Every act of communication is, in some way, an act of translation. Writer Chris Bliss talks about the way that great comedy can translate deep truths for a mass audience.

Every day, we're inundated with heaps of data and no easy way to decipher it. It's easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of this avalanche of information. With three simple tools, Jonathan Koch outlines how each of us can better understand data to make more informed decisions in our professional and personal lives.

When was the last time you optimized something? Perhaps you've been engaging proactively? Are you strategically evolving a market in real-time? Any idea what any of that means? Thea Knight is on a crusade to kill the jargon that is strangling our conversations. She explains how we can be more "intentional" about our words - so we can start to ac...

From the director Whenever we talk about the origins of the Open Translation Project, we are always quick to give you most of the credit. Before there was ever an OTP, viewers like you were writing us and volunteering to translate talks by speakers like Jill Bolte Taylor, Hans Rosling and Sir Ken Robinson. You wanted to share their ideas with pe...

There are countless benefits to subtitling your TEDx Talks. It’s easy to do, and we have teams of volunteers to help through our TED Translators. How to translate a talk Before a talk can be translated, it needs to be transcribed. The good news is that transcribing your TEDx Talks is one of the best things you can do for your videos, because: ...

English is fast becoming the world's universal language, and instant translation technology is improving every year. So why bother learning a foreign language? Linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shares four alluring benefits of learning an unfamiliar tongue.

TED Translators and transcribers help spread ideas to a global audience. We use a free, state of the art subtitling platform called CaptionHub. Here's what you need to know to get started. Workflow Subtitles go through the following steps before publication: 1. Transcription TED provides an original transcript for all TED and TED-Ed content. Fo...

What does this gorgeous street art say? It's Arabic poetry, inspired by bold graffiti and placed where a message of hope and peace can do the most good. In this quietly passionate talk, artist and TED Fellow eL Seed describes his ambition: to create art so beautiful it needs no translation.

Collaboration Collaboration is key to subtitling for TED: every set of subtitles requires at least two volunteers working together. For successful collaboration, we recommend that you: Reviewers should kickstart the collaboration process by contacting the translator (or transcriber) to communicate changes. TED style Contact us at translate@ted....

Please note the Mentoring Program is currently paused while we transition to a new format. Stay tuned for updates on our social channels Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Our mentoring program pairs TED Translators who are looking to develop their subtitling and reviewing skills with experienced volunteers who are eager to collaborate and shar...

Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world -- the whole world -- uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms.

Language is complex, and when abstract or nuanced concepts get lost in translation, the consequences may be catastrophic. Given the complexities of language and cultural exchange, how do these epic miscommunications not happen all the time? Ewandro Magalhaes explains how much of the answer lies with the skill and training of interpreters to over...

By mastering the Eskista, an ancient Ethiopian dance, TED Fellow Melaku Belay survived a childhood on the streets and became a voice for his country. He shares how traditional dances can connect the wisdom of the past to the energy of the future -- and, after the talk, delivers a thrilling performance of Eskista accompanied by a free-jazz ensemb...

"A political cartoon is a barometer of freedom," says Rayma Suprani, who was exiled from her native Venezuela for publishing work critical of the government. "That's why dictators hate cartoonists." In a talk illustrated with highlights from a career spent railing against totalitarianism, Suprani explores how cartoons hold a mirror to society an...

From a boy setting off small explosions in his living room to the creator of world-famous pyrotechnic events, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo-Qiang has always been drawn to gunpowder. He gives a stunning tour of his work — including his fireworks spectacle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his "sky ladder" of fire reaching to the clouds and new wor...

Ameera Harouda leads journalists to the harrowing (and often hidden) stories of the Gaza Strip that they couldn’t find on their own.

Supporting TED through philanthropic giving will help increase the impact of projects related to our year-long initiatives beyond the conference, including TEDx, TED-Ed, TED Fellows, and the Open Translation Project. As of July 1, 2019, TED Conferences, LLC is owned by TED Foundation Inc. a U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. Contributions are ...

Lýdia Machová teaches people how they can learn any language by themselves.

Dr. Steven Schwaitzberg is on a mission to teach surgeons around the world to perform minimally invasive surgery. But first, he's had to find the right technology to allow communication across the language barrier.

Often called a social poet, C.K. Williams was fascinated by the characters of modern civilization and their interactions.

Today TED's Open Translation Project published the 10,000th TEDTalk translation! In May 2009, we launched the translation project in an effort to bring TEDTalks beyond the English-speaking world. We kicked off with 300 translations in 40 languages, and in just over a year, thanks to the power of crowdsourcing and

Today TED's Open Translation Project published the 15,000th TEDTalk translation! Last year at TEDActive, TED translators set an ambitious goal to reach 15,000 translations by TEDActive2011. Three weeks ahead of schedule, TED translators surpassed this huge number. Now with subtitles in 80 languages, our volunteer translators are helping TED ...

Percussionist and composer Dame Evelyn Glennie lost nearly all of her hearing by age 12. Rather than isolating her, it has given her a unique connection to her music.

Sophia Kianni is a United Nations climate advisor and the founder of Climate Cardinals, a nonprofit that aims to make climate resources more accessible to people who don't speak English.

“In this place, you can connect to people that have been drawn apart for years by nationalists and the war. You can put them together in the same room and ... people are talking about the greater good.” This quote was recorded at the first regional Open Translation Project workshop held in Novi Sad, Serbia, on September 14. At the workshop...

Ayana Ishiyama always thought she wanted to be a journalist. Two years ago, when she left her hometown in northern Japan to study abroad in the US, she signed up for journalism courses and wrote articles for the school newspaper to sharpen up her English skills. But while she loved interviewing people and sharing their stories, Ishiyama -- n...

Shortly after model Geena Rocero gave the TED Talk “Why I must come out,” she was Skyping with an LGBTQ activist in Hong Kong. This activist mentioned how powerful it would be for Chinese speakers to be able to watch the talk. Rocero logged on to TED.com to find out how she could get her talk translated. To her surprise, she found that Ch...

TED Senior Fellow Andrew Pelling uses novel materials for next-generation medical innovations and speculative living technologies of the future.

Shadia Ramsahye is a Mauritian-born digital media student living in Paris. She speaks four languages -- Mauritian Creole, French, English and Urdu -- and translates TED Talks into the latter, which she describes as “the language of poetry, the language of the heart.” “Translating for TED has helped me keep in touch with this language I am ...