Craft · 19 September 2026
Fidelity is not sameness
Clients sometimes ask for a translation that is “as close as possible.” That is a fair request. It is also easy to misunderstand. Closeness is not a count of matching words. It is whether a reader in the new language is put in a comparable position: same pressure, same humour, same delay before a meaning arrives.
A literal sentence can sound stiff where the original was plain. It can sound clever where the original was tired. It can explain a joke that was meant to land without explanation. In each case the words are “accurate,” and the text is not.
Voice is the thing we are actually hired to keep. Syntax is a tool for that, not a vow. When I draft, I read the source once for sense, once for rhythm, and only then do I argue with my first English (or Greek) sentences until they stop announcing themselves as translations.
This is a seed post. Replace it with a note from your own desk — a problem you solved last month is more convincing than a manifesto.