Write without fear. Edit without mercy.

It takes confidence (or ‘guts’, if you like) to write without fear. But this three-word sentence contains so much truth.

Write without fear. For more than a decade now I have translated for various in-house clients, direct clients, NGOs and – as of late – translation agencies. Not once have I received negative feedback. Quite the confidence booster one might expect.

I *do* write without fear, for during the process of translation, I am fully immersed in the text, the meaning, the tone of voice and so much more I convey into my native tongue. What is going on in the translator’s mind has rightfully been described as a ‘black box’. What we create when working on, with, and for a text can be explained, but only to some extent. Whether I decide to pick this word over another at times cannot be fathomed by reason.

This certainly is less the case when dealing with financial or legal texts: there is hardly any grey area.

The black box, the intuition comes into play during transcreation, copywriting texts that are meant to convey something very specific. This process asks a lot of a translator: not only do I need to understand the product, service or intent; no, with my translation I must elicit the same reactions the original evoked in its own cultural setting. To achieve this, I need to feel at home in both cultures, understand more than just the product but what’s going on in the minds of not just a single person but a community or a population. This does not instil fear, it does beg for respect, though. Respect for cultural differences, respect for mind-sets, respect for individuality.

How can I then ‘edit without mercy’? Firstly, editing entails some sort of judgement. Ever since I have started editing in earnest, I have made it a habit to judge the text and not the author. I may question why someone chose to express themselves in a certain way or why they went for this word and not another which would seem more fitting to me. Editing is not about them, neither is it about me: editing is *the* tool to polish a text so that it is brilliant afterwards.

Would a diamond shine as bright as it does if the diamond grinder showed mercy and became lenient? No, it would never even gain the sparkle that attracts everybody’s eyes. There may be a time to show mercy, but it musts not be aimed at the text.

About Verena Zipperer

Internal Auditor @ LBBW / Freelance Translator (Eng-Ger) @ freelance / Reviewer, MCIL

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