ProZ.com Translation Contest 2012: Yogi Berra Quotes

In 2012, I took part in—and won—a literary translation contest (English > Spanish) organized by ProZ.com: Contest 2012 – Yogi Berra Quotes.

The source text was quite unusual: it consisted entirely of short quotes from the baseball player and coach Yogi Berra. These quotes were humorous, often paradoxical, and full of double meanings. In Spanish, there’s a literary form called greguerías, coined by Ramón Gómez de la Serna—brief, witty sentences that blend humor and insight, often with a poetic or philosophical twist. Yogi Berra’s quotes are remarkably similar in spirit, though rooted in American culture and sports rather than literary tradition.

Each registered ProZ.com user could evaluate both the individual translated quotes and the overall translation as a whole. Translations were public, but the names of the authors remained hidden until after the voting. The winner was the translator with the highest overall average score.

This evaluation method led to a surprisingly refined and thoughtful discussion of the contest results. It also allowed the creation of a kind of “award-winning translation,” made up of the top-rated translations of each individual quote—an optimal version composed collaboratively by different translators. Of course, this was only possible because the text consisted of completely independent sentences.

Taking part in the contest was a very enriching experience, and I encourage all translators to join this kind of event.

Below is a table showing the original quotes, my translations, the highest-rated translations, and my comments on each phrase.