跟着本书探寻翻译数十万年的历史，挖掘翻译背后惊人的事实。
在讲文化的书中，这本书对翻译的分析最深入；在讲翻译的书中，这本书对文化的解读最精妙。
于译者而言，这本书能答疑解惑。全书的每一个章节都与翻译有关。从翻译的概念到原文与译文的关系，从母语人士的翻译到直译与意译的分析，从翻译的策略到翻译机器，几乎囊括了翻译的各个方面。
于普通读者而言，本书是一本有趣又有料的翻译普及读本。很多人认为，翻译，不就是两种语言，用一种语言替代另一种吗？实际上，翻译是文化的一部分，也是一种艺术。有更了解翻译的大众，才有更好的译文。
从字典到圣经翻译，从国际法到纽伦堡审判，从诗歌到新闻，从人权到语言平等，不仅探讨了翻译的理论，还穿插了上百个实例，加入了众多有趣故事，旁征博引，带你了解翻译的奥秘。
People speak different languages, and always have. The Ancient Greeks took no notice of anything unless it was said in Greek; the Romans made everyone speak Latin; and in India, people learned their neighbors’ languages—as did many ordinary Europeans in times past (Christopher Columbus knew Italian, Portuguese, and Castilian Spanish as well as the classical languages). But today, we all use translation to cope with the diversity of languages. Without translation there would be no world news, not much of a reading list in any subject at college, no repair manuals for cars or planes; we wouldn’t even be able to put together flat-pack furniture.
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across the whole of human experience, from foreign films to philosophy, to show why translation is at the heart of what we do and who we are. Among many other things, David Bellos asks: What’s the difference between translating unprepared natural speech and translating Madame Bovary? How do you translate a joke? What’s the difference between a native tongue and a learned one? Can you translate between any pair of languages, or only between some? What really goes on when world leaders speak at the UN? Can machines ever replace human translators, and if not, why?
But the biggest question Bellos asks is this: How do we ever really know that we’ve understood what anybody else says—in our own language or in another? Surprising, witty, and written with great joie de vivre, this book is all about how we comprehend other people and shows us how, ultimately, translation is another name for the human condition.
