Just an assignment

I asked my students to read several essays in which the authors use different metaphors to describe the act of translation: as the soul in dancing (Keijiro Suga), as being in someone else’s home (Fabio Morábito), as writing collaborative poetry (Sawako Nakayasu), as the music of a monochord (Mireille Gansel), as feeling our metabolism in someone else’s body (Friederich Nietszche). Then, I asked them to come up with, and explain metaphors of their own. My students said translating is like: driving an unknown road, cooking an exotic dish, diving in the middle of the ocean, playing the Chinese telephone, being an orchestra conductor, knitting a complex pattern, taking a course about translation, and doing an exercise about defining translation (laughed hard with this one!). I really love teaching this course. I just hope I can for many years to come.