The hottest Translation Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Literature Topics

On not reading (in English)

The Leftovers • 79 implied HN points • 11 Aug 22
📚 Literature Fiction Non-fiction Translation Critique Language
  1. Taking a break from Anglophone literature and exploring works in different languages can introduce fresh themes and perspectives.
  2. Reading works by authors from various backgrounds, like Alberto Prunetti's, can provide unique and endearing storytelling experiences.
  3. Exploring literature in original languages, like Italian in the case of Prunetti's book, can offer a deeper understanding of the language nuances and cultural diversity.

Using AI in education, Part 1

Solresol • 19 implied HN points • 12 Dec 23
🚌 Education AI Language Accessibility Translation Globalization
  1. Consider using AI for translating educational materials to make learning more accessible to students with different language backgrounds.
  2. Engaging students by providing educational content in their native language can improve their learning experience and motivation.
  3. Discuss the evolving importance of improving English fluency versus providing education in native languages to cater to global diversity.

Experiments in style: Antonymic translation

Eclecticism: Reflections on literature, writing and life • 10 implied HN points • 13 Oct 24
📚 Literature Writing Style Translation Genre Creativity
  1. Trying to rewrite texts in different styles can help improve writing skills. It's a fun way to explore new ways to express ideas.
  2. Antonymic translation is a technique where you replace words with their opposites, leading to funny and interesting results. It’s a creative exercise for writers.
  3. This experimentation with styles can change the tone of a story and offers a fresh perspective on familiar narratives. It's great for sparking new ideas.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

Heroes Can't Read (But We Can)

Painful Signs, Or, Joel's Substack • 19 implied HN points • 16 Sep 23
📚 Literature Analysis Translation Epic poetry Communication Symbols
  1. In the Iliad, there's a passage about 'painful signs' that raises questions about the use and impact of written communication in ancient times.
  2. Ancient scholars had varying opinions on whether the 'painful signs' mentioned in the Iliad were actually a form of writing or symbolic messages.
  3. The story of 'painful signs' highlights the power of language and messaging in shaping events, with implications and effects that might not always align with the author's intentions.

W. S. Merwin in Flight

Autoscriptorium • 19 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
📚 Literature Poetry Critique Translation Author analysis
  1. Poetry should not always be equated with prophecy or oracular speech. Not every profound utterance is meant to be divine or prophetic.
  2. W. S. Merwin was a versatile poet and translator, moving from traditional forms to more experimental exploration.
  3. In the poem 'Words From A Totem Animal,' W. S. Merwin creates a sense of urgency and fluidity through enjambment, blurring the lines between human and animal experiences.

Anne Carson's Mosaic Verse

Autoscriptorium • 19 implied HN points • 13 Feb 23
📚 Literature Poetry Translation Essay Myth Beauty
  1. Poetry organizes human breath and events through rhythm and meter, reflecting a sense beyond what we usually sense
  2. Anne Carson's work crosses genres, blending translation, poetry, and essay in a unique and unclassifiable way
  3. In 'The Autobiography of Red,' Carson creates a complex narrative around the myth of Geryon and Herakles, exploring themes of love, cruelty, and identity

Coming soon

The Oswald Spengler Project • 39 implied HN points • 30 Jul 22
📚 Literature Translation Essays Notes
  1. The newsletter 'The Oswald Spengler Project' focuses on notes, translations, and essays on the collected works of Oswald Spengler.
  2. The newsletter is hosted on spergler.substack.com.
  3. The 'Coming soon' message indicates that the content is not yet available but will be coming in the future.

🙄 The AI is coming for my UX job

Counting Stuff • 54 implied HN points • 13 Apr 23
🕹 Technology AI UX ML Translation Market Impact
  1. A startup is using AI to create fake personas for product testing, but it misses the point of user testing.
  2. Usability studies run by project managers may be biased without proper training, focusing on understanding user motivations rather than specific actions.
  3. Like machine translation disrupted the translation market, AI in UX may provide some value for simple tasks but human experts are still needed for complex nuances.

Japanese aesthetics: A podcast(!) and Q&A

Kyle Chayka Industries • 55 implied HN points • 12 Mar 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Aesthetics Podcast Translation Cultural critique Literature
  1. Kyle Chayka published his first audio project discussing Tanizaki's 'In Praise of Shadows' with Nate Gallant, exploring Japanese aesthetics and its relation to modernity.
  2. Tanizaki's essay delves into personal taste, the impact of technology on art, and the cultural implications of aesthetics in Japan.
  3. The essay critiques Western ideals of perfection and light, praising the beauty of shadows and imperfections in Japanese aesthetics.

Translating oneself

The Leftovers • 59 implied HN points • 28 Aug 21
🎨 Art & Illustration Translation Creative Writing
  1. The author realized they could translate their own work, even though they did it for a living, showing that writing in multiple languages changes the writer's voice.
  2. When writing in a language that is not native, writers tend to prioritize clarity over decorative language.
  3. Writing in a second language can make one feel like they are always being cautious, resulting in a simpler and clearer writing style.

The prologue of Roberto Arlt's Flamethrowers

The Leftovers • 59 implied HN points • 15 Jul 21
📚 Literature Criticism Translation Writer
  1. Roberto Arlt was an Argentine writer with a unique voice and sensitivity for tales of the underworld, honed through his work as a crime reporter.
  2. Literature in Arlt's time was reserved for the wealthy; now, it grapples with issues of professionalism, real or imagined.
  3. Arlt's writing advocates for a literary world free of pretentiousness and solely driven by an uncontrollable urge to create, devoid of any other influences.

A Revolution in Cartography

The Oswald Spengler Project • 2 HN points • 14 May 24
🚌 Education History Geography Culture Research Translation
  1. Spengler emphasized the importance of updating historical maps to reflect the latest research findings and to aid in understanding the development of civilizations over time.
  2. He proposed a new approach to cartography, stressing the need to include geographical details like terrain, agriculture, and migration routes to enhance historical analyses.
  3. Collaboration between experts from multiple disciplines is crucial in creating comprehensive maps that can visually represent historical, cultural, and anthropological data for better understanding.

Legibility

The Leftovers • 39 implied HN points • 10 Dec 21
📚 Literature Language Identity Writing Biography Translation
  1. Moving to a new place can make you rethink your identity and rewrite your story, leading to a sense of becoming unfamiliar.
  2. Writing in a second language can influence how you express yourself in your native language, blurring the lines between identities.
  3. In writing, balancing authenticity and legibility can be challenging, as it involves navigating personal identity and how others perceive you.

My top ten Latin American short stories

The Leftovers • 19 implied HN points • 09 Sep 21
📚 Literature Short Stories Authors Influences Translation
  1. Latin American short stories have a unique charm and connect closely to storytelling traditions, often outshining longer novels in the region
  2. Authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, and Gabriel García Márquez have created exceptional short stories celebrated for their depth and impact
  3. These stories delve into a range of themes, from literary experimentation to societal issues, offering readers a rich and varied reading experience

#15: Maybe You Should Invest in Translation

Loeber on Substack • 6 HN points • 19 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Translation Internet Labor Market Investing
  1. Translation is the next big thing in AI with significant global impact
  2. Advancements in speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and style transfer technologies are converging to revolutionize language translation
  3. Ubiquitous translation will greatly increase global connectivity, impact labor markets, and present investment opportunities in software, hardware, and geographic levels

Tippets #187

Tippets by Taps • 2 implied HN points • 18 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Chips Translation Social Issues Education
  1. AI advancements continue to impress, like OpenAI's Sora being able to generate videos from text.
  2. Big players like Masayoshi Son are looking to invest billions in AI chip ventures.
  3. The decline in social interactions and rise in loneliness in America can be linked to a shift towards face-to-screen tech over face-to-face interactions.

CxD 📚'23 #12: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ China Root: Taoism, Ch'an and Original Zen

CxD Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 03 Mar 23
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Zen Meditation Translation
  1. Ch'an/Zen Practice involves deconstructing human identity to engage deeply with awakening
  2. Terms in Taoist/Ch'an ontology ultimately converge into a single concept, emphasizing the undifferentiated nature of the Cosmos
  3. The book highlights the depth and authenticity of Ch'an/Zen/Meditation practices, and points out common mistranslations in Zen teachings

Nabokov, Borges, Leys, Lin Shu...

The Leftovers • 0 implied HN points • 28 Oct 21
📚 Literature Translation Criticism Language Authors
  1. Translation quality is subjective and can vary based on different perspectives like faithfulness to the original text or clarity in the translation.
  2. Vladimir Nabokov believed in the importance of faithfulness in translation, requiring a deep understanding of both the source and target languages.
  3. Jorge Luis Borges saw translation as a transformation that could sometimes improve upon the original text, emphasizing meaning over preserving every detail.

Usted se tendió a tu lado

The Leftovers • 0 implied HN points • 17 Sep 21
📚 Literature Translation Fiction Loss
  1. Translation is always an approximation and a perfect translation is impossible. Something is always lost, no matter how skilled the translator is.
  2. The Spanish pronoun 'usted' is a formal second person pronoun, similar to 'you sir/madam', and has nuances that make it impossible to exactly translate into English.
  3. The story 'Usted se tendió a tu lado' by Julio Cortázar relies heavily on the unique use of the personal pronoun 'usted' in Spanish, creating an effect that is challenging to convey in English.

Online jellyfish

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends • 0 implied HN points • 11 Mar 22
🕹 Technology Translation Social media Online Activism Virtual reality Crypto
  1. Google Translate has become more accurate and useful in global communication, especially in conflict situations.
  2. Efforts like Squad3o3 aim to combat propaganda by sending messages to random Russians, using tools and Google Translate.
  3. Although Google Translate has improved, it still has flaws in communicating important or complex information in various languages.

Sumer is icumen in?

The Jolly Contrarian • 0 implied HN points • 28 May 21
📚 Literature Poetry Translation Interpretation Artistic expression Music
  1. Meaning doesn’t live in words. It exists beyond the form and is created through shared cultural conventions. Interpretation is a creative act.
  2. The value of informal interactions in organizations often outweighs formal structures. The real potential emerges at the edges of the present state, known as the adjacent possible.
  3. Interactions, rather than structure or composition, determine outcomes in organizations. It's the informal interactions that lead to unforeseen possibilities and successes.

Multi-lingual versions of lectures

Solresol • 0 implied HN points • 13 Feb 24
🚌 Education Language Technology Translation History
  1. Theme music in an artificial language sets the tone for lectures on text encoding.
  2. Speech-to-text translation for multi-lingual lectures can have challenges like warping sound and misidentifying speakers.
  3. Efforts to translate lectures into various languages can save time and resources compared to re-recording multiple versions.

Translation: Addendum

Logos • 0 implied HN points • 08 Jul 20
📚 Literature Poetry Translation Analysis Literary Criticism Classics
  1. Feedback is very helpful when translating poetry. It can highlight mistakes and suggest better wording.
  2. Choosing the right words in translation is important for keeping the original meaning and feeling. Small changes, like using 'melodies' instead of 'music', can make a difference.
  3. Each translation can be unique, and comparing different versions gives new insights. It's good to learn from others to improve your work.

God Abandons Anthony - a translation

Logos • 0 implied HN points • 18 May 20
📚 Literature Translation Poetry Creative Writing Cultural Studies Literary Analysis
  1. Translation is a tough job that needs creativity. It's not just about changing words; it's about keeping the feeling and rhythm of the original text.
  2. Turning poetry into another language is tricky but fun. Short poems highlight the challenges and decisions translators make.
  3. When translating, choices about words and their order can change the meaning. It's essential to carefully consider each option to stay true to the original intent.