English to Italian translation: Some tips

Translation is the mixture of art and science. Most of the people have misconception that translation is an easy job if one is familiar with the language, which is not the reality. Even if someone knows a particular language, he may not have the requisite skills to produce a professional translation. And when we talk about English to Italian translation of a document, it would not be very sensible to handover the document to a person who has been living in Italy. In order to produce best English to Italian translation, it is better to hire a translation agency or a professional translator who can produce authentic English to Italian translation.
There are few points which should be considered if you are hiring translator or translation agency for English-Italian translation

•English and Italian languages differ in their sentence structure and tenses. Italian is a complex language which contains diverse grammatical differences when compared to English. It is therefore essential to ensure that the English-Italian translator is well-equipped with language skills before you give him document for translation.

•Localization is again an important issue which should be taken care of, if one wants to produce professional English to Italian translation. If you want to expand your business into Italian language speaking countries, it is essential for you to understand the culture and language of the natives. Hence translators who are knowledgeable about the culture of the people of your target country, it will serve as an edge to your marketing strategy.

Blunders in translation by companies

Language translation is a tricky process which involves an important consideration-culture. Culture affects everything we do. Similarly culture has a great impact in business promotions in the global world. Often companies do blunders in translation by ignoring the aspect of culture. As an individual, business or any organization, one should research everything from the symbols, colours and words of the target consumer before finalising the name, tagline, packaging and marketing campaign in their native language. There are several examples where world’s famous businesses and companies have messed up with the translations. Here are some of them:

KFC

When KFC translated ‘Finger-Likin’ Good’ in Chinese language, it was translated in Chinese as ‘We will Eat your Fingers fast’.

Cocoa Cola

Similarly Coca Cola’s name in Chinese language was read as ‘bite the wax tadpole’.

Pepsi

When Pepsi translated its marketing campaign, it was read as ‘we bring your ancestors back from the dead’ in china.

General Motors

In Europe, GM motors created a blunder by translating its campaign ‘every car has a body’ into ‘every car has a corpse’ in Spanish language.

Schweppes Tonic water

Scweppes Tonic water was translated into Italian language as Schweppes ‘Toilet paper’.

We often have a misconception that Spanish and Italian are inter-related. Unfortunately it is not. An Italian mineral company, Traficante translated their product for native Spanish speakers. Traficante means ‘drug dealer’ in Spanish language. Similarly, Irish Mist, did not succeed with its translations in German language as ‘Mist’ in German means ‘dung’.

French translations have also created blunders due to the pronunciations. Toyota launched MR2 for French which sounded somewhat close to ‘merde’

Companies should consider the cultural aspect while marketing their products for foreign customers.When pampers launched their product for Japanese market, they showed a stork delivering baby which did not suit Japanese consumers. According to a Japanese folklore, babies are delivered by floating peach and not by stork!

How is Italian different from English?

Italian Translation Services

English and Italian are two different languages and they offer different ways of expressing thoughts. Spoken by about 80 million people in the world, Italian is a very fluid language unlike English which is known for its intricacy. Italian is the native language of about 60 million people while the remaining people treat Italian as their second language. On the other hand, English is spoken by more than 400 million people. Besides USA, it is widely spoken in Asia, UK, Australia, Philippines and Canada.

Italian is different from English in various ways:

Italian is characterized as a Romance language and is a part of Indo-European language family. It resembles Lain and in fact there are various similarities between the two languages. Being a Romance language, Italian language resembles Spanish and French, almost 80%. On the other hand, English has its origins in Anglo-Saxons in Britain. Being a member of Germanic family of languages, English resembles German, Frisian, Dutch, Frisian and Afrikaans languages. Moreover there are differences in alphabets between English and Italian. Both of them share 26 alphabets but in Italian j,k,w,x,y are regarded as foreign letters and are used for import words. Additionally, proper nouns don’t use capital letters in Italian language unlike English.

Sounds of vowels and spellings

In English, proper consideration is taken while pronouncing vowels and moreover spelling is more complicated in English. The use of silent letters is properly practiced in English. On the other hand, Italian vowels are pronounced in defined way unlike English.

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