Translation Policy

Last updated: August 10, 2024

We pledge that the translations we offer have been provided by real human beings, many prominent in the Anthroposophical movement for decades. These are NOT ‘literal’ or AI-generated translations without human review. There are a number of problems inherent in those translation methods:

• Nuances are missed, especially in the case of older documents containing archaic abbreviations, word usage, and concepts that can easily be misinterpreted.
• Grammatical constructions, such as the ordering of clauses in sentences, are not untangled.
• Using the most common meaning of a term, unable to recognize reasonable context. For example, in a Rudolf Steiner lecture concerning the characteristics of genius, the literal translation was “In Faust, Goethe portrayed the genial personality” rather than “In Faust, Goethe portrayed him with the personality of a genius.”

The works of Rudolf Steiner present special challenges, similar to the difficulty in translating poetry:

• Subtle nuances are critical to understanding Steiner's complicated philosophical ideas.
• Steiner often coined new words to express novel ideas.
• Knowledge of events and individuals Steiner refers to is necessary to correctly interpret the concepts and terminology.

We prefer not to aid and abet ahrimanic materialism.