TEDGlobal 2013 Found in Translation June Cohen

In this Found in Translation Session, June and a global panel of TED Translators explore what it means to connect with other translators via language and technology, and the impact it has had on their lives.

I'm so excited to be here with all of you

and to have this conversation

I think we have six people
joining us on Skype from around the world,

so perhaps we could bring them up.

Hello!

(June Cohen) Hello!

I'm waving at the screen,
I should be waving here, I think,

It's so good to see you all!

You know, I always love to start
with a quick round of introductions,

because I'm so fascinated
by everyone who's here,

so maybe we can start in Bologna.

All right, that would be me, then.

I'm Alberto, I'm from Italy, obviously.

And I translate into Italian.

Thank you, Alberto.

And let's see if I can pronounce
every city up there.

I'm going to try...
Pune!

Hey, it's Abhishek Suryawanshi
from Pune, India.

And which languages do you translate into?

I translate into Marathi and Hindi.

That is great, and maybe
we'll come into the room.

I'm Els, I come from Belgium.

I translate into Dutch,
which is my mother tongue,

and also into French and Italian.

I'm Anwar from Sudan,
I translate into Arabic.

I'm Kristine from Armenia
and I translate into Armenian.

I'm Wataru, I'm from Tokyo
and I translate into Japanese.

And we're going to go back
around the world.

And can I go to you, Hanna?

Hi, I'm Hanna
and I translate into Ukrainian.

And to Christel.

Hello, I'm Christel, I'm Belgian,

I translate into Dutch.

Hi, Els!

(Els De Keyser) Hi!

(Laughter)

(June Cohen) Everyone knows Els.

(Dutch) Good morning!

And to Meric.

(Meric Aydonat) Hello, I'm Meric.

I'm from Turkey
and I translate into Turkish.

(June Cohen) I have to tell you
that my favorite part

literally of every conference

is getting to talk
to some of our translators,

because I just find you to be
the most inspiring community

I've ever come across.

But one of the things
I'd love to start with

is something some of you know
but maybe some of you don't,

which is that the Translation Project
was not our idea.

It was yours.

So, we launched TEDTalks
almost seven years ago,

and from the moment
that we put the talks online,

within weeks, we actually started getting
emails from people around the world,

saying, "We want to translate
these talks."

And one of the things that struck me was,

we'd get emails that said, "I want
to translate these into Polish, Spanish...

Here, I've already translated this
into Hebrew.

Here!"

And what was so interesting to me
about these emails

was that they, you, weren't asking us
to translate the talks.

You were saying,
"We want to translate these talks."

"We want to make them available,
we want to be a part of this.

We want to help."

And that was a profound moment for me,

the realization of the generosity
that was in the world.

And so, we actually eventually listened.

And these emails actually became
a little more insistent.

They went from "I would like to translate"

to "Here's what we think you should do.

Launch a project that allows anybody
to translate the talk into any language.

And here's some technology
you could use for it, come on!

So basically, we have listened
to this community from the very beginning.

This is entirely the reason
that we launched the Translation Project.

It's because you told us to.

And so, for the last four years,
we've been following this community

and [we've been] amazed and humbled
to see where you've taken us so far.

So, you all know the numbers.

40,000 translations,
more than 100 languages.

We're beginning to move
from just subtitling

to translation of the website itself,

we're going to start looking at dubbing
or a voice-over at some point soon,

again, because you're telling us to.

And one of the things
I also think is really exciting

is that we're now moving in the direction
of translating TEDx talks

that are filmed not in English,
but in all of your languages,

and bringing the ideas and people
that are native to where you're from

back into English and around the world.

So, I think the potential
and the possibility

of what's coming out
of this community is so profound.

And so, where I would love
to start the conversation,

because I always just love hearing this,

is I'd love to start
with why each of you translates.

What motivates you,
what brought you to the Project,

and why you continue.

Would somebody coming in
over Skype like to start?

I'd love to hear why you translate,
why did you start?

For me, it started with Brené Brown.

It was such a nice and inspiring talk.

I wanted to show it to my friend,

and she didn't speak English
or read English.

So, then I saw that I could volunteer
for translating, and I did.

And since then, I'm addicted
to translating TEDTalks

because they are so inspiring.

(June Cohen) I love that.
Brené will do that to you.

(Laughter)

And Meric, I think you had a thought.

I initially started

because I wanted schoolchildren
to be able to understand TEDTalks,

because that is such an important
time in their lives

and TEDTalks offer perspectives
into so many different professions,

like sociology, psychology,
medicine, engineering.

So, they would watch
and understand many talks

and in the end, they'd understand
what they want in their lives

and do what they want to do
with their lives.

So, I started because I wanted children
to be able to understand them,

and then, I started receiving emails
from so many people,

thanking me for my translations.

And I just love it!

(Laughter)

I love hearing
that you're getting these thanks.

We don't always know when that happens.

But Kristin and I talked about this
a lot at the beginning,

that we wanted a system set up

so that the community
would have access to the translators.

And we view you as big rock stars
as the speakers themselves,

so we love hearing
that that communication is happening.

What about back into the room?

One or two of your thoughts on
why you translate.

For me, it's always about access,

giving others access to knowledge.

The new technologies, the new sciences,
the new thoughts in psychology,

in engineering, medicine
and all kinds of stuff.

And being from Sudan,
this is more sensitive to me.

It's not a matter of choice
for someone to consume this content.

It's a matter of scarcity.

There is no content over there.

So by participating
and translating this into Arabic,

that gives people access to knowledge.

The original content.

It's one of the things
that we find very inspiring,

picking up from what you and Meric said.

We all know the feeling of being inspired
by a great speaker or teacher,

and not everyone has access
to these great teachers or knowledge.

And to be able to take
the best of the best

and make them available
to anyone in the world,

which is the fundamentals
of what you are doing,

is so inspiring for us
and core to TED's mission, I feel.

Do you find that you often
have to spend time researching the subject

or researching specific words
as you delve into it, to translate?

There's a lot of nods.

(Laughter)

Alberto!

I don't really remember any specific ones.

It happened a lot of times
that I was translating things,

mostly, it was technical stuff,

but also philosophical
or psychological issues.

And then, I started researching
a couple of words,

and then, I started opening up Wikipedia,

and then links from here to there,

and I lost a couple of hours
just reading stuff.

(Laughter)

(Alberto Pagani)
And it happened over and over again.

And now I know I learned a whole lot
about a whole lot of things

just because [of that].

There are a lot of nods for that,
both on Skype and in the room.

I feel like you guys should get
a bachelor's degree

for each talk that you translate.

(Laughter)

Right? It's like a senior research paper.

Complexity's complex.

(Els De Keyser) Yeah!

Think about it.
Complexity is complex.

(Els De Keyser) OK.

You have to translate that
into your language.

And then, most of the time,
you don't have the words,

the appropriate words
to translate into your language.

So, you have to invent.

And it's really interesting.

You jump into the dark.

And you don't know what will happen there.

One day, you might get a thank-you note.

"I didn't find the translation
for that word."

Or, you find: "That is not correct!"

(Laughter)

You're like, "Right."

And at TED, we've learned
to say "thank you."

(Laughter)

(June Cohen) "We will fix that."

It's such an interesting question,
let's follow that for a moment.

Because I feel like one
of the probably many interesting things

about translating for TED

is that our speakers tend to be
at the edge of their fields,

and therefore they are
at the edge of language.

And some of the words
are actually evolving.

As you said, there may not be words yet
in every language.

Is this something that many of you
have experienced?

Sometimes, it's even
for the core TED concepts

that it's difficult to find a translation.

Like the concept of "TED talk"
or "TED Fellow."

It has to be very short.

"TEDx event" is maybe a little easier.

"Fellow," I know, is a difficult one.

And so now,
when we're translating the website,

we have to be careful about how to do that

And in some languages,
it appears to be quite a challenge.

Not in mine, but...

Right, I would imagine that, actually.

And we always pick these words
that are quite specific.

(Els De Keyser) Yeah.

I find the combination
of the way that things work in this,

both the grassroots collaboration
within language teams,

and it happens
between translator and reviewer...

For the couple of people who don't know,

for every translation,
there has to be a reviewer,

you have to agree on the translation.

So there's a one-on-one collaboration.

And then, there's the larger collaboration
among your language group

and the larger collaboration
among all the translators.

And I'm curious, what have you learned
about that along the way?

We have people with different skills

and they each bring something
to the Project.

So, someone made a scheme,

somebody else looked
at the technical solutions

to give access to information, and so on.

So, it's really this combination,

and like you said, it's a collaboration
at different levels.

Yes.

(Els De Keyser) And in the beginning,

it was always
only a translator and reviewer,

but for a couple of years,
we've also had Language Coordinators.

So, a couple of people
in every language group

who act as, I would say, mentors.

(June Cohen) Mentors,
and volunteer leaders.

And that has also emerged.

And that's also very interesting,

in that among this community
of Language Coordinators,

we also collaborate,

because we face the same issues
in our languages.

So, I can learn from him,

I can learn from Kristine
even if I don't speak her language.

We have the same experience.

It's so interesting!

So, going on to Skype,

are there any lessons you have learned
about collaboration

or things that worked that surprised you,

or situations that you were able
to navigate in a twosome or as a group.

Any thoughts there?

So, I have learned the power,
as I said, of "thank you" and praise,

because it's so important.

People love it when somebody
praises their work

and you can start
a conversation from there.

And something that I have done recently

is sometimes, I send the translator
some articles

that I read about the subject of the talk.

So, an article from a newspaper
that I recently read.

So, I send that article to that person.

"OK, if you're interested in the subject,
there's this that I have read recently."

And that person sometimes sends me
another article or another talk,

and you start a conversation
and you learn so many more things

because of this collaboration that we have

between translators and reviewers
and Language Coordinators.

Anyone else on Skype have a thought
on that particular topic of collaboration,

what you've learned from each other,
how it's worked?

Abhishek?

Yes, it helps specifically when there are
difficult words we need to translate.

Specific words like Internet,
which are broad,

which we had to use it like Internet only,

but at the same time, the small terms
which we need to use.

So, for that, the Facebook group
is really helpful.

And the interesting thing which I found
is that the Wikipedia community,

the Wikipedians who are active
in the local languages,

those people also translate TEDTalks.

So that was a really interesting
observation and collaboration.

If I'm having some difficulties,
I will post it in the Facebook group,

and within one or two hours,
I get the solution.

That's such a great way to use
those dispersed technologies.

Because I imagine, all of the translators
are dispersed around the world,

but being able to tap into that community
and get an answer back so quickly

seems such a great solution.

Before I forget, please allow me to say,

a huge "thank you" to Kristin Windbigler.

(June Cohen) Right?

(Applause)

(June Cohen) I think we all feel the same.

Both with Kristin, who has courageously
led this project since it launched,

and to the full team around her,

this is their work
but it's also their passion and joy.

And what I always hear from them

is just how amazed they are
with all of you.

So, this is something
that I hope each of you knows.

I think we're coming
towards the end of this session,

so we'll have to wrap up in a moment.

But one of the things
we want each of you to hear

is every day, we talk about how inspired
we are by this community

and how much we learn from you.

And I think that's one of the things
at the core of an open community,

that we're constantly learning
from how you translate,

from how you organize yourselves,

from the leadership
that emerges from this group.

So excited to see where it goes
in the year ahead.

And I would love for each of you
who are in this great Skype conversation

to keep in touch with us.

I'm [e-mail],
and also through Kristin.

Where you want to see the Project go,
where you want to see TED head from here.

So, thank you all for coming!

(Els De Keyser) Thank you.

(June Cohen) Thank you so much,
and to each of you on Skype.

I'm sorry we got cut off
by the walk-in music.

Thank you.