International Translation Day : My Story with Translation

Hello! I'm Ghalia, 25 years old,
from Damascus, Syria.

Well, my story in TED started
in October 2013,

when I was chatting to a friend of mine
and we were talking about things

that help us to use our time
in the right way.

So he told me that he is
translating with TED: TED Talks,

and TED Education videos into Arabic,

and then he convinced me to apply.

I applied to Amara and TED
and got accepted,

but I got busy with my collage and work.

After about 2 or 3 months,
I decided that it's time to start.

So, he told me how to start
and I started.

I can't express my feelings

when I finished the very first video
to me in TED

and I viewed it to him and he told me that

it was a great start.

I continued translating
TED Education videos

and then after one and a half year

I decided to apply for
the Language Coordinators.

I talked to many LCs
to support my application

and then I got accepted.

After that I decided that

I should take more responsibilites

than just reviewing and
approving the talks.

So, I started to leave some notes
for the translators

and reply their messages

and leave them grammar posts
on the Facebook group.

And we did a remarkable thing

When I saw that the Arabic language

was improved in few months.

After that, I volunteered with a website
called "4Electron"

and I translated many articles with them.

Then I applied for Amara-On-Demand job
and I got accepted.

I work also as a freelancer translator
from English to Arabic.

But really, working with TED was
the most amazing thing I did.

This experience changed my life.
Why?

Because I'm not only
transferring the knowledge

from English to Arabic

but I'm also getting inspired by
the videos I'm watching

everytime I translate a video.

That's why I decided to create a community

for Syrian TED Translators
and I'm working on it.

And it's amazing to see people
joining this community

and enjoying what we're doing.

Why I see that translation is important;

to transform knowledge
from language to another,

from culture to another,

is a very important thing,

because when you get inspired by
thoughts from other countries

other cultures, other languages,

you expand your horizons.

This is why I insisted eveyday
more and more

to transform all these amazing ideas
in TED

into Arabic,

because our community needs these ideas

very much in the current time.

You should not be a super human
to do a super job or to have super ideas,

you just have to believe that you have it.

This is what I learned from TED talks

and from the many things that I translated

during the last 3 years.

I'm really thankful for my friend
who told me about TED.

And I'm really thankful for the LCs
who supported me

when I applied for
the Language Coordinators.

And I'm very thankful for every single one

who put his knowledge in these
amazing videos.