Born to Be a Translator

Born to Be a Translator

By M. Acuña.

One of the traditional sayings in Costa Rica say that opportunities are around every corner, and that we just have to look for them. This is exactly what happened to Bryner Villalobos Leiva, a 24-year-old student who is majoring English with a focus in Translation. Last year, Vicerrectoría Estudiantil assigned him to translate Cock, a play written originally by the British writer Mike Bartlett. The play deals with controversial social topics such as homosexuality and bisexualism; and it will be presented this year in the 75th anniversary of the UCR.

Even though Bryner assures that he did not love the story, he enjoyed the process of working on a large project for the university. He mentions that during the task, he experienced many different feelings, like fear, confusion, and at some point of the duty, desperation, and stress due to the use of British slangs found in the original work. However, Bryner explains that when a light bulb went off in his head, he realized that after all the research behind the many challenging words and expressions, it was a worthy experience to learn from. Thanks to this experience and to previous works in medical translations, Bryner is absolutely sure that he was born to be a translator.

Bryner also mentions the importance that translation have had historically; in fact, he refers to it as “the oldest profession of the world”. He mentions that the clearest example of this is the Bible, since it was written first in Hebrew, then it was translated to Latin, and then it was translated to Spanish, French, English and many other languages. However, he considers that  people usually do not give proper recognition to the work of a translator, which is reflected in the constant perks translators face to make clients to pay what they should for an assignment.

According to Bryner, even though Translation should be a major, instead of a minor focus in the B.A. in English, Translation in Costa Rica is overlooked. Translation requires more than to speak the target language. Actually, it requires to carry the meaning of the original message and deliver it to the target language. The sense of the original text remains, but differently.  As Bryner says, “without globalization, translation would not be necessary.” 

Bryner states that what improves your translation skills is practice. He translates Wikipedia articles for fun. To argue this, he recalls a popular expressions that says, “Your real vocation is what you can do happily for free.”