I took a sentence from an earlier draft of Seven Things I Remember That Never Happened and ran it through ten languages and back.
The original:
Memory is not an archive of the past but a workshop where we rewrite our own history every time we look back.
Here is the journey, step by step:
1. English → Spanish La memoria no es un archivo del pasado sino un taller donde reescribimos nuestra propia historia cada vez que miramos atrás.
2. Spanish → French La mémoire n’est pas une archive du passé mais un atelier où nous réécrivons notre propre histoire chaque fois que nous regardons en arrière.
3. French → German Das Gedächtnis ist kein Archiv der Vergangenheit, sondern eine Werkstatt, in der wir unsere eigene Geschichte jedes Mal neu schreiben, wenn wir zurückblicken.
4. German → Russian Память — это не архив прошлого, а мастерская, где мы переписываем собственную историю каждый раз, когда оглядываемся назад.
5. Russian → Arabic الذاكرة ليست أرشيفًا للماضي بل ورشة عمل حيث نعيد كتابة تاريخنا الخاص في كل مرة ننظر فيها إلى الوراء.
6. Arabic → Hindi स्मृति अतीत का संग्रह नहीं है बल्कि एक कार्यशाला है जहां हम हर बार पीछे देखने पर अपना इतिहास फिर से लिखते हैं।
7. Hindi → Japanese 記憶とは過去の記録ではなく、振り返るたびに自分たちの歴史を書き換える作業場である。
8. Japanese → Korean 기억은 과거의 기록이 아니라 돌아볼 때마다 우리 자신의 역사를 다시 쓰는 작업장입니다.
9. Korean → Swahili Kumbukumbu sio kumbukumbu ya zamani lakini semina ambapo tunaandika upya historia yetu wenyewe kila tunapotazama nyuma.
10. Swahili → Portuguese A memória não é um arquivo do passado, mas uma oficina onde reescrevemos a nossa própria história cada vez que olhamos para trás.
11. Portuguese → English
The memory is not an archive of the past, but a workshop where we rewrite our own history every time we look back.
It survived. Mostly. “Archive” became “record” in one leg, then came back. “Workshop” flirted with “seminar” in Swahili but corrected itself. The core thesis that memory is active, not passive passed through every language barrier intact.
But here is the thing: it is not the same sentence. The rhythm changed. The original has a comma after “past” and a caesura after “workshop.” The returning version smooths both out. It reads cleaner. It also reads less like me.
What did we lose? My specific pacing. The implied breath before “every time we look back.” What did we gain? A sentence that a speaker of ten languages could call their own.
I am not sure which version I prefer. Maybe that is the point.