A review by jadzia
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation by David Bellos

5.0

I would like to be a translator one day, thus I decided to read Bellos' book to find out what is it about translation that is so special, so difficult and so important. And he answered all of my questions. Bellos book is ordered in a way, where he starts with the most general question, as "what is translation", "how it works" etc. and he goes through all the aspects, towards more specific and complicated topics. He explains how the translation works on the international level, and he also tackles (briefly), the topic of interpretation. I do not want to spoiler but according to Bellos translation is, after all, only a perfect match of meanings and languages were created not to ease the communication between people, but the highlight the differences between them. Hence, the process of translation is the way to overcome the obstacles and to improve the imperfect communication between different communities/societies. I really enjoyed Bellos' books, not only because it was so interesting and informative, but also it was wirtten in a funny way, and sometimes such a way of writing makes it so much easier to understand complex ideas, which translation undoubtedly is.