to be a translator is to be a thief of words.
to go out, into the peopled streets and the public transport full of language carriers.
to listen, and to capture words, intonations, expressions.
to sort them out, like butterflies, into genres and categories, and fill scrapbooks with them.
and then, sometimes, just sit and marvel at the treasures, unpublished gems, unpolished phrases that leap at you from the crabby handwriting on the pages.
like a dragon, translator sleeping on their hoard of words.
