If translation didn't exist...

"Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament". Milan Kundera.

We live in such a modern world and we are now used to so many technologies and devices that we hardly value or stop to think about the different disciplines and arts that make so many things possible…

There's one good example of great importance because of everything that has been created and transformed thanks to it, and that is translation. Translation has united cultures, societies, artists, writers, businesses, countries and people around the world within the passage of time.

The art of translation has made possible that the most amazing history, poetry and literature works of the greatest thinkers and authors of all times can be read, studied and understood by millions of people that speak hundreds of different languages.

The fact that there are professionals dedicated to study languages and specializing in really knowing the cultural details and customs of different countries and regions has made possible that persons from really faraway places of the planet can establish communication and find that they actually have things in common.

Since there are more than 300 spoken languages in the world, if translation didn't exist, you wouldn't be doing a lot of the things you do in your daily life. For example, you wouldn't be able to watch thousands of movies from directors of different countries because there would be no way for you to understand them, since there wouldn't exist subtitles for you to read the dialogs in your own language.

Also, many television shows that have been adapted from the originals from other countries wouldn't reach your national television providers guide, because they would be in their original languages…Furthermore, a lot of great famous books that have been adapted to the big screen couldn't possibly be so because of the fact that the books are written in the author's native languages, which can't be comprehended by the scriptwriters.

There are countless examples in countless fields that transform your everyday life because of the possibilities that translation has brought to life. The world would be a completely different place and wouldn't be so culturally rich and so full of knowledge if it weren't for translation and, of course, for translators.

Even scientific inventions and science development have advanced much more and faster because of the possibility of uniting the knowledge and the experiments of scientists from around the world that do research and work in their own languages.

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Understanding your world through history

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are". David C. McCullough.

If one day you feel you want to understand better the world in which you live, the reasons why your family is the way it is and why you are the person that you are in the present, grab a book of your country's history and read it. You may think there are no direct connections between what you're living today and what years ago happened in the same lands…

But there really are. Once you start knowing and understanding a little bit more about your culture, your country, your people, your ancestors, you start to realize how every detail of your present life has its roots in the past of a whole nation and even of its neighbors, and of the whole world.

If you see history as some academic task that you used to have when you where at school, is because you haven't let yourself understand what it is about. When you start seeing history as a true story that's been told in hundreds of different versions by hundreds of different authors, through history books and through novels, through documentaries and through fiction films, you begin to discover its magic, the treasure that's behind all those words and images.

Those stories that sometimes feel so distant and so old are the ones that have molded the world and made it as it is. Once you start connecting facts of different nations and cultures, your mind is able to see the world as one big universe that has a lot of interdependent small universes that are not far from each other after all.

History can help you understand who you are and value where you were born because that fact has made you exactly as you are. Sometimes you listen the name of a war and you just imagine some crazy people that a lot of years ago killed each other for no reason; but if you take the time to find out who those people where and why they risked everything they had, even their lives, for fighting in the lands where you now live, you might understand that they, as you, had families and dreams, but did something that changed your world.

When you know how your home was built, you value it the most. Don't let time pass without finding out and thinking a little bit about where you came from…You may surprise yourself caught up in the middle of a history book, thinking that is a great novel no one could have ever created if it wasn't with the richness of reality.

Learn from history; let it teach you wonderful lessons that no one else can. Understand the world you live in today so that you can have strong and active opinions about it, and so that you can confidently speak about historical facts and events. People like other people who know interesting details and who can teach them about different aspects!

So, go ahead, grab a history book about any moment in time that interests you and that you've somehow wandered about…It will change the way you look at the world and at your own life.

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The magic of languages

When letters come together they form words, which then, combined in a very specific way, become phrases and bring languages to life, creating sounds and signs that make sense for the people who understand each particular language. But languages are so much more than that…They have endless cultural aspects that have built them and given them their own characteristics.

There are many years of history behind each of the approximate 6.000 languages that exist today, and they're the result of men's needs and efforts to communicate with others, so they contain the richness of men's cultural and technological evolving.

That's why knowing a language means a lot more than learning words and grammar. It means understanding another culture, comprehending how other people communicate and express themselves, and realizing that they have different views of the world. It means discovering the magic of new worlds through completely new concepts and visions of life. It could mean rediscovering life.

When you know someone that speaks another language, even if you don't understand them, with just listening to the words, the tone and the volume with which they speak, you start to find out small details that reveal interesting aspects of their culture. Also, that's because languages are not only the words that compose them; when those words start being part of somebody's life they acquire a personality that has been molded by culture. Culture expressed through languages can create attitudes and forms of expression: for example, it can make someone be very expressive and kind of loud or really rough with their words and keeping it simple when it comes to expressing a feeling…There's a lot to discover through languages.

The art of languages

Another passionate side of languages relies in the art that's created from them. Literature, poetry, the dialogues of a movie, the name of a painting, the lyrics of a song…Artists love languages and express all their inspiration trying to put it in words, to let the world know and understand what they think and what they want to say.

Knowing different languages represents the possibility of going deeper into the minds of those who have written wonderful works, treasures of history. Each word was chosen by each artist specifically to say exactly what they were thinking and it involves an enormous cultural process to be placed where it is.

Also, artists and writers have shown great interest in languages throughout history; many of them lived in war periods where they had to leave their original homes to start new lives where they had to learn new languages that then became their powerful ways of expressing what they went through by means of the words that shaped their new lifestyles.

The richness within languages is priceless. It's the magic of history captured in words that create new meanings everyday and continue building the history for tomorrow.

When you learn a language you're actually learning the way other people live and see the world. But, with the existing 6.000 languages, it becomes obvious that no one can learn them all, so there's where translation acquires all its value: it represents the possibility of reading works, understanding people and knowing what happens anywhere in the world.

Translations are cultural exchanges that allow people to view the world through other's eyes.

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