In the great desert of the Universe, civilizations bloom like green oases. Kilometers of path, covered with the dust of centuries, separate peoples. The oasis is not eternal: the trees dry up, the springs are covered with sand, but if not here, then there will certainly appear a new life, a new path, a new world. And like a leisurely caravan, knowledge passes from one green spot to another. But what will meet him on the way? .. The ruthless self of war, the plague of chauvinism – and now the letters are covered with sand, and no one would ever know what they were supposed to tell if it were not for the translators …
Learning an unfamiliar, foreign and incomprehensible language is a strange hobby. The one who was the first to speak a foreign language is worthy of admiration. Those who continue his work now live all over the world, working for the good of all peoples. These are translators.
My profession is a translator and I want to study and understand other cultures. Not strangers – others. It is impossible to understand this world, see all its colors and hear all sounds, if you do not know how it can be understood. The world can be understood in Russian (without murmuring, but also without humility), it can be understood in Japanese (by contemplating and adoring), or you can combine these and many other worldviews both for yourself and for others. Explain to the Japanese why Ivan the Fool became king by only catching a magic pike? was able to rule the people in justice. Explain to the Russian why the cunning raccoon in the form of a boy so insistently offers to Mr. Yamamoto to buy sake? (From Japanese mythology) .. It’s just that a demon in a striped skin has made a fool in the village and does not want people to think of him and come to expel him …
Simple – but not easy. It is not easy to learn to see the world through the prism of the cultures of other peoples and not lose your national “I” at the same time. But the more interesting it is to learn something fundamentally different from what you knew and what you operated on before, the more interesting it is to compare the knowledge gained and be surprised at the diversity of human thought.
My profession is a translator; an irreplaceable profession in any country in our age of globalization. Communication between cultures covers all levels and areas of life, and yet it is often possible to do without the help of a professional just to understand each other. However, the profession of a translator is not only a job, but also an art, an art of transformation. Like a hare out of a hat, the translator pulls out something of ours, dear, from a foreign thought and speech, and now a foreign proverb does not seem like a strange set of words, and the names of his favorite characters from the book of a foreign writer have acquired meaning and significance.
My future profession is a translator, and although I do not hope to find manuscripts in a hitherto unknown language in the desert, I still want to pull my hare out of my hat so that afterwards my grandchildren will proudly remember grandmother’s technical translations from Japanese. 🙂