“Reginella”, sung by Olivia Naio. A song for Italian National Day

Today, 2 June, is the Festa della Repubblica, Italy’s National Day. So for my Italian readers (and everyone else too!) here’s a song from Naples performed – in the Neapolitan dialect – by my daughter, Olivia. About Reginella “Reginella”, written in 1917 by Libero Bovio and Gaetano Lama, is a bitter-sweet song about lost love and innocence. The singer sees his old love, his …

Out of kilter: confusing times for translators

One of my first ever posts, “Translators’ time-warp“, was about the confusion that arises when you work with clients in different time zones and with different public holidays from your own. Well, it’s happening again today. It’s bad enough getting back into work mode after the Christmas and New Year period (although to be honest …

Omnishambles: object-lessons in how not to contract out language services

“An object-lesson in how not to contract out a public service”. That’s how the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, described the centralised system for supplying interpreters to the justice system. (See also my previous post on Ministry of Justice language services). Headlines have included: “Court interpreter farce halts murder trial” …

Word of the moment: it’s just (in)credible.

Do you ever find that a certain word or phrase keeps cropping up in your work? In your source material, I mean, not your end-product. For me right now it’s “credibility” (or credibilità, to be precise). That’s because I do a lot of translation and editing for Italian government organisations and Italy is focused on …

When the Poet Died: on translating remembrance

Alexander Anichkin’s blog post, When the Poet Died, was written a few months ago (June 2011) but makes timely reading today, Remembrance Sunday. Alexander’s post starts from his translation of Gilbert Bécaud’s song “Quand il est mort, le poète” (lyrics by Louis Amade). So it gives us an insight to the challenges faced by translators in translating songs (or …

Grapes, lentils, black bun and first foots

One of the nice things about being married to someone from another country (Vito, my husband, is from Puglia, in Italy) is that you get to share each other’s national traditions. That goes for New Year’s Eve too (Hogmanay, here in Scotland). Our Italian tradition is to eat lentils and grapes (not together!) as midnight strikes, as they …

Translators’ time warp – again

Once again my work days are out of kilter with the rest of the country – it’s a bank holiday here in the UK but business as usual for my clients in Italy. Today, however, my kids are out of synch too – like many of their schoolmates they’ve got Scottish Qualifications Authority exams. Why …

Art sublime

The Blessed Angelico: The Dawn of the Renaissance – the largest exhibition entirely dedicated to Beato Angelico since 1955 – is at Rome’s Capitoline Museums until 5 July 2009. If you’re planning a visit to Rome this summer, this is a unique opportunity to see these beautiful paintings in one place. And if not, you can …

Translators’ time-warp

  I work from Glasgow, mainly for Italian clients. My computer’s set to Italian time, because that’s where the deadlines are. My watch is set 5 minutes fast, for punctuality’s sake (doesn’t always work…). I have a radio alarm set 15 minutes fast. It comes on at 6.45am.  My alarm clock (again set 5 mins fast) …

For words to even better effect – just add music

Tommaso Chiarolini, an Italian designer and illustrator now based in Edinburgh, sent me this link. It’s from Playing for Change: Peace through Music and it cheered me up on a wet and grey May Day. I hope it does the same for you.