Thanks for this piece, Padraig. I’m a native Turkish speaker, and English is my second language. I studied English Language Teaching at university, so I’m fluent in English. Maybe this isn’t exactly what you were asking about, but I’ve found that when I write essays or poems, I often feel more comfortable writing in English.
Sometimes I translate my own work into Turkish as well, just to see how the feeling changes. For me, preserving the feeling while translating is an art in itself, as is the act of translation. Sometimes I feel that the Turkish and English versions carry completely different feelings, but neither is more or less than the other. They are simply unique in their own forms.
I have both Turkish and English versions of some novels, too, and I enjoy reading them in both languages and comparing the two. It never fails to amaze me how much work and artistry a translator puts into a text. Contrary to what many people think, this is something I believe AI will never truly be able to replace and it feels good to know that.
And I’d like to add one more Turkish saying: “Kolay gelsin,” which literally translates to “may it come easily.” We say it to someone who is working, writing, or even to a shopkeeper when we’re saying goodbye. So, kolay gelsin to all of you who are creating and writing.
I love this, Vera! I write poetry in two languages – Irish and English – and I find it a fascinating process. I will start off writing a line in English as a thought comes to me (I tend to think mostly in English) but when I then go to translate it into Irish, I often find that the Irish word I choose (there is usually more than one to pick from) has a slightly different meaning, which reframes my original thought and makes me want to go back and change the English line. The poem then becomes this fluid process of back and forth, each language bringing different nuances to the final product. It is such fun!
Does the Irish language contain more built in metaphors or images? I just learned on a trip to Western Ireland, from a wonderful bus driver, that in the Irish language. you say' sadness is upon me" not " I am sad, "which suggests that it can be lifted and be removed.
You're absolutely right, Elizabeth! "Brón” is the Irish word for “sadness” and “orm” means “on me”, so “I am sad” is “Tá brón orm”, literally “There is sadness on me”. As you say, it carries a freer sense than the English "I am sad", which feels more embodied and weighted down. We use the same form for many other emotions in Irish e.g. “Tá tuirse orm” for “I am tired” – literally, there is tiredness on me.
There are so many other examples like this – one of my favourites is how we translate giving something up such as alcohol, bad habits, etc. The Irish phrase is “ag éirí as”, which literally means “rising out of” e.g. “Táim ag éirí as an ól” – “I am giving up / rising up out of drink”. I like the connotation of shedding that which is not doing us any good. It is related to the word for “resurrection”, which is “aiséirí”. I could go on all day...
And I hope you had a good trip - I'm heading to Kerry and Cork tomorrow for a week!
Your words bring to my senses in this new way somehow that words do communicate feeling and that we can wield languages to convey feeling, and vice versa, it is suddenly miraculous to me anew.
Hi Vera. My former student/friend, Ümüt Arslan (umutarslanizmir@gmail.com) translates some of my work and a friend of his posts it in Turkey on a blog. I don't have that blog address right now, but would love to have you read both the English and Turkish versions of one of my little essays. Here's one of my recent posts: https://godcomesby.com/2026/08/09/smoke/ but I don't think he translated this one. I'll figure out which ones you might be able to compare....just for fun. No worries if this doesn't appeal :). My email is rita.sf@umontana.edu.
Thank you Vera. When I 'asked' Google Translate the meaning of 'kolay gelsin' of it replied with 'good luck' which is, I feel, evidence to support your comment about AI not being the equivalent of a human translator. The subtle emotional nuance is missing.
I live in a two bedroom townhouse where the 2nd bedroom served for a decade as the shared bedroom of my two sons - where they landed every other week as they shuttled for most of their lives between my home & their father's. Now that they are both at university, the metal bunk bed is gone, books & trinkets have been sorted or stored in the closet, and the room has been transformed into a guest room which has a new life hosting international high school exchange students - my own rebellious form of "guerrilla diplomacy" in contentious times. This summer, I hired my younger son & his best friend to take out carpet, put in flooring, & paint the walls - completing the metamorphosis. The French call a guestroom a "chambre d'ami" ("a friend bedroom"); as I look about the room to see the bed given by my son's friend covered by the quilt given by a close friend which once covered her beloved Grammy's bed, my childhood dresser covered by the runner stitched together from French placemats by my best friend, or the olive wood praying hands carved in Bethlehem which came to us after my father's passing - even the solar dancing monkey given to my children when they were small by a colleague - the room has truly become a "chambre d'ami" - representing so many gifts of love & friendship.
I literally just commented on another substack note earlier this morning about the negative connotations that still float around in language about being left-handed, as I am. I referenced the Irish word for a leftie which is “ciotóg” (pronounced “kith-ogue”) and which translates into English as “awkward person”. I lost count early on in my life of the numerous times someone would comment about how awkward I looked writing or doing something with my left hand and invariably call me a ciotóg. It was such a commonplace observation that it never occurred to them what it was like to be on the receiving end of their comments. But it did have an impact - initially, I felt confused, not understanding why or how it made any difference what hand I did things with, and then I felt embarrassed at being the focus of unwanted attention. As I got older and realised the cultural and religious roots of attitudes towards the left-hand, I became annoyed and irritated, only to have people be surprised at my response and tell me I was over-reacting. Despite this, I do count myself lucky not to have been one of those who were forced by teachers to use their right hand in school and endure unnecessary stress and humiliation as a result. The whole experience made me very aware from a young age of the power of words to shape how people fit – or don’t fit – in the world…
Fellow South Paw (and undeniably awkward person here). It's funny--I've often credited my VERY eccentric dad for modeling ease in one's skin. What I hadn't considered, until reading your post, was the way my far more "normal" and "traditional" mother loved him. I didn't simply bear witness to a man who embraced his oddities, I bore witness to how lovable he was BECAUSE of them. As a result, the labels others have assigned to me over the years--"spaz" "weirdo" "strange"--land as compliments. Your post helped me realize that it's not just language that shapes a sense of (non)belonging, but the context our inner circle affords us around that language. For the record, I'm glad you're part of the left-handers club. We're very exclusive and fabulous😘.
Yes, we are, Jenny!!! And yes to the power of positive modelling from our inner circle. You have reminded me of one of the (many) criticisms my soon-to-be-ex-husband (not soon enough…) had when our children were young, complaining that I used too many big words in my conversations with them. Like being criticised for being left-handed, I really didn’t understand what he meant, as that was just the way I spoke (the product of being a very early devourer of books and having a father who was the same, I presume). It was only later that I came to realise his criticism of my language was actually a kind of censorship of me, as one of his other major criticisms was that I thought too much…
Oh, Anne--while I imagine there's sadness around the divorce it sounds like your invitable expansion will outweigh it. I'll be cheering you on as you use the heck out of those "big" words and think WAY "too much." Your kids are lucky to have you❤.
As someone who feels odd and different your post was very comforting. I love how years later you harvest the nugget that your dad was deeply loved because of his eccentricities. Thank you for sharing.
Nice one, Jae! It doesn’t help that in English the word “right” carries connotations of correctedness when used for handedness. At least in Irish we have separate words: “ceart” for “right”, as in "correct" and “deis” for right hand, leg, side etc.
We could do an entire study on the word right. During some wretched stuff, I used the word right instead of write. I was writing toward healing and it kept coming out right. As if I was trying to correct was wrong with me or I could correct what I had done wrong. There was nothing wrong with me. I was deeply wounded. There was nothing to right, only to write.
I was one of those kids, too, Jae. I love how you proved them wrong! I'm not ambidextrous, but I do shoot pool with both hands. It probably isn't scientifically sound at all, but sometimes I think my dyslexia arose from the confusion of my early switch.
The interview with Leeder was a feast, Padraig. Thank you.
These days I’m translating my embodied experiences into words but the beauty and subtlety of sensations can be hard to language. Maybe we need new words to bridge the gap.
I knew all lefties to be very special people. Divine & creative. I always wished to be one. My Dad & 3 of my 4 brothers lefties as well as special artistic friends. You are blessed in a very distinguished way not a curse.
I’m a lefty. So is my brother. My dad is too. Although, he was forced to write with his right hand & stuttered because of it. Two of my four kids are lefties & so are a third of my grandkids.
I think because my dad has been traumatized, my folks did their best to help my brother and me acclimate. For my kids & grandkids it’s not a thing.
This post sends my mind so many places—longing, dreams, stories, the Talmud, my father who failed to raise us with either of the two languages he spoke fluently besides English... but on the top of my thoughts is the bottom of our minds—the unconscious. I work with the unconscious for a living as a therapist—individually and in groups—and I consider the work a form of translation and a mode of liberation. The unconscious resists direct translation. It feeds repetitive behavior, resistance, rejection, infatuation, fixation, grasping, violence, and hate. It does not want to be known, and yet, to become intimate with your own unconscious is to become intimate not only with yourself but with humanity, too. This deep water is in us all. I become psychically overwhelmed by politics on a grand scale, I think because I do not have a good grasp on how the mechanisms of liberation work on a larger scale than individual and group therapy. It is hard to change, individually, even if you want to. How then does transformation happen within a huge system that doesn't want to change? Or does it?
I also am thinking about growing up in a family of quick wit and sharp intellect. I was the baby. Not only were things sometimes a little over my head, but I found that my relationship to language was different from my siblings and parents—they used language like a scalpel, like a fine point pen. I used words like paint, like clay—inwardly aware of the multidimensionality of what it is to have a feeling, and then to have that feeling become a thought which then, to be known to others, has to use language as a medium to construct itself within the reality of that translation. I sometimes can't even get my words out I become so struck by the inner choreography of what it is to have something to say, and then I want to understand what unconscious forces may be driving me, etc. Anyway, translating from my insides can be a slow process for me. I can easily think, speak, and write quickly, but when I do I have to wonder at the accuracy of the translation.
Thank you for this…I am also a slow talker, slow writer, and how you describe the process of translating in the head before the words come out of the mouth or onto the page…is what I also experience.
Fascinating reflection, Jo. I had never considered the magnitude of societal transformation in just this way. I can imagine how paralyzing that must feel for someone who witnesses change happening one soul at a time. I hope, with everything I am, that art in all of its forms can be a catalyst for that collective shift towards transformation.
Jo, could it be that growing up around sharp witted word wielders, you became shielded and enriched by slower thinking, unconscious forces and creativity?
This is rich, Jo. I am deeply intrigued by what the unconscious holds and has to offer. It is a labor intensive act of translation that yields gifts of knowing bit by bit. I appreciate your putting this into words, a translation of a translation.
"The unconscious resists direct translation. It feeds...It does not want to be known." Thank you, Jo. You've captured a critical truth of the human condition.
Translator by trade as much as by passion, I get endlessly frustrated by the impossibility to convey certain concepts or words in French without using wayyyyy too many words. Even in my work as a therapist, I've found the English language way more effective at speaking straight to the heart of the person, sometimes bypassing the head altogether. I agree that translation is a premise for peace, if only because in order to learn a language, you have to learn to think like its speakers. I am a different person in English than I am in my French mother tongue, and as I'm learning Japanese, I'm confronted not so much with the difficulty of the language, but rather with the difficulty to think enough like a Japanese person to be able to use it. Learning a language, there is always what I call the "translating phase", where you're still translating from and to the new language in your head, that hopefully gives way to real fluency : when you think and speak directly in the new language, without transitioning through your own. With Japanese, I've been stuck in the translating phase for years, mainly because I would need a much higher level of immersion to start thinking like a Japanese person. I truly believe that each language forces you to develop different parts of your brain, as well as your personality, and for that I think learning languages is one of the basis for open mindedness in general.
I totally agree about different languages bringing out different aspects of your personality, Laure. I speak French and German as well as Irish and English and definitely feel that I express myself differently in each. I am definitely more (melo!)dramatic in French, more direct in German, more grounded and earthy in Irish and more in my head in English...
I’m English mother tongue, my husband French and we and our 2 children are all bilingual.
We like taking our favorite verbs and switching the language : planquer (to hide) into planquing > something you do when you put things away quickly before friends come for dinner.
Or we like saying some choice French expressions in English or the other way around, avoiding téter 😉.
Ca coûte la peau des fesses. > It costs the skin of the bottom. (It costs an arm and a leg)
Il / Elle a fumé la moquette. > They smoked the carpet (they’re crazy)
It’s fun, endless and a joy to have bilingual wordplay in the quotidian.
Ah! You've just reminded me of a lovely book my French friend bought me many years ago. Reading from one cover, you get English idioms in French. Flip the book over, and you get French idioms in English. So delightful:
During my 25 years in ultra-conservatism, I would often find that people out "in the world" would make certain assumptions about who I was based on my belief system. Close-minded. Judgmental. Lacking intelligence. It turns out, these things were both true and not true. But I genuinely hated the assumption of who and what I was. One of the things I have been searching for in the years since is the thread of Lyn that has stretched from birth to now. My true ways of being. I guess looking to translate myself accurately and show up as her. Flawed and deeply loving, kind, and compassionate. I am many things, and I know these things to be true of me. My own internal poetry of peace.
I have translated from ‘migrant English’ to ‘Aussie English’ for check out chicks who just couldn’t understand a heavily accented version of their language, and from English to Arabic at border crossings for foreigners who weren’t as proficient in the language as I was. Most radically, I could not translate my illness (anorexia) into Arabic when I learnt that language and so the illness lost its hold on me. I know someone whose autistic son has friends in Korean, but not in English, because he grew up in Korea. You say that you are translating your thoughts into language but in my experience language and thought are deeply intertwined, and learning new languages cracks us open to experiencing thought in entirely new ways.
Thank you, Pádraig. Once again, I love your prompt. Hello to all in this beautiful community,
I perform my original English songs in Italy with translations of the poems in librettos. Sometimes the libretto feels as if it falls just short of the moment, and I translate on the fly. The audience and band become collaborators, and that intersection between languages turns out to be such an interesting place to stand.
Oh, Lisa Marie, I would love to come to one of your concerts! I spend several months a year in Italy and my Italian is "sufficente" according to my Italian friends, but sadly far from fully fluent. I continue to study and to explore how different the world feel and looks in Italian. I'm also fascinated by how, with just one word, we can all tell a native speaker from a non native speaker, and how assumptions immediately arrive. Here's a little sonnet I wrote about that.
Directions from Siena
Outside the city wall, walking to the car
parked west of the fortezza, near the fountain.
We must have had some accidental flair
of clothes or hair or manner, since a young Italian
stopped his car beside us, leaned out the window,
Senta, scusi, dove' si trova la strada per Roma?
We knew -- what he was asking, the best road
to take, how to explain it all. Al semaforo si gira. . .
He stopped us with one wave of his elegant
hand. Ah, non siete di qua, he said, and drove
off, turning the wrong way at the light, fluent
in careless disregard of our earnest help, of all those
not from here. We laughed, but really, siamo di qua.
When my wife and I get into an argument, the act of being truly curious (which is not easy to do in the heat of the moment) can be vitally important in interpreting the situation. Trying to deeply listen and translate both the words and emotions during these tense situations often brings forth a deeper empathy and understanding of each other, creating a kind of poetry of peace.
I don’t have enough language skills to translate in the literal sense, but I do translate pain and emotions and stories for people. In my writing and in my work as a psychotherapist. I help people to translate experiences and relationships so they can have new understanding, more compassion for themselves and others. With that emerge choices and options and ways of seeing they hadn’t had before. I do that with people, not for them, as others have done for me in my own recovery from trauma and addiction.
This is very exciting for me to explore, and also very new. I have been reading the work of David Hinton. David has dedicated his life to studying and translating ancient Chinese into English. He spends a fair amount of time exploring the origins of the Chinese language, deliciously presenting the old Chan practitioners. The curious mix of the Tao, Chan, Indian Buddhism, and the translation into Japanese Zen. I have been a student of Zen off and on for years. Something within Japanese, and American, Zen has not settled well within me. I am beginning to feel what this unsettled experience is about. David weaves an understanding of Chan, the significant relevance of ancient Chinese, and an interesting perspective from all this on the tendency of English to generate dualistic thinking and behaving, creating a vast feeling of separation from “true nature”. Slowly, I am learning to integrate my personal life history into a more embracing awareness of Chan practice. Could this be a shift away from Japanese and American Zen practice? Are there misunderstandings and avoidance of elements of Chan practice all due to the challenges of translation? Maybe. It intrigues me. Fascinating. 🏮
The thing I remember about translation was holidaying in France with my basic French which was all well and good until my young son was injured in an activity park. My vocabulary was just about sufficient but the thing that worked far more than the words was the emotion in the expression to the supervisors there.
The other thing is that here on Substack is a wonderful place called The Word Emporium where we learn the origins of words from across the globe some in translation, it's also run by the same people that run the marvellous Welsh Haiku Journal I find being immersed in words there is a sort of translation between cultures and experiences.
What stands out to my experience is the “trans” of translation- a non binary space beyond this or that, a movement through, a bridge across, the third thing that’s no specific language but the way between them. The “you know what I mean?” The intended double entendres. The nailing down. The mondegreens. The shape shifting of form to convey the gist, grist, gyration of it all. There’s the before and after forms and the interesting in between that’s both and neither.
Brilliant! I have recently moved to Italy from the U.S., in order to live with my partner. I am learning Italian in more ways than just language and experiencing the growing pains. Gender, race, political belief; it is entirely reshaped culturally. Italian men are no-holds-barred sexist, but to them it is all in good fun. The stakes are lower, perhaps, than in my country? I am still lost in translation here.
Thanks for this piece, Padraig. I’m a native Turkish speaker, and English is my second language. I studied English Language Teaching at university, so I’m fluent in English. Maybe this isn’t exactly what you were asking about, but I’ve found that when I write essays or poems, I often feel more comfortable writing in English.
Sometimes I translate my own work into Turkish as well, just to see how the feeling changes. For me, preserving the feeling while translating is an art in itself, as is the act of translation. Sometimes I feel that the Turkish and English versions carry completely different feelings, but neither is more or less than the other. They are simply unique in their own forms.
I have both Turkish and English versions of some novels, too, and I enjoy reading them in both languages and comparing the two. It never fails to amaze me how much work and artistry a translator puts into a text. Contrary to what many people think, this is something I believe AI will never truly be able to replace and it feels good to know that.
And I’d like to add one more Turkish saying: “Kolay gelsin,” which literally translates to “may it come easily.” We say it to someone who is working, writing, or even to a shopkeeper when we’re saying goodbye. So, kolay gelsin to all of you who are creating and writing.
Bless you.
I love this, Vera! I write poetry in two languages – Irish and English – and I find it a fascinating process. I will start off writing a line in English as a thought comes to me (I tend to think mostly in English) but when I then go to translate it into Irish, I often find that the Irish word I choose (there is usually more than one to pick from) has a slightly different meaning, which reframes my original thought and makes me want to go back and change the English line. The poem then becomes this fluid process of back and forth, each language bringing different nuances to the final product. It is such fun!
Does the Irish language contain more built in metaphors or images? I just learned on a trip to Western Ireland, from a wonderful bus driver, that in the Irish language. you say' sadness is upon me" not " I am sad, "which suggests that it can be lifted and be removed.
You're absolutely right, Elizabeth! "Brón” is the Irish word for “sadness” and “orm” means “on me”, so “I am sad” is “Tá brón orm”, literally “There is sadness on me”. As you say, it carries a freer sense than the English "I am sad", which feels more embodied and weighted down. We use the same form for many other emotions in Irish e.g. “Tá tuirse orm” for “I am tired” – literally, there is tiredness on me.
There are so many other examples like this – one of my favourites is how we translate giving something up such as alcohol, bad habits, etc. The Irish phrase is “ag éirí as”, which literally means “rising out of” e.g. “Táim ag éirí as an ól” – “I am giving up / rising up out of drink”. I like the connotation of shedding that which is not doing us any good. It is related to the word for “resurrection”, which is “aiséirí”. I could go on all day...
And I hope you had a good trip - I'm heading to Kerry and Cork tomorrow for a week!
Ooooh I love Kolay gelsin- thank you for sharing.
Size de kolay gelsin! 🙏
Thank you for these nuances about translation. It’s very interesting to me that the subtlety of feelings changes in translation. Enjoyed your post.
Thanks, Joy!
Thank you for this Vera! Reminds me of the traditional Quaker ‘encouragement’: ‘Way will open.’
Your words bring to my senses in this new way somehow that words do communicate feeling and that we can wield languages to convey feeling, and vice versa, it is suddenly miraculous to me anew.
I will remember this - Kolay gelsin! What a beautiful thing to wish upon someone. Thank you for sharing this 💜!
❤️❤️
Lovely. Thanks for sharing. May it come easy to all of us
Hi Vera. My former student/friend, Ümüt Arslan (umutarslanizmir@gmail.com) translates some of my work and a friend of his posts it in Turkey on a blog. I don't have that blog address right now, but would love to have you read both the English and Turkish versions of one of my little essays. Here's one of my recent posts: https://godcomesby.com/2026/08/09/smoke/ but I don't think he translated this one. I'll figure out which ones you might be able to compare....just for fun. No worries if this doesn't appeal :). My email is rita.sf@umontana.edu.
Thank you Vera. When I 'asked' Google Translate the meaning of 'kolay gelsin' of it replied with 'good luck' which is, I feel, evidence to support your comment about AI not being the equivalent of a human translator. The subtle emotional nuance is missing.
I live in a two bedroom townhouse where the 2nd bedroom served for a decade as the shared bedroom of my two sons - where they landed every other week as they shuttled for most of their lives between my home & their father's. Now that they are both at university, the metal bunk bed is gone, books & trinkets have been sorted or stored in the closet, and the room has been transformed into a guest room which has a new life hosting international high school exchange students - my own rebellious form of "guerrilla diplomacy" in contentious times. This summer, I hired my younger son & his best friend to take out carpet, put in flooring, & paint the walls - completing the metamorphosis. The French call a guestroom a "chambre d'ami" ("a friend bedroom"); as I look about the room to see the bed given by my son's friend covered by the quilt given by a close friend which once covered her beloved Grammy's bed, my childhood dresser covered by the runner stitched together from French placemats by my best friend, or the olive wood praying hands carved in Bethlehem which came to us after my father's passing - even the solar dancing monkey given to my children when they were small by a colleague - the room has truly become a "chambre d'ami" - representing so many gifts of love & friendship.
A transformation and a translation!
I literally just commented on another substack note earlier this morning about the negative connotations that still float around in language about being left-handed, as I am. I referenced the Irish word for a leftie which is “ciotóg” (pronounced “kith-ogue”) and which translates into English as “awkward person”. I lost count early on in my life of the numerous times someone would comment about how awkward I looked writing or doing something with my left hand and invariably call me a ciotóg. It was such a commonplace observation that it never occurred to them what it was like to be on the receiving end of their comments. But it did have an impact - initially, I felt confused, not understanding why or how it made any difference what hand I did things with, and then I felt embarrassed at being the focus of unwanted attention. As I got older and realised the cultural and religious roots of attitudes towards the left-hand, I became annoyed and irritated, only to have people be surprised at my response and tell me I was over-reacting. Despite this, I do count myself lucky not to have been one of those who were forced by teachers to use their right hand in school and endure unnecessary stress and humiliation as a result. The whole experience made me very aware from a young age of the power of words to shape how people fit – or don’t fit – in the world…
This resonates. I was one of those kids forced into rightness. I proved them wrong and turned out to be an ambidextrous-non-binary- peacemaker-poet.
Fellow South Paw (and undeniably awkward person here). It's funny--I've often credited my VERY eccentric dad for modeling ease in one's skin. What I hadn't considered, until reading your post, was the way my far more "normal" and "traditional" mother loved him. I didn't simply bear witness to a man who embraced his oddities, I bore witness to how lovable he was BECAUSE of them. As a result, the labels others have assigned to me over the years--"spaz" "weirdo" "strange"--land as compliments. Your post helped me realize that it's not just language that shapes a sense of (non)belonging, but the context our inner circle affords us around that language. For the record, I'm glad you're part of the left-handers club. We're very exclusive and fabulous😘.
Yes, we are, Jenny!!! And yes to the power of positive modelling from our inner circle. You have reminded me of one of the (many) criticisms my soon-to-be-ex-husband (not soon enough…) had when our children were young, complaining that I used too many big words in my conversations with them. Like being criticised for being left-handed, I really didn’t understand what he meant, as that was just the way I spoke (the product of being a very early devourer of books and having a father who was the same, I presume). It was only later that I came to realise his criticism of my language was actually a kind of censorship of me, as one of his other major criticisms was that I thought too much…
Oh, Anne--while I imagine there's sadness around the divorce it sounds like your invitable expansion will outweigh it. I'll be cheering you on as you use the heck out of those "big" words and think WAY "too much." Your kids are lucky to have you❤.
Thank you, Jenny! Extremely large words and thoughts already in usage...
As someone who feels odd and different your post was very comforting. I love how years later you harvest the nugget that your dad was deeply loved because of his eccentricities. Thank you for sharing.
I'm glad my post offered you some comfort, Joy. Give me "odd" over "normal" any day!🙏
Nice one, Jae! It doesn’t help that in English the word “right” carries connotations of correctedness when used for handedness. At least in Irish we have separate words: “ceart” for “right”, as in "correct" and “deis” for right hand, leg, side etc.
We could do an entire study on the word right. During some wretched stuff, I used the word right instead of write. I was writing toward healing and it kept coming out right. As if I was trying to correct was wrong with me or I could correct what I had done wrong. There was nothing wrong with me. I was deeply wounded. There was nothing to right, only to write.
Beautifully put, Pat - especially that last line...
I was one of those kids, too, Jae. I love how you proved them wrong! I'm not ambidextrous, but I do shoot pool with both hands. It probably isn't scientifically sound at all, but sometimes I think my dyslexia arose from the confusion of my early switch.
The interview with Leeder was a feast, Padraig. Thank you.
These days I’m translating my embodied experiences into words but the beauty and subtlety of sensations can be hard to language. Maybe we need new words to bridge the gap.
I was also dyslexic! So yeah - stands to reason with our very limited case study 😎
I knew all lefties to be very special people. Divine & creative. I always wished to be one. My Dad & 3 of my 4 brothers lefties as well as special artistic friends. You are blessed in a very distinguished way not a curse.
I’m a lefty. So is my brother. My dad is too. Although, he was forced to write with his right hand & stuttered because of it. Two of my four kids are lefties & so are a third of my grandkids.
I think because my dad has been traumatized, my folks did their best to help my brother and me acclimate. For my kids & grandkids it’s not a thing.
So good to hear that the trauma didn’t get passed on, Kimberly.
This post sends my mind so many places—longing, dreams, stories, the Talmud, my father who failed to raise us with either of the two languages he spoke fluently besides English... but on the top of my thoughts is the bottom of our minds—the unconscious. I work with the unconscious for a living as a therapist—individually and in groups—and I consider the work a form of translation and a mode of liberation. The unconscious resists direct translation. It feeds repetitive behavior, resistance, rejection, infatuation, fixation, grasping, violence, and hate. It does not want to be known, and yet, to become intimate with your own unconscious is to become intimate not only with yourself but with humanity, too. This deep water is in us all. I become psychically overwhelmed by politics on a grand scale, I think because I do not have a good grasp on how the mechanisms of liberation work on a larger scale than individual and group therapy. It is hard to change, individually, even if you want to. How then does transformation happen within a huge system that doesn't want to change? Or does it?
I also am thinking about growing up in a family of quick wit and sharp intellect. I was the baby. Not only were things sometimes a little over my head, but I found that my relationship to language was different from my siblings and parents—they used language like a scalpel, like a fine point pen. I used words like paint, like clay—inwardly aware of the multidimensionality of what it is to have a feeling, and then to have that feeling become a thought which then, to be known to others, has to use language as a medium to construct itself within the reality of that translation. I sometimes can't even get my words out I become so struck by the inner choreography of what it is to have something to say, and then I want to understand what unconscious forces may be driving me, etc. Anyway, translating from my insides can be a slow process for me. I can easily think, speak, and write quickly, but when I do I have to wonder at the accuracy of the translation.
Thank you for this…I am also a slow talker, slow writer, and how you describe the process of translating in the head before the words come out of the mouth or onto the page…is what I also experience.
Fascinating reflection, Jo. I had never considered the magnitude of societal transformation in just this way. I can imagine how paralyzing that must feel for someone who witnesses change happening one soul at a time. I hope, with everything I am, that art in all of its forms can be a catalyst for that collective shift towards transformation.
Yes yes… art is the only understanding i have of “how” culture heals. Thank you for this 💛
Love the way you describe using words and scalpel and paint and clay!!!!!!
Jo, could it be that growing up around sharp witted word wielders, you became shielded and enriched by slower thinking, unconscious forces and creativity?
Elizabeth, reading this gave me the biggest smile, as though we shared a delicious secret
what a lovely comment big smile back at you
This is rich, Jo. I am deeply intrigued by what the unconscious holds and has to offer. It is a labor intensive act of translation that yields gifts of knowing bit by bit. I appreciate your putting this into words, a translation of a translation.
"The unconscious resists direct translation. It feeds...It does not want to be known." Thank you, Jo. You've captured a critical truth of the human condition.
I just loved where you went with this. I love the metaphor. It will stay with me, thank you.
Translator by trade as much as by passion, I get endlessly frustrated by the impossibility to convey certain concepts or words in French without using wayyyyy too many words. Even in my work as a therapist, I've found the English language way more effective at speaking straight to the heart of the person, sometimes bypassing the head altogether. I agree that translation is a premise for peace, if only because in order to learn a language, you have to learn to think like its speakers. I am a different person in English than I am in my French mother tongue, and as I'm learning Japanese, I'm confronted not so much with the difficulty of the language, but rather with the difficulty to think enough like a Japanese person to be able to use it. Learning a language, there is always what I call the "translating phase", where you're still translating from and to the new language in your head, that hopefully gives way to real fluency : when you think and speak directly in the new language, without transitioning through your own. With Japanese, I've been stuck in the translating phase for years, mainly because I would need a much higher level of immersion to start thinking like a Japanese person. I truly believe that each language forces you to develop different parts of your brain, as well as your personality, and for that I think learning languages is one of the basis for open mindedness in general.
I totally agree about different languages bringing out different aspects of your personality, Laure. I speak French and German as well as Irish and English and definitely feel that I express myself differently in each. I am definitely more (melo!)dramatic in French, more direct in German, more grounded and earthy in Irish and more in my head in English...
yes, think the person using their native language.
I’m English mother tongue, my husband French and we and our 2 children are all bilingual.
We like taking our favorite verbs and switching the language : planquer (to hide) into planquing > something you do when you put things away quickly before friends come for dinner.
Or we like saying some choice French expressions in English or the other way around, avoiding téter 😉.
Ca coûte la peau des fesses. > It costs the skin of the bottom. (It costs an arm and a leg)
Il / Elle a fumé la moquette. > They smoked the carpet (they’re crazy)
It’s fun, endless and a joy to have bilingual wordplay in the quotidian.
Laughing at smoking the carpet! May I use that? still laughing.
Ah! You've just reminded me of a lovely book my French friend bought me many years ago. Reading from one cover, you get English idioms in French. Flip the book over, and you get French idioms in English. So delightful:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5327773-ciel-blake-sky-mortimer-dictionnaire-fran-ais-anglais-des-expression
I love this, Emily, and concur!!
I love this!
During my 25 years in ultra-conservatism, I would often find that people out "in the world" would make certain assumptions about who I was based on my belief system. Close-minded. Judgmental. Lacking intelligence. It turns out, these things were both true and not true. But I genuinely hated the assumption of who and what I was. One of the things I have been searching for in the years since is the thread of Lyn that has stretched from birth to now. My true ways of being. I guess looking to translate myself accurately and show up as her. Flawed and deeply loving, kind, and compassionate. I am many things, and I know these things to be true of me. My own internal poetry of peace.
I feel seen. Assumptions of others tried to shape me. I said “here, hold my beer”. 💜
Love it! Here, hold my beer!
I have translated from ‘migrant English’ to ‘Aussie English’ for check out chicks who just couldn’t understand a heavily accented version of their language, and from English to Arabic at border crossings for foreigners who weren’t as proficient in the language as I was. Most radically, I could not translate my illness (anorexia) into Arabic when I learnt that language and so the illness lost its hold on me. I know someone whose autistic son has friends in Korean, but not in English, because he grew up in Korea. You say that you are translating your thoughts into language but in my experience language and thought are deeply intertwined, and learning new languages cracks us open to experiencing thought in entirely new ways.
Thank you, Pádraig. Once again, I love your prompt. Hello to all in this beautiful community,
I perform my original English songs in Italy with translations of the poems in librettos. Sometimes the libretto feels as if it falls just short of the moment, and I translate on the fly. The audience and band become collaborators, and that intersection between languages turns out to be such an interesting place to stand.
Oh, Lisa Marie, I would love to come to one of your concerts! I spend several months a year in Italy and my Italian is "sufficente" according to my Italian friends, but sadly far from fully fluent. I continue to study and to explore how different the world feel and looks in Italian. I'm also fascinated by how, with just one word, we can all tell a native speaker from a non native speaker, and how assumptions immediately arrive. Here's a little sonnet I wrote about that.
Directions from Siena
Outside the city wall, walking to the car
parked west of the fortezza, near the fountain.
We must have had some accidental flair
of clothes or hair or manner, since a young Italian
stopped his car beside us, leaned out the window,
Senta, scusi, dove' si trova la strada per Roma?
We knew -- what he was asking, the best road
to take, how to explain it all. Al semaforo si gira. . .
He stopped us with one wave of his elegant
hand. Ah, non siete di qua, he said, and drove
off, turning the wrong way at the light, fluent
in careless disregard of our earnest help, of all those
not from here. We laughed, but really, siamo di qua.
Aren't we all from here? Tutti noi siamo di qua.
Love that, Kathryn...
Kathryn this is wonderful. Mi ha fatto ridere di cuore! I hope one day to have you in the audience!
When my wife and I get into an argument, the act of being truly curious (which is not easy to do in the heat of the moment) can be vitally important in interpreting the situation. Trying to deeply listen and translate both the words and emotions during these tense situations often brings forth a deeper empathy and understanding of each other, creating a kind of poetry of peace.
Right on. Perfect.
Love this- poetry of peace
Love it, Michael. A Poetry of Peace. Curiosity is a gift! It results in magic…..
I don’t have enough language skills to translate in the literal sense, but I do translate pain and emotions and stories for people. In my writing and in my work as a psychotherapist. I help people to translate experiences and relationships so they can have new understanding, more compassion for themselves and others. With that emerge choices and options and ways of seeing they hadn’t had before. I do that with people, not for them, as others have done for me in my own recovery from trauma and addiction.
This is very exciting for me to explore, and also very new. I have been reading the work of David Hinton. David has dedicated his life to studying and translating ancient Chinese into English. He spends a fair amount of time exploring the origins of the Chinese language, deliciously presenting the old Chan practitioners. The curious mix of the Tao, Chan, Indian Buddhism, and the translation into Japanese Zen. I have been a student of Zen off and on for years. Something within Japanese, and American, Zen has not settled well within me. I am beginning to feel what this unsettled experience is about. David weaves an understanding of Chan, the significant relevance of ancient Chinese, and an interesting perspective from all this on the tendency of English to generate dualistic thinking and behaving, creating a vast feeling of separation from “true nature”. Slowly, I am learning to integrate my personal life history into a more embracing awareness of Chan practice. Could this be a shift away from Japanese and American Zen practice? Are there misunderstandings and avoidance of elements of Chan practice all due to the challenges of translation? Maybe. It intrigues me. Fascinating. 🏮
Your post is illuminating, triggering many thoughts about how language can shape a person’s view of self and the world self inhabits.
Great ways to be .... intrigued and fascinating. Fascinating is my personal preference
Sorry, sent inadvertently before done. Again—
“Roro no me yum yum.”
This is a hybrid invented language by 2-year-old Claire.
Loosely translated,
Roro (Harper, their dog)
no —is not standing here
me—next to me
but is in the gated kitchen
Yum yum—because I am eating.
“Roro no me yum yum.”
This makes me smile every time I think of it. Thanks for giving me the chance to write it down and share it.
The thing I remember about translation was holidaying in France with my basic French which was all well and good until my young son was injured in an activity park. My vocabulary was just about sufficient but the thing that worked far more than the words was the emotion in the expression to the supervisors there.
The other thing is that here on Substack is a wonderful place called The Word Emporium where we learn the origins of words from across the globe some in translation, it's also run by the same people that run the marvellous Welsh Haiku Journal I find being immersed in words there is a sort of translation between cultures and experiences.
For me, what you wrote, Steve, translates into Lovely.
What stands out to my experience is the “trans” of translation- a non binary space beyond this or that, a movement through, a bridge across, the third thing that’s no specific language but the way between them. The “you know what I mean?” The intended double entendres. The nailing down. The mondegreens. The shape shifting of form to convey the gist, grist, gyration of it all. There’s the before and after forms and the interesting in between that’s both and neither.
Brilliant! I have recently moved to Italy from the U.S., in order to live with my partner. I am learning Italian in more ways than just language and experiencing the growing pains. Gender, race, political belief; it is entirely reshaped culturally. Italian men are no-holds-barred sexist, but to them it is all in good fun. The stakes are lower, perhaps, than in my country? I am still lost in translation here.