, their language is surmounted by the other. The gap between the original and the product, however, is only rendered equal if the translator works to close it through love and admiration of the original. In my opinion, the way Raja dismisses surrender and replaces it with praise is so well articulated. Recognizing inferiority, as I see it, is the first step in overcoming it. The original words are unmatched unless one challenges the words in their language to rise to the same revere. A more juvenile example of this, but still a proper example, is the fact that the Italian language has <\/span>three distinct declined past tenses, where <\/span>fui<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>passato remoto<\/span><\/i>), <\/span>ero<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>imperfetto<\/span><\/i>), and <\/span>sono stato<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>passato prossimo<\/span><\/i>) all mean ‘I was’ in English. Therefore, an English translator may have to rework or rephrase a simple \u201cI was\u201d to match the particular and significant past tense noted in Italian.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, Raja continues her discussion by highlighting issues that arise from the multiplicity of meanings within the original word. She livens up this widely understood claim by not only discussing the great losses of translation, but also the great gains. As I see it, interpretation is not invention, though it can easily and dangerously become it. Rightfully done, interpretation is an imaginative process that allows a translator to immerse themselves into the labyrinth of another language and do it justice in another. Languages are inherently different, set apart by their own essences and geniuses. They belong to different people and different cultures. For example, Italian dialects are dramatically different from standard Italian and are often incomprehensible across regions. Yet, they serve a very intimate and important purpose, lending identity and meaning to collections of people, both large and small. Like Italian writer Andrea Camilleri underscores, the Italian language is \u201ca tree that sinks its roots in all of Italy and takes the words from the periphery to the center.\u201d Dialects are therefore not only profound regionally, but nationally too.<\/span><\/p>\n