Meet the translator: Hugo Wagner, who translates talks into French

Culture Open Translation Project

TED Talks are available in 102 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our volunteer translators. So far, more than 10,000 volunteers have created 47,000 talk translations — and today, the TED Blog brings you a Q&A with one of them. Here, meet French translator Hugo Wagner.

1. Where do you live? And what do you do by day?

I am a student and a space enthusiast. While I currently live in Paris (and I should say: Paris lives within me!), I’ll move to the US this summer to pursue my graduate studies in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley. I start each day with a cup of tea, and I end it the same way. When I am not studying, I spend my time trying to find something new to study and I let everything surrounding me amaze me in new, unexpected ways.

J.J. Abrams: The mystery box2. What first drew you to TED?

Serendipity! As a huge fan of LOST, I stumbled upon J.J. Abram’s “Mystery box” talk where he passionately makes a case for nurturing mysteries to enhance creativity. I loved it and I immediately wanted to know more about TED. I have never found my way out of it. The love story continues…

3. What was the first talk you translated and how did you pick it?

Zainab Salbi: Women, wartime and the dream of peaceIt was Zainab Salbi’s talk, “Women, wartime and the dream of peace.” I chose it because Zainab’s story was very powerful and moving and it conveyed a universal, peaceful message: beyond any fear, there is hope.

4. What have been your favorite talks to translate? Why?

There are so many! Cesar Harada’s “A novel idea for cleaning up oil spills” is definitely among my favorites, mainly because I met Cesar at TEDGlobal 2012 and we’ve been friends ever since. Cesar Harada: A novel idea for cleaning up oil spillsBut I also truly believe that Protei — his shape-shifting sailing robot — will be a game changer in the global effort to protect the ocean. Salman Khan’s talk “Let’s use video to reinvent education” is also on my list, as I felt like a part of the learning revolution and a witness to a major shift in education as I was translating this talk. Peter Diamandis’ talk “Abundance is our future” is also one I felt honored to translate. I’d like more people to live by the underlying principles in each of his entrepreneurial endeavors: faith in the future and in humanity’s ability to solve grand challenges. Then there is also Paul Nicklen’s “Tales of ice-bound wonderlands” but I have to stop here as the unfathomable list of explorers and geniuses goes on…Paul Nicklen: Tales of ice-bound wonderlands

5. Which talk was the most difficult for you to translate and why?

Most certainly Thomas Barnett’s talk about America’s military strategy. He is very idiomatic, talks very fast, uses a lot of acronyms and refers to important parts of history I had to know well in order to do my job. As translators, we always spend a lot of time searching the web to learn more about the topic of a talk.Thomas Barnett: Let's rethink America's military strategy But I think this is the talk I spent the most time on.

6. What’s a phrase in your language that you wish would catch on globally?

“C’est en forgeant qu’on devient forgeron” or “practice makes perfect.” Everyone can start a new project and succeed through hard work. I think that’s also what TED is all about: the future is ours to create.

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Meet the translator: Laszlo Kereszturi, who brings you TED Talks in Hungarian and Romanian

language Open Translation Project

TED Talks are available in 94 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,500 volunteers have created the upwards of 33,500 translated talks. To celebrate this accomplishment, every week the TED Blog is bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Today, meet Laszlo Kereszturi, pictured above right, with his family.

Where do you live? And what do you do by day?

I live in Oradea, Romania, and I work as an information security professional at a telecommunication company. I translate in Hungarian and Romanian.

What drew you to TED?

Due to my job and my living place, I have feel a lot of negative emotions every day. Before 2006, I escaped in the realm of science-fiction — but watching TED Talks has proved to be a better way. TED Talks are about positive ideas, people with real great initiatives, happening now — not in the distant future. And since 2009, when TED OTP made it possible to translate TED Talks, I am truly happy that I can contribute.

What was the first talk you translated and how did you pick it?

Hans Rosling: Stats that reshape your worldviewMy first talk was “Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen“. This talk just found me; I knew I had to translate it after watching the first five minutes. “Robert Lang: The math and magic of origami” was the second talk I translated. I knew about the art of origami before, but its implications in real life — from space exploration to medicine — were very worth sharing in my language.

What have been your favorite talks to translate? Why?

“John Hodgman: Aliens, love — where are they?” because it is funny in a clever way.Ben Dunlap: The life-long learner Its final part really moved me. I also enjoyed “Ben Dunlap: The life-long learner“, because it presents his personal experience with Hungarian people and is just a great story. And “Joseph Pine: What consumers want“, because this was the first TED Talk I ever saw and is about being authentic. I have dozens of favorite talks, but I’ll stop there for brevity’s sake.

Which talk was the most difficult for you to translate and why?

I’ve translated talks on a wide range of subjectsSteve Keil: A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond and have deliberately chosen many difficult ones. A good translation takes time — you can’t rush it. Difficult translation for me means that I have a very short deadline, or the process took too long.

The most difficult translation was exactly the one I expected to do in a very short time, for a TEDx event: “Steve Keil: A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond“. It’s not a difficult talk and I had already translated it in Romanian, so it looked like an easy job. But it wasn’t, because I had to do it during the week, after work.

Bruce Schneier: The security mirage Another talk that was hard to translate was “Bruce Schneier: The security mirage“. It’s about information security, so shouldn’t have been hard for me. But my knowledge about the talk’s content made me very careful when choosing the words and the “diamond polishing” process took more time than usual.

What’s a phrase in your language that you wish would catch on globally?

We say in Hungarian: “A jó pap holtig tanul”. Meaning: “A good priest learns until his death”. This is very true today in the lifelong learning era.

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Meet the Translator: Matti Jääaro, who brings TED Talks to life in Swedish

TED Talks are available in 94 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,500 volunteers have created the upwards of 33,000 translated talks. To celebrate this huge accomplishment, every week the TED Blog will be bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Today, meet Matti Jääaro.

Where do you live? And what do you do by day?

I’m from Stockholm and live half time in Hong Kong where my wife works as technical designer for a Swedish fashion company. When I don’t run my small IT consulting company I try my best to live according to the Holstee manifesto.

What drew you to TED?

I ended up in a conversation with two friends at a party — they were both sleep-deprived from watching too many TED Talks and could not believe I had never heard of it. I thought that being addicted to online lectures might be taking the whole geek pride thing a step too far. But, I had to see what it was all about, and few days later I had watched 30 talks myself. Open Source software, sharing ideas and participating in global collaborations around computer software is something I have always taken for granted —- but I kind of assumed was a concept that only worked for a certain type of person in the high-tech community. However, here I saw all kinds of people; students, artists, business leaders, ex presidents. They all shared this same urge to run out and tell as many people as possible about their new ideas, rather than locking them in a safe. I realized this was something bigger, and that I had to be a part of it.

What was the first talk you translated and how did you pick it?

It was Renny Gleeson’s talk on antisocial phone tricks, and I have to admit that the main reason was that it was short. (It’s a three-minute talk.) I had no idea back then how much work a translation would be, or if I would have a hard time meeting deadlines. It turned out that a month is plenty of time in most cases to finish a translation.

What have been your favorite talks to translate? Why?

Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness.This is my all-time favorite TED Talk. The beauty of doing a translation is that you really have to take in and understand every single sentence in a text. You don’t just do a direct translation of the words, you really need to sit down and think about where the speaker is coming from and what he is trying to convey. I must have watched this one at least five times before I started translating it but still learned so much that I had previously missed or not fully grasped.

Which talk was the most difficult for you to translate and why? 

Lucy McRae: How can technology transform the human body? When June Cohen from TED Media said that “All of our speakers are on the edge of their fields, and therefore on the edge of language”, she couldn’t have been more correct. This was one of those talks where some of the terms don’t even exist in my language. Sometimes Lucy also uses a poetic way of expressing herself — which meant I had to break apart those sentences, find the inner meaning, and then reconstruct them in Swedish. It took a lot of teamwork between me and my reviewer before we were finally satisfied with the result.

What’s a phrase in your language that you wish would catch on globally?

The English phrase “Speak of the devil, and he shall appear” is “Tala om trollen så står de I farstun” in Swedish. It translates to, “Speak of the trolls, and they’ll be on the porch”, making it much better adapted to modern day chat rooms where trolls outnumber devils five to one.

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Interested in getting to know more TED translators? Check out more Q&As we these global wordsmiths.

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