Ivybridge Primary School

translator: tristan cranfield

Ivybridge Primary School in Hounslow teamed up with literary translator Tristan Cranfield for their Translation Nation project. Several parents also took part, providing written as well as spoken versions of traditional tales in their home languages of Somali, Arabic, Punjabi and Bulgarian. The project parents noticed similarities between many of the stories and realised that alternative versions often existed in their own cultures.

To prepare the Translation Nation hub teams for the translation task ahead, the children learnt a short Arabic song and thought about why a literal translation of a song or poem is unappealing in English. The exercise demonstrated that a good translator must be creative and should pay attention to sound, rhythm and rhyme to make sure their writing is enjoyable in translation. The children at Ivybridge were then able to put all their creative writing skills into action to produce wonderful translations of the stories they had heard.

When preparing their final performances the children incorporated sections of the original languages to give the audience a real impression of what they had achieved and The Lazy Bird, a story originally told in Bulgarian, was chosen by the audience as the winning translation.

Although the Ivybridge students are accustomed to speaking their languages at home, Translation Nation showed them that their languages are relevant and important in other settings too. Tristan observed that the children were delighted to be encouraged to speak their own languages at school and to display a special skill. The students were surprised to find out that, although Tristan speaks several languages, he has only ever spoken English at home with his parents and realised that they were lucky to have learnt a language from their own families. Translation Nation was useful for the English speaking students too, who were introduced to the possibility and benefits of learning new languages.

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