Versione italiana

A Feather Green

Growing up in a small Oregon town in the United States, everyone I knew spoke only English all the time. It was pretty late in the game that I realized that there were other languages at all. Finding it already mind-bogglingly silly that other people had other words for the same things, I could hardly imagine that foreign languages were anything other than new words replacing the real English words.  Approaching puberty, the age of realization, I started to take French lessons. I remember exactly where I was standing as my teacher explained that adjectives came after nouns in French and that “a green feather” would be  “une plume verte”. Shocked, my whole vision of language changed forever.

Of course, this was just the beginning. Now, decades on, the fact that different languages are more than mere collections of differently assembled words is what makes my career.

Not just different words and different grammars. Different rhythms. And different habits.

As Italians and Americans might differ on what makes good pasta, an appropriate time to drink coffee and whose cheeks ought to be kissed and how often, we also differ on what makes good writing or speaking for various purposes. Some of this etiquette is absorbed unconsciously, whereas other habits are drilled into young heads with the points of many red pens of adamant English teachers.  The voices of Mrs. Gauthier, Mr. Davis, Mrs. Glasgow still ring in my head: have a point, make the point, be succinct! I have never attended middle or high school in Italy, but after nine years as an Italian-to-English translator, I am very sure that this specific admonition was not impressed on young Italian brains.

“How do you say “blah blah blah blah” in your language?” has two reliable answers: “It depends,” or “We don’t”. Alas, those answers aren’t good enough when they’re paying you.

For example, in Italian, when bidding someone farewell as they are going to, or in the midst of work, one says “Buon lavoro!” literally “Good work!” Its hope is that you will enjoy your work and it will go well. In English, there is no equivalent habit. The translator, who always labors under the complex reign of King Context, makes a choice, perhaps using different, fitting parting words [e.g. “Thank you!” at the end of a speech to businesspeople], cutting it out all together, or explaining it in parentheses.

Contact with Italian culture quickly causes most non-Italians to kiss on the cheeks, say “Ciao!” and to gesture emphatically with hands in prayer position. As Italian-to-English translators, reading Italian day in and day out, we have to guard against absorbing Italian style into our English.

To help keep their differences in mind, with the contributions of my lovely colleagues, I’ve compiled descriptions of some different habits of Italian and English writing. Like with my Pesky Words, this run-down should be taken without forgetting that what really matters in translation is context, first, last, and in between. The larger context includes the sector, the audience and the purpose.

Naturally, the differences I notice most reflect my specializations in marketing texts, magazine articles and academic writings.