Daisy's Blog

Through our regular newsletter we recently launched a translation competition to which more than a hundred readers took part: they had to translate the beginning of The Auction, the first story of a new series called The Arranger on our English Gratis website.

Translating is like reading a detective story being very careful not to miss the clues. For instance, in English we just have the you pronoun but in Italian there is the tu form, used amongst friends, or the Lei form, used as a sign of respect.

So, when you have to translate the English you, it’s necessary to gather from the text whether the two people having the conversation are friends and consequently use the tu form, or whether they don’t know each other very well and therefore use the Lei form. Many of our readers didn’t read the signs correctly and had Sir Ian and Lady Sylvia treat each other as perfect strangers!

You may say these things are obvious but I notice that they are very easily forgotten in translations.

Another example is when Sir Ian says, “Can I get you something to drink?” Some of you imagined that the story takes place at Sir Ian’s home and translated “Posso versarti qualcosa da bere?” but if you read the story carefully, you’ll know that it takes place at the Children’s Hospital, not at Sir Ian’s home, and at a cocktail party organised by the charity of which Lady Sylvia is a member, exactly as Sir Ian is. Consequently, he suggests getting her a drink and not pouring her one, as there are waiters whose job it is to do this at the cocktail party.

My final advice for today is to read all the story before starting to translate so that you have a complete picture of what it is all about.