jacenba
Jacinto Enrique Benítez Báez
Traductor. Translator. 翻譯者.
Who am I?
My name is Jacinto Enrique. Choose whichever you prefer from one of those two. I was born in Paraguay, in the city of San Lorenzo, and moved to Murcia, Spain, at a very young age. When I was a child, at around the age of 7, a computer fell into my hands (it was sturdy and slow) and that was the start of my journey through languages. All thanks to a little Super Nintendo emulator that somebody installed with game roms in their original languages. “New Game”, what’s that? What was this ゲームオーバー on my screen? 5-year-old Jacinto didn’t care so much, but that’s how a devotion for foreign languages started.
What are my goals?
Since I was amazed by how languages worked, in high school I was already constructing conlangs as a hobby. Those game screens written in Japanese in my early days soon transformed into interest also for the Chinese language. It was also easier to find people speaking Chinese (in the broad sense) in Spain. After leaving my small town, learning languages was already a natural part of me and so I chose to major in Translation and Interpreting. On my third year on college, I would take the little big decision to dive into learning more thoroughly and start working with Chinese (Mandarin Chinese). The University of Murcia gave me the opportunity to do an exchange semester with the Eramus+ program to Tamsui (Taiwan) at the Tamkang University. That exchange program radically changed my life and it was there when I started learning Chinese through real life lessons.
In 2021, I'm on my first year at a Doctor's Degree Program in Taiwan, IDAS. By means of this PhD, I am looking to establish myself as a researcher and a writer. My main field of research is Mass Media and Geography. I wish for this opportunity and full five years time of study devotion to improve even further my competences in Chinese language as well.
Why so many flowers
and so much pink?
If you’ve read to this point, I suppose you are wondering about my logo design resembling an ice cream shop logo. My brand image as a professional translator is based on an almond blossom and its five petals with five diacritics related to my studied languages. I like to compare the translation process to a flower. Languages (petals) take very different paths, but they were born in the very same place. Same thing happens with translations, they are born from the very same text, they all agree in a shared meaning of human experience, but each culture takes its own path to achieve it.
Furthermore, almond blossoms are very typical from Murcia, the Spanish region where I have ve lived most of my life. At the same time, it is very similar to cherry blossoms, which are a very typical Asian flower. You can see around this text two photos, one from Tallante (Murcia), shot by Alberto García, and the other from Taiwan, taken by me. For me, the similarity between these two flowers creates a bridge between both languages and cultures. Cherry blossoms are also frequently seem in coats of arms all around East Asia, and the expectation brought by their blossoming season is no mystery.
How do I spend my free time?
In recent years, my interest for East Asian matters has grown, which has led me to decide focusing part of my professional translator life to their languages, specifically Mandarin Chinese and languages from its family, which are more familiar to me. During many years I’ve been working with other people on the internet to offer translations of Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese songs to strenghten the interest on these regions. They have had far greater reception that I’ve would have dreamed of.
I also have a side project. It’s a project that wants to blend RPG game streaming with language learning through didactic pauses and reflections.
As you might have notice, I have a soft spot for designing things by myself, so I've also been devoting some time to improve my graphic skills. These are some of the latest works I've done for past and future projects.
