Aboli Chowdhary is a Spanish teacher and StoryWeaver Language Champion. She has translated over 30 books into Spanish. We reached out to her to come on board to build curated lists of Spanish resources that are particularly in need to keep children engaged, while they are away from school due to the ongoing pandemic. Aboli instantly agreed to help us.  Read this piece by Aboli, where she shares her thoughts on translation and her experience using StoryWeaver’s Translate tool.

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Hello, I am Aboli Chowdhary from Pune, India. I am a Spanish teacher and freelance Spanish translator. I love travelling. Although I was born and brought up in Mumbai, I got opportunities to live in cities like Bangalore and Vizag (Visakhapatnam). 

Do tell us  about your relationship with Spanish - what drew you to learning the language, and then teaching it?

My relationship with Spanish goes back to 2014, when I first started learning Spanish. I must mention here that it was by chance! After working in the demanding retail sector for a few years, I wanted to learn a new language, and Spanish seemed to be one of the languages of the future, considering there are almost 420 million Spanish speakers spread across 21 countries! After completing an advanced diploma in Spanish, I wanted to stay in touch with the language and practise it, so  I started teaching.

What is your experience of teaching children a foreign language and translating for children? 

It’s fun teaching any foreign language to children! They are curious to learn not only the language but also its culture. And that, in my opinion can be best explored through stories. 

One of the biggest challenges while translating a story is ‘keeping the soul of the story’ intact. One has to be very careful in choosing colloquial expressions, while at the same time promoting cultural exchange. 

When you have been given a picture book to translate, what is your process, and how long does it usually take? How was the experience of translating on StoryWeaver?

My experience with StoryWeaver has been wonderful thanks to the friendly interaction with its members and their prompt technical support. 

For translation, I generally re-read the story and try to understand its core values and message. The next step is to find the apt expression in Spanish and then translate. I found some of the stories like ‘Ammachi’s Amazing Machines’ challenging while translating the sound words into Spanish. But at the same time, while translating stories like, ‘The Rainbow Sambar’, I had to maintain the ‘Indian essence’ by using local language words with an explanation. 

Luckily, the time taken to translate the stories got reduced due to the available translation draft. I used this feature on the StoryWeaver platform for translating several stories and made the necessary changes to the words and expressions. 

How do you approach translating the storybooks across varying Reading Levels?

Reading levels are based on the exposure to the language, rather than just age of the reader. Keeping this in mind, I use simple and easy words with occasional sound words for the earlier levels. 

What are some of your favourite books from childhood? Is there any memorable reading experience that you would like to share?

I remember reading numerous ACK (Amar Chitra Katha) books in my childhood, especially on long train journeys! The language was simple with great illustrations!

We are so grateful for your contribution towards Spanish content on the platform, especially during these difficult times when there is such a need for children's reading material. Thank you for sharing the joy of reading in Spanish!

I believe that the potential of this platform is tremendous, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak. I strongly recommend reading books on this platform.I want to translate more stories into Spanish soon. So, ¡Nos vemos pronto! (See you soon!) :-)

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This year, we published a book called 'How Do Aeroplanes Fly?' on StoryWeaver in 10 languages. The book – written by Aditi Sarawagi and illustrated by Lavanya Karthik - was recently introduced to a group of children in Kota, Rajasthan, by a colleague during one of her field visits. One of the interesting observations she had made was that the children – both boys and girls – were struck by the mention of female pilots. “We didn't know that women could fly planes,” one of them had said to her. You can watch a related video here.

 

While I'm aware of disparities existing in every corner of India, this still took me by surprise. It also made me realize that all the thinking we do, as publishers, teachers and parents – which often feels like overthinking – is most definitely a good thing. Including a woman pilot and an Indian one at that had made a difference here, after all. 

Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of conversation around the growing need for diverse and inclusive books. And what does diversity mean, you ask. I suppose it could mean a range of things: from gender and religion, to language and ethnicity. The website We Need Diverse Books has listed down their vision as “A world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book." In India, initiatives like @genderlogindia and BAM! Books have actively helped keep this conversation alive.

In 2012, a national consultation involving experts from institutions, authors, editors, publishers, librarians and educators was organized by National Book Trust. 'The Good Books Guide', the document that emerged from this gathering, speaks about diversity and inclusion in its section on values. “There is a need to realize that many groups – and their world-view and perspectives – are often ignored in children's literature. For instance, girls, tribal or dalit children, children with special needs, working children and those living in urban slums, don't get enough representation in mainstream literature.”

When I think about the first set of books that were published on StoryWeaver (released digitally first), a few titles come to mind. To be completely honest though, it feels odd to be calling these books diverse. Why should a boy cooking be thought of as diverse? Why should a book featuring a single-parent household be slotted as diverse? Just because there are characters from the North-East of India, should a book be treated as diverse? Children living near a garbage dump... diverse? 

Here's the thing though. There aren't enough children's books, especially in India, in which boys or men are shown to be cooking. Single-parent households in children's books? Hardly. Characters from the North-East? A handful. Well, you get the point. In a world in which children are surrounded with fear, prejudice and suspicion, these stories – which include multiple perspectives and help build empathy - become all the more important. Stories with diverse characters will help them realize that 'the other' – in any regard – is more like them than they had imagined. And that even if they weren't, these differences are to be celebrated.

If we want our children to be independent in their thinking, we certainly need to give them access to rich and eclectic narratives that not only only inspire curiosity, but also show rigid patterns being broken gracefully. In Ross Montgomery's recent article on 'Why Writing Diverse Children's Books is Tough', he addresses a lot of issues that well-meaning authors are likely to run into. After all, you don't want to include diverse characters in your book just for the sake of having diversity, do you? But as he points out, “We all have to strive to create well-rounded diverse characters and find new ways of writing. The fact that it’s hard isn’t a good enough excuse: we have to step away from the established paths and take more risks. Who knows - we might even find a better one.” 

 

And while you're (hopefully) contemplating these rather baffling questions, allow us to make suggestions of a few books that we consider diverse. Please add your book recommendations in the comments section below.

Favourites from StoryWeaver & Pratham Books

Please note that all these books are available in multiple languages.

1. Bonda and Devi
In this story of unlikely friendship, Devi – one of the protagonists – is physically challenged. Set in the future, we had to make the wheelchair kind of futuristic as well. Spot it?

2. Where Did Your Dimples Go?
Langlen's father is Tamil and mother is Manipuri. It was just before this story was illustrated that one of the contributors suggested that Langlen's (formerly known as Leela) mother be from the North-East region of India, since it is hugely under-represented in children's books. 

3. Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani
Bored of seeing only women cooking in children's books? Finally, a boy who loves to cook! Meet Basha, who loves to hang around in the kitchen as his Ammi cooks all kinds of delicious dishes.

4. A Helping Hand
Told through a series of letters, this is a moving story of acceptance and blossoming friendship. 

5. Chuskit Goes to School  

Set in Ladakh, this is the story of Chuskit, a differently-abled girl who longed to go to school but was unable to because she could not walk. But after a nine-year wait, she is finally able to go to school!

6. Freedom Run
In many tiny villages in Uttar Pradesh, small children work long hours at the looms to create carpets famous around the world for their intricate designs. This is a story about the forgotten children of India.
7. Didi Ka Rang Biranga Khazaana
Living close to a garbage dump, these children run around garbage all day, without attending school. But then one day, Didi walks into the dump, changing their lives forever. Meet Didi and her young friends in this wonderful story that celebrates the joy of reading.
8. Adikhani series (a set of 10 bilingual books)
Drawing inspiration from the challenges facing tribal education, three organisations (Pratham Books, Ignus-ERG with the support of Bernard van Leer Foundation) held writing workshops with authors speaking Saura, Munda, Kui and Juanga languages to create picture books for early readers. These charming stories are drawn from the rich oral tradition of various tribal languages and the illustrations use tribal art with a contemporary twist. The script used in these books is Odia.

9. Chipko Takes Root

Dichi, a brave Bhotiya girl, takes part in the Chipko movement to save her beloved trees.

10. Manikantan Has Enough
Manikantan isn't pleased about having moved from his beautiful village to Smart City where his every move is being watched. But he did it for Amma, who is his mother and father and all the family he had in the world.

Favourites From Other Publishers
1. 'Bhimrao Ambedkar: The Boy Who Asked Why' by Sowmya Rajendran and Satwik Gade (Tulika)
2. 'The Princess with the Longest Hair' by Komilla Raote and Vandana Bist (Katha)
3. 'The Lonely King and Queen' by Deepa Balsavar (Tulika)
4. 'The Sackclothman' by Jayasree Kalathil (DC Books)
5. 'Dear Mrs. Naidu' by Mathangi Subramanian (Young Zubaan)
6. 'Simply Nanju' by Zainab Sulaiman (Duckbill Books)

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Amelia Bonea is a historian based at the University of Oxford and author of the book The News of Empire: Telegraphy, Journalism, and the Politics of Reporting in Colonial India, c.1830-1900 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016). Originally from Romania, she has lived and worked in Japan, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom. When not engaged in academic research, she likes to read and translate children’s literature, most recently on StoryWeaver.   

I was flattered when I was asked to contribute a post to the StoryWeaver blog to mark International Mother Language Day, celebrated on February 21st. The day also marks the conclusion of StoryWeaver's Freedom to Read Campaign launched in September last year. I was obviously flattered by the proposal, but I couldn’t help thinking that I was the wrong person for the job, since most of my adult life has been a move away from my mother tongue. These days, when I use Romanian, it is mostly to speak with members of my family on the phone or in occasional email conversations with friends, many of whom are themselves migrants scattered around the world.

‘It’s conservator, not conservativ’, my mother offers timidly, reminding me again that at some point over the last seventeen years, some invisible mechanism caused me to start translating words and expressions from English into Romanian, rather than the other way around. The lady who translates my birth certificate into English is bolder still: ‘Got you!’, she grins with the confidence of the professional, ‘It’s to write in Romanian, not to write down.’ I mumble some feeble excuse about having lived abroad for too long and head for the door with my pride visibly hurt. I am no language purist, but I care about how I speak, especially when I have ‘important’ business to conduct in my hometown.

I was born in communist Romania, during a time when bananas, chocolate and Coca Cola were prized commodities one learned to ration wisely so that they would last until uncle’s next visit home from university in Bucharest. I say Romania, but in fact I am more comfortable telling people that I am from Transylvania (not necessarily of Dracula and Bram Stoker fame, about which I came to know much later anyway, after I began my peregrinations abroad). As a child, I suspected that people from Bucharest were different: for one, they seemed to have easier access to foods we didn’t have and they kept referring to us as ‘provincials’; they also didn’t speak Romanian with a ‘Hungarian accent’, like we did. Not to be outdone, we reciprocated by feeling a tad superior to ‘those southerners’, among other things because of the dubious distinction of having once been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and thus exposed to the ‘civilizing’ influence of the West.

In any case, I grew up with a clear understanding that the Romanian with which the nation-state so eagerly wanted us to identify was not the same across the length and breadth of the country: people in the eastern province of Moldova were known to speak with a ‘sweet’ accent, while those in the south seemed to be excessively fond of the perfect simple tense. The Romanian I spoke at home was not the same my grandmother spoke in her village, peppered as it was with regionalisms whose meaning I tried hard to remember. And although my grandmother, a wonderful storyteller whose memory seemed to know no bounds, often populated my childhood with characters from her eventful life—she had lived through WWII as a child—sadly I find that my own memory falters when I try to remember some of the words she was using.   

Romanian was also not the only language I grew up with. In fact, it might be fair to say that I have two mother tongues, at least as far as hearing is concerned. There are many ethnic Hungarians living in Transylvania—as there once used to be Germans, my own aunt included—and Hungarian is one of the languages which reminds me of home, despite the fact that I only have a superficial knowledge of it. When I was in primary school, I made a pact with a Hungarian friend that we would teach one another our languages. We moved away and lost contact before I managed to learn how to speak, but it was not unusual to have ‘bilingual’ conversations with neighbours or shop assistants: people would ask questions in Hungarian and I would respond in Romanian or the other way around.

That’s how I learned that language wasn’t just speech, but a tool that could be used to play power games: one could use it to other people and by doing so, to stake a claim to a territory that did in fact belong to both interlocutors, not only to one or the other. I was reminded of these power games soon after the Revolution of December 1989, when our brief encounter with the Russian language as secondary school students was abruptly brought to an end by the new experiment with democracy and our teacher was made redundant. Russian fell out of favour practically overnight and we ended up studying French and English instead. All secondary school students were required to study two foreign languages at the time and we had no say as to which those two should be. What we knew was that studying English and French was ‘desirable’ as far as our future education and career prospects were concerned.

When I finally had a say in the matter, I decided to learn Japanese and moved to Japan to study for a university degree in Asian Area Studies. Once there, I became interested in the colonial history of South Asia and began to study Hindi as well. The big difference from my previous linguistic encounters was that these languages did not use the Roman alphabet and so they completely unsettled my ideas about the world: from a relatively small pool of 26-31 letters, I found myself thrown into a seemingly endless ocean of characters which I wasn’t always sure how they differed from each other. It was easier with Hindi, but I still can’t remember the order of the Devanagari script, which makes searching a word in a dictionary a time-consuming affair (and yes, I have the same problem in Japanese, but I console myself with the knowledge that some of my Japanese colleagues have the same problem with the Roman alphabet).

 

Much later, I also came to realize that these linguistics encounters have tweaked my brain in other, more subtle ways. I often find myself listening not only to what people say, but also to how they say it. I pay attention to their use of vocabulary and grammar. I read posters and billboards not necessarily because I am interested in the ads, but because I want to know what that character or expression means. Come to think of it, living abroad feels like a continuous language learning exercise. It gets tiring at times, but it is also exciting and enriching. Languages opened doors into worlds I didn’t know or knew little about. More than anything perhaps, learning languages has taught me to listen. Yoko Tawada, herself a straddler of worlds who lives in Germany and writes in German and Japanese, wrote in her book Where Europe Begins that, ‘Perhaps the ear is the organ of storytelling, not the mouth. Why else was the poison poured into the ear of Hamlet’s father rather than his mouth? To cut off a person from the world, you must first destroy not his mouth but his ear.’ I am reaching a stage in my life where I feel that I have come full circle and can now begin to translate some of the things I heard back into Romanian. And what better place to begin than with some of the best examples of storytelling out there, children’s books?

You can read Amelia's translations to Romanian on StoryWeaver here.

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