International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters

12/03/2026

🪄 Daniel Hahn invites us to rethink not only Shakespeare, but language itself in his new book If This Be Magic 🪄

In this illuminating event inspired by his new book, award-winning translator and lifelong Shakespeare enthusiast Daniel Hahn invites us to rethink not only Shakespeare, but language itself. Drawing on examples from across Shakespeare’s works and from languages around the world, Hahn reveals the extraordinary craft of translation and the power of words themselves.

Daniel will be joined on stage by guest readers for live performances of Shakespeare in translation, showcasing the plays and poems as they resonate across cultures and tongues.

A compelling and essential event for anyone who loves words, language, and storytelling.

📅 Thursday 16 April
⏲️ 6.30–7.30pm
📍 National Centre for Writing at Dragon Hall, Norwich

Book here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/events/shakespeare-in-translation-with-daniel-hahn/

Hosted by National Centre for Writing, in collaboration with BCLT

09/02/2026

Dear Members,

We have been alerted that fraudulent emails are once again being sent to members of the Association, falsely requesting assistance on behalf of the Board. Please be advised that these messages are not legitimate. The Board is not requesting any form of collaboration, support, or assistance.

We urge all members to disregard these emails and not to respond to them under any circumstances.

Aurora Humarán

24/01/2026

“Artists, writers, and creators of all kinds are banding together with a simple message: Stealing our work is not innovation. It’s not progress. It’s theft – plain and simple. We need real innovation – not exploitation. When AI is trained on stolen creative works, everyone loses. Instead of culture, art, writing, and music, all we’ll be left with is static and silence. “

👏🏼



Source: remhq.com

22/12/2025

Free and open to all the T&I community

12/12/2025

As informed on November 13, 2025

25/11/2025

⚠️ CEATL and European Writers' Council are deeply troubled by the recent announcement from Amazon to launch Kindle Translate, a new AI-powered translation “service”, for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors.

📣 We call on the global book sector, including writers, agents, publishers and readers, to stand in solidarity with human literary translators.

🌎 Let’s protect writers’ and translators’ work, their diverse creativity and their livelihood.

🌱 Let’s protect culture and champion rich human creativity.

📚 Let’s defend ourselves against the logics of mere profit. Let’s keep fostering an industry that nurtures a love of reading of works written, translated, illustrated and published by human beings.

🔗 Read more on our website: https://www.ceatl.eu/books-cannot-be-translated-in-a-click

31/10/2025

It is with deep regret that IAPTI marks the passing of noted writer, translator and professor David Bellos. Dr. Bellos was an IAPTI Honorary Member.

Born in Britain in 1945, Bellos earned a doctorate in French literature from Oxford University (UK). He subsequently taught at Edinburgh, Southampton and Manchester before garnering the post Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Princeton University (USA), where he was still teaching at the time of his death. Over the years, Dr. Bellos also frequently headed up Princeton’s Intercultural Communication program.

Dr. Bellos specialized in nineteenth-century studies—particularly regarding the novel and the history of literary ideas—but also later developed a probing interest in post-war era French writing and cinema. His life’s work is prodigious and varied. Among other things, he was the translator and biographer of Georges Perec, and developed major studies on French filmmaker Jacques Tati and on French novelist and film director Romain Gary.

An internationally renowned translator, Dr. Bellos authored a popular and irreverent introduction to translation studies entitled Is That A Fish in Your Ear? His most recent book, The Novel of the Century, delves once more into his area of nineteenth-century French literary studies, by telling the story of the writing of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

Some of his other written works include Balzac Criticism in France, 1850–1900, Old Goriot (Landmarks of World Literature), La Cousine Bette. A Critical Guide, and Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs.

His major translations include nine works by Perec and seven by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, as well as books by such noted authors as Georges Simenon, Daniel Anselme, Fred Vargas, Frédéric Dard, Delphine Horvilluer, Maxime Rovere and Paul Fournel. Dr. Bellos was the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, the French-American Foundation Prize, the Prix Concourt biography award, the American Library in Paris Book Award, and the Howard T. Berhman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities. He was also named Officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Dr. Bellos was father of three and grandfather of seven (including noted writer and broadcaster Alex Bellos). IAPTI extends its deepest condolences to family, friends and colleagues of Dr. Bellos. His extraordinary contribution to literature and to the art of translation is his valued legacy to us all.

Aurora Humarán
President
On behalf of IAPTI Board

30/09/2025

Happy International Translation Day!

15/07/2025

Yes, it can turn French words into English ones, but true translation is so much more than that
Last week’s news about the launch of GlobeScribe, a publishing service offering AI translations of novels for the bargain price of $100 (£74), confirms what we’ve long suspected – that AI is being discussed not merely as a tool that can be useful for professionals, but as something to replace us entirely. As a human literary translator, I’m among those facing down that challenge. But we’re not replaceable just yet.
One line of dialogue in the story I’m translating this weekend reads, in its entirety: “T'es fatigué, toi?” Not the most taxing piece of translation work I’ve ever undertaken. I f you don’t know French, it’s basically “Are you tired?” – that’s the gist. But to give you more colour: the French is very casual, and uses an informal/intimate mode of address (tu rather than vous). Also encoded within this short phrase is the fact that the addressee is male; we’re asking if he’s fatigué, not if she’s fatiguée.
I am also a ‘large language model’ (God help me) – but I am also more than that

“Are you tired?” doesn’t automatically tell us which other character is being addressed and nor does that English “you” testify to anything about this relationship, which matters because only yesterday this couple were calling one another vous, so this tuindicates a relational shift. As the translator, I notice these things and decide whether or not they’re significant, and act on them if they are. I draw on my ability to read French and to write English, and an ear for real-life dialogue, but also on my understanding that these are the same people we met back on page 16 (though not named), why the casualness is worth conveying in this specific situation, and what it means to be in a human relationship experiencing this sort of shift.

“Are you tired?” is inoffensive. It’s also readable, natural and smooth (the usual tiresome measures of quality when talking about translation). “Are you tired?” is also less than its source. As a reader, you might care about the loss; you might not. I do – for one thing, I’m writing a book at the moment, so I’m rather hoping for more than “basically, yeah, that’s the gist” from my own translators.
I’ve looked at plenty of machine translations. At this moment, I’m not worried about what AI (including large-language models trained on my copyright work) can actually do. As a human, I too am a “large language model” (God help me) – but I am also more than that. No, what AI can do is not yet a threat to human translators and human readers of sophisticated, textured human writing. The threat is what some people think it can do.

https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/ai-wont-replace-us-human-literary-translators-just-yet?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwLjKONleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuPPece1gVYJH-9U2nbR031nscsvmy4GriCFXpBexSsReDgBXVIxHMIT0NbG_aem_5xK48ZRErLjfcySgslaH4A

Yes, it can turn French words into English ones, but true translation is so much more than that

27/06/2025

📝 ANNUAL MEETING

June 28, 2 pm UTC. Aurora Matilde Humarán, IAPTI President. Email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.

16/06/2025

Florencia Tebano’s take on ChatGPT and a really interesting research.

As interpreters and translators, we have been hyper-trained to develop our memory recall, to scan, filter, and evaluate information presented to interpret and/or translate docs, all cognitive efforts demanding integration of visual, attentional, and executive resources.

Let's try to move away -for a minute- from AI's impact on data privacy, cybercrimes, and jobs -in every sector, not just language-, and focus on what's being unveiled regarding "potential impact on cognitive development, critical thinking, and intellectual independence" for ALL -interpreters included.

Have a look at this study, "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task", (https://lnkd.in/d73GQwKY) intented to cast light on the cognitive and practical impacts of AI on learning environments ("educational and informational contexts.")

Some of the revealing and scary results indicate "Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support: the Brain‑only group exhibited the strongest, widest‑ranging networks, Search Engine group showed intermediate engagement, and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed weaker neural connectivity and under-engagement of alpha and beta networks; and the Brain-to-LLM participants demonstrated higher memory recall, and re‑engagement of widespread occipito-parietal and prefrontal nodes, likely supporting the visual processing, similar to the one frequently perceived in the Search Engine group."

"The use of LLM had a measurable impact on participants, and while the benefits were initially apparent, as we demonstrated over the course of 4 months, the LLM group's participants performed worse than their counterparts in the Brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring."

Is this not what everyone is claiming as the new learning platform we should run carefree to embrace??

Just as cars reduced our efforts to move around -and hence the emergence of gyms to address sedentarism and obesity- sooner rather than later, we will have to create "brain gyms" to prevent or alleviate brain morbidity.

Handle with care.