Translation is an art. Many think of it as merely finding the equivalent of each word in another language, but nothing could be further from the truth. First, not every word has an equivalent in every language. Next, some words have more than one meaning, and their possible interpretations are different across languages.
More importantly, a good translation is not mechanical. It captures the essence, meanings, flow, and atmosphere of the text, and that is often more important and much more challenging than converting one word at a time.
The Emoji Translation experience takes the art of translation to a new level. If you think of Emoji as a language, it is very limited in the number of “words” you have in your arsenal. Then again, you can combine emojis to capture more subtle or complex concepts. We all use emojis, but most of us do so as a replacement for one or two words tops. In this creative experience, we will use the existing emojis to write a complete paragraph, or more accurately, to translate a paragraph from a book.
Read the paragraph first. Consider what it aims to convey. Then, think of each sentence and each word within it. How would you best translate the sentence into emojis? What symbols can you omit or add to make it clearer and true to the original?
Once you are done, ask someone to try to read and decipher your emoji-based text.
