This document relates a conversation about translation between Vincent Cleary, a university teacher of Latin literature who formerly taught at the high school level, and Burton Raffel, a translator who has published works from a variety of foreign languages. Cleary provides such questions and comments as: "Why translation?""How much do we need foreign culture?" and "What can we as readers look for in a translation?" Raffel responds to these and other questions. In so doing analyzes the process of translation and claims that translation plays an essential role in our understanding of the world. (LL)