Translation Loss Quotes

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Nothing which is harmonized by the bond of the Muse can be changed from its own to another language without destroying its sweetness

Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

An idea does not pass from one language to another without change.

I write in a slangy colloquial speech that has not been common in the Israeli tradition of writing, and that is one of the things that gets lost a little in translation.

There are stories that are by and for Latin Americans, where a certain amount of cultural fluency is expected, where we can delight in the details, the humor, the particularities of speech, of dialects. Something is always lost in translation; we know instinctively that this is the case. A Radio Ambulante story looks at Latin America from the inside.

Translation is not original creation - that is what one must remember. In translation, some loss is inevitable.

Though most of my titles are translated into about 7 to 8 languages, I feel that translations, to some extent, can lose the flavour of the colloquial words used otherwise in the regional narrative.

Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.

What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.

You've often heard me say - perhaps too often - that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more.

There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny.

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.

When my books were translated, it was always about the characters, because the unique language aspect was lost in translation.