KALAPATI (part 2)

 Going through all the pages that Google translated my heart sank into my shoes. This was definitely not how it was meant to be. Of course, in our languages we have lots of homonyms and how will the Google machine know how to translate it right? Also the way we build sentences differs. Another problem I faced was the fact that speaking (in whatever language for that matter) is not quite the same as writing.

Reading the book Talent is never enough by John C. Maxwell was motivating enough to finally get started. Like I had read in this book, the beginning was indeed far from easy. But I knew I had to go on and that is what I did. Looking back it is only logic that once I got the hang of it the task became less severe. Also a Dutch friend came over and he helped me by going through my translated pages, explaining me where I had gone wrong and why. A crash course English. 

However, the language turned out not to be the only problem. Going through the story again I was kind of shocked. Had I really written this? “Some people definitely are not going to like what I wrote about them” was something that came to mind several times. And it made me insecure. Should I just forget about the translated version? Change the content of certain events? But then again, the story was written under bad circumstances. The situation I was in at that time was far from comfortable. Also had I described my observations and they were true for me. A lot of thinking brought me to the conclusion it would be unfair to myself to make changes. There (are and) were no bad intentions like I felt I want to hurt people. If people get hurt they might consider the fact that others see them different than they see themselves. Once a psychologist told me “Frans, if people make comments on your attitude or behavior theirs is no need to get angry about it. All you have to do is listen to the message within the message. They are not burning you down as a person. Just ask yourself: ‘Could they possibly be right? Can and will I change?’ Now listen good what I’m telling you. All the comments you get are small presents, given to you by people who care”.

Cover for the English edition

When I finally finished the translation I asked a good  English friend if he would be so kind to read and edit. Luckily he wanted to help. And he did even more. He designed a new cover and converted the book so it could be uploaded as an e-book. That was only the first step. He then offered to convert everything so it would be available as paperback as well! There were tens of emails being sent back and forth but finally it was all fixed. The English version was published in February. All and all it happened just in 6 months all together after I got that email and Face Book announcement that I had become the winner of the writers contest.

The Face Book announcement