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.

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

I come from Barcelona, Spain, and I am living in Cologne, Germany. I am an assistant professor for Applied Linguistics at Cologne University.

What drew you to TED?

My first contact with TED was by chance. Or perhaps it was not just by chance…

I wanted to find appealing multimedia material to use in my scientific translation classes. I was looking for something to motivate my students not only to get more involved in translations, but to encourage them to pursue knowledge on the cutting-edge of science and technology. I came across Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight. I was excited and overwhelmed by her passion, and the powerful way she connected science with emotion. I didn’t sleep that night. I went on watching one TED Talk after another. A new perspective of the world came into my house, and I could take advantage of it without leaving my comfort zone.

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

After my first experience with TED Talks, I realized there was an Open Translation Project!!! The first TED Talk I translated was: Kevin Kelly: How technology evolves. It might have been another one, but this one was my first translation among more than 100 so far. I wanted to translate anything related to science and technology. I was very pleased with the possibility of translating subtitles into my language.

What have been your favorite talks to translate? Why?

I am crazy about neuroscience and these are some talks I was especially pleased to translate:

• Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we’re born
• Paul Zak: Trust, morality — and oxytocin
• Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see
• Allan Jones: A map of the brain
• Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness
• Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds

These TED Talks tackle the brain from very different angles.

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

Each talk has its specificities and difficulties.

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

“Confieso que he vivido” (I confess that I lived.)

“Vale la pena haber luchado y cantado, vale la pena haber vivido porque he amado” (It is worthwhile to have struggled and sung, it is worthwhile to have lived because I have loved.)

Both sentences were written by Pablo Neruda, the incredible poet, diplomat and politician from Chile. In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I love both sentences because I identify with them. They express the way I really want to live — with intensity.

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 Unnawut Leepaisalsuwanna, who you can call by his Thai nick name “Oh.”

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

I’ve been working as an IT consultant based in Bangkok for the past year.

What drew you to TED?

The first TED Talk I watched was when my professor showed the talk in one of our Scientific Presentation classes back in university. Obviously some of the remarkable talks that got me hooked were Sir Ken Robinson’s “School Kills Creativity” and Hans Rosling’s “Stats that Reshape Your Worldview.” I was not a really big fan of TED until a year or two later, when I started to understand more about the people around me and the place I lived in, and began to understand that changes can only happen when people take actions. TED speakers are like role models who make things happen. To me, they are changing the world.

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

The first talk I translated was Barry Schwartz’s “Paradox of Choice.” Back then, I had just came back from a 10-day volunteer camp in the rural part of Thailand and one of the questions that I brought back home is whether we’re happy enough with what we have, or do we need more? The talk fit in perfectly and answered a lot of things regarding choices.

What has been your favorite talk to translate? Why?

I would say David Christian’s “History of Our World in 18 Minutes.” He was able use his speech to draw the whole history of the universe in a concise and understandable way. While translating this talk, I felt as if I were taking part in drawing out that universe. It was as if I were flying through space and time as he spoke.

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

Brian Greene’s “Is our universe the only universe?” The talk is packed with information and scientific ideas, many of which are very new concepts. When translating, you need to think whether your audience in the target language will understand what you translated. A lot of scientific words can be transliterated directly, but it would not be so useful if a talk is full of transliteration that the audience does not understand. It’s a big task for us to transliterate, as well as try our best to provide explanation or find more suitable words that also needs to fit in as subtitles.

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

“เป้าหมายมีไว้พุ่งชน” is a catch-phrase from a drink advertisement. It basically means, “We set targets not for the sake of setting them, but to collide into them if needed.”

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.

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

Watch Mark Pagel’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.

Watch Julian Treasure’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 900+ TEDTalks.

Ever been brainjacked? Or Breitbarted? Perhaps you’re a kangatarian or a newpreneur. If not, you can still be a wordnik. Come with us as we peek into the notebook of lexicographer Erin McKean in Aftercrimes, Geoslavery, and Thermogeddon: Thought-Provoking Words from a Lexicographer’s Notebook, her revealing look at a torrent of new words and phrases—in science, politics, social life—that reveal our changing societies. It’s a surprising window on our world. We caught up with McKean recently, in the midst of her linguistic sleuthing.

Your work will often focus on big ideas that have been encapsulated in a single word. With so many new ideas, how do you decide what to include?

I’m always looking for words that are striking and interesting. Words are like houses for ideas, and well-designed, beautiful words are easier for ideas to live in. A lot of the words have to do with science and technology, which I’m always interested in. Scientists and engineers often create great new words for their discoveries and innovations, because they’re (in effect) naming their babies. I also like new words that are made from recycled parts of other words, especially ones that create new suffixes, such as “bustaurant” (from “bus” plus “-taurant,” creating a new suffix from the end of “restaurant”).

Isn’t our language rich enough already? Why are new words needed?
Asking why English needs more words is like asking why we need new novels or new fashions. On a purely practical level, we don’t. We could all read what’s already published and wear the same styles for the rest of our lives. But people like novelty and new words for new things satisfies that human urge.

Any favorite new words?
Every day I have a new favorite word. Sometimes they’re really new (like “plussies,” for users of Google+, Google’s new social network) and sometimes they’re very old words that are just new to me, such as “awald,” an old word that means “Lying helplessly on the back: said of a sheep when unable, through sickness or fatness, to get up.”

Do certain languages have a propensity to invent new words?
I don’t know enough about other languages to speak with any authority on how generative they are, but English is productive enough to keep me pretty busy! And of course, since so many new things and ideas are created (or disseminated) by English-speaking people, often English gets there first, and other languages assimilate the English term for whatever the new thing is.

Has the number of new words increased recently?
It’s hard to say. It is true that we have more tools now to track new words. More and more text is either born digital or is being digitized (thanks Brewster!). There is Twitter, various status messages, and so on, which is the closest we can get to eavesdropping on conversations.

What’s the richest source for new words?
Anyplace where there’s innovation going on will throw off new words alongside new ideas, but those new words have to make it to a wider audience to really enter the language, which is why journalists (either traditional media or bloggers) are the best source for wordhunters to mine. When journalists have to report on new things, new words are just part of what has to be explained.

Have you ever invented a new word?
I’ve never tried to invent a word. It didn’t seem fair. But through my dress blog I did inadvertently create the word “Duro,” referring to a kind of kimono-style dress with contrasting fabric bands, similar to styles created by the designer Duro Olowu. It’s not widely used outside a few sewing enthusiasts, but it’s used there! I wrote about this for the The Boston Globe.

***

Aftercrimes, Geoslavery, and Thermogeddon: Thought-Provoking Words from a Lexicographer’s Notebook is part of the TED Books series. It is available at Amazon for the Kindle and all platforms that use Kindle Reader apps (the Mac, PC, and Android, among them), as well as at Apple’s iBookstore. Be sure to also check out McKean’s enthusiastic TEDTalk.

The Charter has 10 rules that tackle the core reason behind email’s relentless growth — that email takes more time to process than to create. Email stress is clearly widespread. An earlier draft of the Charter attracted 50,000 views and hundreds of comments and tweets, which have helped shape the final version.

Chris sees the Charter as an idea worth spreading. “This is a problem that can’t be solved by individuals acting alone,” he said. “Email stress comes from all the unanswered emails in your inbox, and the fear that you may be causing offense or frustration to your friends and colleagues. If we can mutually agree some different ground rules, that stress can go away.”

The Charter calls on email senders to focus on respecting the time of their recipients and make emails as easy as possible to process. It also suggests we cut each other some slack, and just mutually agree it’s OK for responses to be ultra-short or delayed.

Check out the Charter here, and then join the TED conversation that Chris started here.

Performer Joshua Walters is based in San Francisco; he capped a several-week road trip this spring by playing the TED Full Spectrum Auditions in New York. His wiry, thought-provoking comedy bit about mental illness earned him today’s spot on TED.com. TED’s Will True spoke to Walters just after he jumped offstage that night in Manhattan.

What did you think of your first TED experience?

Wow, it was like being in a dream, like I was living my dream — I could see it happening, but it didn’t seem real. Here I am in this place with red lanterns, it’s a club, it’s glowing, and the sound is so low I can’t really hear anything. I can’t feel anything. I’m really detached from the whole experience, I’ve kind of got a headache, maybe I could drink some more water, I’m a little tired. You know, this is my third week of being on the road. It’s so much stimulus, being up there, I’m like: Is this happening? Is this going? I guess it’s happening, and then I get off and it’s over and people are ‘wow, let me get your contacts — let’s book you.’ And now, I’m just kind of aloof about the whole thing, like I don’t have any focus or charge about it.

What did you think of the preparation for it? Did you prepare differently?

You know, I almost overprepared for this. The last two weeks I’ve been writing, re-writing, scripting, practicing, listening to the audio, doing it at small venues, doing it in front of dinner parties, doing it in front of other people, and there came a point in the last 2 or 3 days where my people really close to me went ‘Yo, don’t over-rehearse, because you’re going to get up there, you’re going to have 4 or 5 main bullet points and you’re just going to let them flow.’ The best moments for me as a comedic performer are the stuff that’s in the moment, stuff that I didn’t write down. So I was just letting it flow and I wasn’t really worried about it. I had a few other theater and club shows in New York this week, and the whole time I would get up and I’d be like. I got this TED thing on Tuesday so this other thing is just practice, just warming up. This is just getting my sillies out! And then, when I was here I had built up to it, and it’s happening, but it doesn’t feel real! I’m just here; I’m just in it. It’s hard to see it.

How did you put your audition together?

I did my talk, but mainly saying the headings, the sub-points. I didn’t go into any depth, but I did it with a lot of charm, and a lot of smiling. I had my roommate record it, and we did a bunch of takes, maybe 20 or 30 takes. And the first take was just so serious; I didn’t really have it down. And by the 10th or 15th take I had the knowledge down, but I was just so over what I was saying that we had to come back a second day to just do it fun. I had to learn to have fun, which I do all the time, you know? I make people laugh like punching their stomach, that’s what I do, and I needed to get back to where it was fun and it wasn’t work, and it wasn’t so serious. And the last take we did I was smiling, I was relaxed, and I knew: This is what it is. It’s got to be enjoyable for you and it translates to the audience.

Tell me about your trip.

It’s been a wild ride man; almost all of May has been on the road. New York, Texas, and I came back to New York … and it’s been really mind-expanding. This is the first time I’ve come to New York with career on the mind, I’ve been to New York a lot of times, but I’ve never had it so focused. And there is just a lot that someone in my field can do here. It’s made me appreciate that I’m at this breaking point in my development and take a step back and celebrate the moment.

Did you enjoy the experience overall?

I did! It was a great way to end my trip here. It was surreal.

TED Translators attending TEDActive 2011 in Palm Springs, CA. Photo: Michael Brands

Today is the 2-year anniversary of the Open Translation Project! To date, our volunteer translators have created over 18,000 translations of TEDTalks in 81 languages. For the occasion, we asked a few translators to tell us (in English and the language they translate in) about some of the talks they’ve worked on by filling in the sentence:

   (Name of talk)    is the most __________ talk I’ve translated because …

Here’s what they had to say …

Jenny Yang, Chinese translator:
Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide is the most mindset-changing talk I’ve translated because I believe enabling and allowing people to access open data helps ordinary people see the truth, and it also builds the foundation for public participation in democracy.

蒂姆•伯纳斯•李: [公开数据遍布世界新纪元]是我翻译过的最具社会影响力，拓宽人们视野的演讲之一，因为我相信公开数据技术会帮助公众辨明是非，也为公众广泛地参与民主打下了基础。

Watch it with Chinese subtitles:

Iva Todorova, Bulgarian translator:
Benjamin Zander on music and passion is the most inspiring talk I’ve translated because I believe the shortest way to make the world a better place is by loving what we do, and by sharing our passion with other people.

Бенджамин Зандер за музиката и страстта е най-вдъхновяващата презентация, която съм превела, защото вярвам, че най-лесният начин да направим света по-добър е, като обичаме това, което правим, и споделяме нашата страст с другите.

Watch it with Bulgarian subtitles:

Ivana Korom, Serbian translator:
Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world is the most influential talk I translated because it gave me a new perspective on gamers’ psyche and I realized how powerful games and game dynamics can be.

“Džejn MakGonigal: Igranje igara može poboljšati svet” je najuticajniji TEDTalk koji sam prevela jer sam stekla novi uvid u psihu igrača i shvatila koliko igre i principi igara mogu biti moćni.

Watch it with Serbian subtitles:

Guarav Sharma, Hindi translator:
Kiran bedi: A police chief with a difference is the most inspiring talk I have translated because it’s a magnanimous example of one thing: any good change can be brought by a single person if he/she stands up for it.

मैंने किरण बेदी एक अलग पुलिस मुखिया का अनुवाद किया क्यूंकि यह एक बहुत बड़ा उदाहरण है की बदलाव के लिए जरुरी है किसी का सही चीजों क लिए खड़ा होना!!

Watch it with Hindi subtitles:

Lourdes Cahuich, Spanish translator:
Jill Tarter’s TED Prize wish is the best talk I’ve translated because she inspired me to look beyond my everyday problems and made me look at my life as a human being — “one possible outcome of billions of years of evolution of Hydrogen and Helium” — and how the SETI research could change our history.

La charla del deseo TED Prize de Jill Tarter es la mejor charla que he traducido por que ella me inspira a mirar más allá de mis problemas cotidianos y me hace ver mi vida como ser humano como…”un posible resultado de miles de millones de años de evolución del hidrógeno y el helio”, y cómo la investigación SETI cambiará nuestra historia.

Watch it with Spanish subtitles:

Kostas Karpouzis, Greek translator:
Gaming can make a better world by Jane McGonigal is the most inspiring talk I’ve translated because it offers insight on how gaming concepts can be applied to real-world problems and, more importantly, why gaming is so appealing to so many people, often distanced from those problems; we really have to find a way to make use of game players’ skills and values in the real world, if we want to stand a chance as a society.

Η ομιλία με τίτλο “Τα παιχνίδια μπορούν να κάνουν τον κόσμο μας καλύτερο” από τη Jane McGonigal αποτέλεσε έμπνευση για μένα, γιατί προσφέρει ιδέες για το λόγο για τον οποίο τα παιχνίδια είναι τόσο ελκυστικά σε ένα ειδικό κοινό και για το πώς μπορούν τα παιχνίδια σοβαρού σκοπού να χρησιμοποιηθούν για τη λύση προβλημάτων στον πραγματικό κόσμο – για να γίνει αυτό όμως, απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση είναι να εντάξουμε σε αυτήν τη διαδικασία τους παίκτες και τις δυνατότητες και τις αξίες τους.

Watch it with Greek subtitles:

Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut, Thai translator:
Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney is the talk I have translated because it’s very inspiring and his idea is worth spreading.

“แอน โทนี่ อลาทา: พิมพ์ไตมนุษย์” เป็นปาฐกถาที่ฉันแปล เพราะเนื้อหาของปาฐกถาก่อให้เกิดแรงบันดาลใจและความคิดของคุณหมอ เป็นความคิดที่ควรค่ายิ่งแก่การเผยแผ่แบ่งปัน

Watch it with Thai subtitles:

Gauthier Nadaud, French translator:
Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia is one of the most inspiring talks I have translated because Wikipedia is one of the most beautiful examples of collective work, one international and volunteer team united in one goal: sharing knowledge all around the world!

Jimmy Wales et la naissance de Wikipédia est l’une des plus intéressantes conférences que j’ai eu l’occasion de traduire, Wikipedia est l’un des plus beau exemple travail collectif, une équipe bénévole et internationale qui travaille main dans la main dans un seul but : le partage de connaissances !

Watch it with French subtitles:

Bill Hsiung, Chinese translator:
Janine Benyus shares nature’s designs is the most life-changing talk I’ve translated because now I believe learning from nature from the bottom up is the only way out for humanity.

Janine Benyus 分享自然的設計  是我所翻譯過對人生影響最為深遠的一個演講，因為它令我相信：唯有從根本上向大自然學習，才是人類文明唯一的出路。

Watch it with Chinese subtitles: