Learning Journal #2

Last wednesday (30th September) we went to Universidade Católica to attend a lecture about translation and it's obstacles, and also the ceremony followed for handing the awards to the winners of the translation contest.
I confess I was pretty curious about the visit because I am a huge Harry POtter fan, and meeting the translator of the books was an opportunity to get a new perspective on the story.
The speech that I thought more interesting was the second one (now I remember it was a lady named Lara), when we had the first contact with the problems a translator faces. The Umberto Eco's quotation was very interesting: « the art of failure ». Translation is, indeed, an art, and a constant failure, followed by an enormous success!
Languages and cultures are so different, and a translator has the hard job of transmitting a piece of culture. The words with various meanings, the challenge of figuring out which word, which expression, which verb should be used so the translation becomes as good as the original, must not be an easy job.

I brag myself for knowing many things about Harry Potter; his stories and adventures are part of my teenagehood and history. But, I never dreamnt that the names of people and places have so much more meaning than what I thought (actually, I never thought about that, for me they were just names)! The lecture with the translator of these books was the cherry on the top of the cake!
But, with this last lecture with Isabel Nunes, we got to know, from the first person, the problems and obstacles a translator has to face.