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Italian vs. English
A Feather Green: Comparing the habits of Italian and English Growing up in a small Oregon town in the United States, everyone I knew spoke only English all the
Translating for the Language Mavens
For 20 years, my friend Jun and I have disagreed about language. A one-time copyeditor, she rigorously responds to “How are you?”
Customer always right?
English is a sensitive issue for many Italians. Until recently, it was infamously poorly taught in schools. Knowing English well is
Review of 101 Things a Translator Needs to Know
Pithy yet potentially daunting, 101 Things a Translator Needs to Know sums up in 101 short entries what one might learn in a lifetime
Ode to Mailing Lists
Early in my career, around the turn of the millennium, I was at a dinner in Washington D.C. and met a
The Difficult Lives of Translation Clients
I’ve been trying to find a decent plumber for weeks now. The plumbers, in high demand, are holding all the cards.
Short and Sweet
I like to be helpful to my clients and welcome their requests with open arms. But it can happen that the
Becoming a Translator: My Story
Fresh-faced, bushy-tailed translators ready to blaze their translation trail often ask experienced translators how they did it. Their accounts vary wildly
Glimmer of hope for IT>EN quality?
Most Italian>English translations are terrible, ranging from machine-translated hilarity to shoddy, non-professional, native-tongue translations. When you come across well-translated English in
The needless challenges of searching for a quality translator
Clients and friends often ask me to suggest translators. When the translator needed is in my language combination (IT>EN) or vice