What years of reading, watching and living between languages taught me about translation.
I still remember reading the Aadi Perukku chapter in Ponniyin Selvan in English translation. Long before I crossed the Kollidam and stood looking at the River Kaveri, Kalki had already planted the river in my imagination. The translation carried enough of its spirit that, years later, when I finally saw the landscape for myself, it felt strangely familiar. The river before me was not the same river I had imagined, nor should it have been. Yet the translation had preserved something precious—the wonder.
That was perhaps the first time I realised that a good translation does not merely move words from one language to another. It carries memories, landscapes and ways of seeing the world.
Translation has accompanied me throughout my life. Growing up in South India, I heard Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and English spoken around me, with the occasional Sanskrit phrase woven into prayers, songs and conversations. Sunday afternoons belonged to regional cinema. Later, books in translation widened my reading, and during my time at Akroo Pte. Ltd. in Singapore—a language translation company that felt remarkably like a home away from home—I came to appreciate translation not merely as a profession, but as an act of trust between cultures.
In recent years, that journey has continued through Japanese cinema, Korean dramas, Chinese historical series and novels in translation. Their subtitles have often delighted me, occasionally frustrated me, and frequently reminded me that every translation is also a series of choices.
Looking back, I realise that my understanding of translation has quietly become an understanding of hospitality.
1. Translation Is an Invitation
A translated work should invite me into another culture rather than quietly replace it with my own.
If every Chinese character sounds American, or every Tamil proverb becomes an English cliché, I may understand the dialogue, but I no longer hear the original voice.
Understanding should never require erasing difference.
2. Some Words Deserve to Travel
I have often wondered why I hesitate to translate kolam simply as rangoli, or either of them as “floor art.”
The kolam I grew up with was drawn every dawn using rice flour. It welcomed visitors, marked the beginning of a new day and quietly provided food for tiny ants before the household had even eaten breakfast. Beauty and kindness arrived together at the doorstep.
No single English word carries all those meanings.
Sometimes a word deserves to travel unchanged, accompanied by a little explanation rather than a convenient substitute.
3. Idioms Carry Memory
Quite unexpectedly, a family WhatsApp conversation reminded me of this.
I welcomed my cousin’s new bride by saying she was joining “a family of jacks of all trades.” A playful reply followed that transformed the idiom into “useless in all trades.” We were all speaking English, yet one missing half of an idiom created an entirely different meaning.
It reminded me that idioms are shared cultural memories. Remove one piece and the meaning begins to wobble.
The same challenge faces every translator.
4. Music Sometimes Translates Before Words
When I listen to Jungkook’s Euphoria, I naturally appreciate the translated lyrics.
Yet long before I understand every line, the music has already translated the emotion.
Hope, longing, excitement and tenderness travel through melody before language has finished introducing itself.
Sometimes the most successful translation is not linguistic at all.
5. The Reader Can Meet the Translator Halfway
Modern localisation often assumes that audiences should never encounter unfamiliarity.
I disagree.
Readers and viewers are capable of curiosity.
If someone says Xiao Bai, I would rather learn why “Xiao” matters than quietly lose it in translation. If a drama retains a cultural form of address or an unfamiliar idiom, I do not feel excluded. I feel invited.
Hospitality works both ways. The translator welcomes me into another culture, but I also have a responsibility to enter respectfully rather than expecting everything to be rearranged for my comfort.
6. Translation Is an Act of Humility
A translator stands between two worlds.
The task is not to prove mastery over either language but to allow both languages to breathe.
The finest translations rarely draw attention to themselves. Instead, they quietly create enough space for another culture to remain recognisably itself.
That kind of restraint is not weakness. It is generosity.
7. Every Translation Is Also an Autobiography
Looking back, I realise I was never only studying translations.
I was also studying myself.
Each time I preferred a literal subtitle over a polished one, I was revealing something about the kind of reader I wished to become.
I enjoy entering another culture on its own terms. I would rather discover why someone is called Xiao Bai than simply read “Bai.” I would rather pause over an unfamiliar idiom than replace it with one that feels comfortably English.
Perhaps that is why I still notice when subtitles become a little too smooth. Fluency has its place, but occasionally it comes at the cost of wonder.
A language, like a home, has a choice. It can ask every guest to dress alike, speak alike and behave alike before entering. Or it can make room for difference.
I have come to believe that the finest translations are not merely accurate. They are hospitable.
They welcome another language without asking it to stop being itself. And perhaps that is the kind of host language I hope English can continue to become.
Credit: From the Convo with Mira (AI Powered ChatGPT)
Itinerant Storyteller 