On me

Brazilian, 52, divorced, children and grand children.

I work professionally with English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Portuguese.

I have never denied myself the pleasure of reading in many languages. In fact, I have been reading a good deal for decades on end, and of course amassed a something of a fund of knowledge.

I'm really no intellectual, no scholar, but I have an idea of the historical evolution of all languages I work with and some contact with their respective literatures.

I appreciate good anapestic tetrameters like "For the moon never beams without binging me dreams" (E. Poe) or "Les parfums ne font pas frissoner sa narine" (A. Rimbaud) and lots of others.

The benefits of lengthy reading may be subtle. I enjoy a certain degree of confidence whenever I write no matter what in no matter which language, one I don't think likely at all without some intimacy with texts from the best authors.

When finding the precise word or turn of expression will make a difference, there is much pleasure in searching for it and much reward in finding it. I don't think I would ever know what such pleasures and rewards completely unrelated with money are like without my readings.

I don't think I would be able to explain (opr even notice, for that matter) too many a distillation of choice found in a line or another without my readings.

I have been recommending very experienced writers to younger translators (like Eugene Nida, Garcia Yebra, Paulo Rónai, John Catford, Eric Partridge, George Mounin, just to mention some). Those who actually read what I told them to must have felt the difference and know what I'm talking about with perfect understanding.

I also recommend fetching copies of the Bible in all languages of interest and reading all of them, cover to cover. Such an experience will make a difference, and what an one, I tell you. This book is believed to have been authored by God himself, with humans as "ghost writers". You'll be greatly rewarded for having done such reading, regardless of any faith, let alone religion. The Bible is also just a book availabeble to every man willing to read. Whatever your case is, you're likely to find there a very well translated work, if not a masterpiece of translation, too often the work of a lifetime. Reading it really pays.

Good dictionaries and assorted reference works can also be read through and actually doing this proves in the long run nothing short of a very rewarding idea.

In the long foreword to his Plays Pleasant, G. B. Shaw says: "I could explain my plays, if I chose, but those who misunderstood the plays will misunderstand the explanation ten times more".

One of the most fascinating aspects of my profession is that no matter how much I learn, I am confronted with my ignorance on an everyday basis. No matter how much vocabulary I acquire and grammar I master, I am always introduced to new knotty problems, always putting my tens of thousands of hours of reading to shame. That is why I can resist preening too much on my "fund of knowledge", as it were.

Mistakes do happen and to err is human (and to lay the blame on anything like a computer program is still more so). To make my work as neat as I can make it, I endeavor not to be too "human" when I translate.