‘Tart Bites’ Podcast on ArabicEnglish Translation Launches Today

Algerian translator Bouchra Rebiai today is launching the translation podcast “Tart Bites,” focused on the art of translation between Arabic and English:

“TART,” according to the podcast host, Bouchra Rebiai, “stands for Translation, Art, and AR (the code for Arabic),” and, she adds, it’s “also is about how sometimes translation work can be sweet and sour at the same time.”

Episodes will drop each Tuesday and Thursday, and most will be just a few minutes long, revolving around themes such as “efficiency, productivity, CAT tools, regional differences in written Arabic, and much more.”

Interviews will be longer, running “up to 30 minutes.” These will “explore the different journeys and paths people take to become translators, tricky words and how translators deal with them, as well as advice for aspiring translators.”

Rebiai said she will be “interviewing a range of translators across various specializations, who deal in the language pairs AR>EN and EN>AR. In the beginning I will be focusing mainly on literary translators, simply because I have a special interest in them.”

She added:

I’ve always wanted to start a conversation around translation, from the very beginning of my career. I started out by hosting some Twitter chats around translation, attempting to do live audio series called Translation Talks, and lastly trying to do this podcast as a video series.

This new form, Rebiai hopes, will engage a wider public.

The podcast will be primarily in English “with a peppering of Arabic words whenever needed,” and you can find it on all major podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.