Over on Whatever today, I talk about how the translation of fiction from one language to another isn't just a matter of exact words, and why I now have it as a contract point that the translations of my novels have to be done by humans, not by machine or "AI":

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/02/03/how-translation-works-book-title-edition/

@scalzi Have you come across Le Ton Beau de Marot, which was written by Douglas Hofstadter some decades ago? It's all about translation (featuring many delightful and wildly different versions of the titular poem.) In it he discusses machine translation, which was then still largely in its infancy, and his arguments about why it can only ever be a tool and never a replacement still seem to hold up for me today. And he was big on cultural context for book titles too.

@scalzi even though I was very young when the song came out, I still know the verses 😅

so thank you for this unexpected Hungarian reference, made me smile 😊