Little Translator Lily and the Silk Road of Knowledge from Her Parents

Translator Lily (center) and her father at the book launch of The Silk Road - Photo: QT

In 2022, Vietnamese readers admired the translation ability of 9-year-old translator Lily (Ho An Nhien) with the work Can't Stop Steps . At the end of May 2024, Lily released a new work called Silk Road . This is the fifth work translated by Lily.

Reading the book The Silk Roads, it is clear that wherever there are pioneers, there are intellectual paths, paths that transcend space and time.

Parental perseverance

Lily started translating books at the age of 8 and continued translating books at the age of 10 and 11. Such an early start and continuous output of quality translations by a young translator, obviously did not come naturally.

Lily's mother loved reading since she was young, and although she did not work in the publishing industry, she made a certain contribution to the publishing and dissemination of books. Lily's father was a lecturer at various universities and understood the value of books. Lily's grandfather was a medical professor. Lily's grandmother was a teacher who loved books.

Lily's grandparents and parents had a head start on the Silk Road of Knowledge. Thus, they brought knowledge into Lily's mind from their own foundation of loving knowledge.

Have you ever patiently read books with your children since they were young? Have you ever patiently listened to the stories your children made up while looking at picture books? Have you ever patiently read the entire Journey to the West with your children and answered their questions when they were in second grade? Have you ever patiently discussed philosophical issues for children, financial issues for children... whenever your children needed it?...

A series of questions like this can be asked to parents. And each different answer will give different people, different lives.

With Lily, her parents have been patient and persistent in not only answering "yes" to the above questions, but also creating many other questions and opportunities for her. That is, her parents have created a Vietnamese and English word bank in many different fields, helping her understand concepts within her ability, allowing her to freely imagine and present, to debate and learn from each other... over the past 11 years.

Therefore, the five translations are the tireless efforts of the parents and the young translator himself. And we do not need to prove the obvious that family education is the great beginning of every child.

For more Lily

In addition to inheriting opportunities to access knowledge and transform it into translated products, Lily soon participated in activities to popularize books to rural readers, including using financial resources from book translation to build rural classroom libraries and participating in giving lucky money to books during Tet to create social awareness about the importance of books, as Lily herself benefited.

So how should children born into families without a foundation of professional knowledge and whose parents have been starved of books since childhood be supported?

Tens of millions of children growing up in rural areas from the 1970s to the present lack access to books and educational opportunities from their families. In preschool, primary and secondary school, students are not allowed to read or listen to books, so when they grow up, these citizens do not understand the value of books in their spiritual life, the accumulation of knowledge, skills and life values, confidence in communication, problem-solving, etc.

Worse still, most of them do not care about books and do not help their children read. Intergenerational intellectual poverty continues, and individuals and societies do not have the intellectual transformation that promotes social progress.

So, on a personal level, not everyone studies abroad in the UK like Lily's parents, not every student is as passionate about translating books as Lily, but millions of parents in urban and rural areas have the ability to read books with their children from an early age like Lily's parents, and millions of children want their parents to read books with them.

Parents need to know that each classroom bookshelf only costs a few million VND to start, but the long-term value for children cannot be measured in money but in knowledgeable brains, filial children and responsible citizens.

At the same time, Vietnam’s education system must change according to the education system of developed countries. At that time, parenting education will become a part of education. Even if parents do not have the habit of reading with their children, they will gradually change according to the movement of schools and society.

Resources from parents, teachers, and alumni with thousands of billions during the school year will be mobilized and tens of millions of books will reach children at school and at home. The educational revolution in Vietnam is that all our children can listen to and read books like children in Western Europe, America, Japan...

Hopefully, in the next twenty years, society will have many Lily in different fields, contributing to enriching the country's knowledge base and many intellectual products will be born like what Japan, Korea, Israel... have been creating.

Lily started translating at the age of 8 with the 3-book series Guardians of Childhood . The 3-book series was published by Book Hunter and Da Nang Publishing House in 2021. Soon after, Lily received an invitation from Omega Plus Book to participate in translating 2 popular historical books, Unstoppable by Yuval Noah Harari and Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/dich-gia-nhi-lily-va-con-duong-to-lua-tri-thuc-tu-cha-me-20240612234935641.htm