At Unbabel we have a unique approach to translation: each text submitted by a customer is translated by our Machine Translation system, and then corrected by our community of editors in an online platform. By editing the output of the software, the editors ensure the quality of the translations and confirm that the message is accurate (i.e. has the same meaning as the original), fluent (i.e. can be easily understood and sounds natural) and is in line with the style requested by the clients (i.e. respects their register and terminology). In order to help editors do the best job possible, we provide various types of information:

Customer instructions, which include the identification of the client and his requests to personalize the translation, such as the register that must be used to address the recipient of the message. Following these instructions is vital to deliver translations that match the client’s expectations.
Glossaries, which correspond to specific vocabulary and expressions used by the client, and that must be respected by the editors.
Translation Memories, which correspond to stored segments (expressions, sentences or paragraphs) that have previously been translated and accepted for customer usage. They are useful for ensuring consistency across translations.

We also have Smartcheck, which is an application that checks the grammar, morphology, orthography and style of the translations while being edited. By using a large set of rules, Smartcheck flags words or groups of words that may present some kind of issue.

Finally, in order to deliver the best possible translation, we also provide these guidelines about your language specifications. Please, read them carefully and always follow these instructions in your editions.

2. Grammar

2.1. Agreement

2.1.1. Tense, mood, person (for verbs)

When it comes to verbal agreement, please note we’re dealing with either one of these two cases: subject-verb agreement or past participle agreement. In the first case (subject-verb agreement), the rule is that the verb stays singular when two or more subjects are connected by a disjunctive conjunction (or) and when the subject is followed by a ‘complemento di compagnia’.

Examples

Source text: My son or my daughter are going to call.

✘ Telefoneranno mio figlio o mia figlia.

✓ Telefonerà mio figlio o mia figlia.

Source text: Gianni and Maria gave me a watch.

✘ Gianni, insieme a Maria, mi hanno regalato un orologio.

✓ Gianni, insieme a Maria, mi ha regalato un orologio.

Another accepted, and simplified form would be:

✓ Gianni e Maria mi hanno regalato un orologio.

In the sentence above, ‘Gianni’ and ‘Maria’ are the subjects and so the verb is in the 3rd person plural: ‘hanno regalato’.

In the second case (past participle agreement), the general rule is that, when they agree, past participles agree with their subjects. However, when the auxiliary is omitted, then both options are available.

Example

Source text: I never said this kind of things.

✓ Mai detto cose del genere.

✓ Mai dette cose del genere.

It is crucial to keep in mind that the following forms, even though accepted by numerous grammars, are in fact obsolete: these are cases of agreement with the object of reflexive/middle verbs (verbs with ‘si’) and an explicit object.

Examples

Source text: I wrote you a lot of emails.

✘ Ti ho scritte molte email.

✓ Ti ho scritto molte email.

Source text: Maria washed her hands.

✘ Maria si è lavate le mani.

✓ Maria si è lavata le mani.

2.1.2. Gender and number (nouns and adjectives)

When it comes to adjectival agreement, there are two simple rules:

An adjective referring to multiple nouns takes plural number;
If these nouns mismatch in gender, the adjective takes masculine gender.

2.2. Determiners

The two biggest differences between Italian and English are that English uses bare plurals (plurals with no articles) more than Italian, and omits determiners before possessives.

Examples

Source text: Dogs bark often.

✘ Cani abbaiano spesso.

✓ I cani abbaiano spesso.

Source text: Take my book.

✘ Prendi mio libro.

✓ Prendi il mio libro.

However the trickiest aspect is the proper rendering of possessive adjectives in Italian.

Please check the section ‘Tricky cases and frequent errors - The use of possessives’ for a discussion and some examples.

2.3. Prepositions

When it comes to prepositions, the most crucial thing is to ensure well formedness of the ‘preposizioni articolate’. They are formed by combining simple prepositions with determinative articles, and they agree by gender and number with the noun to which they refer. Please pay attention to the use of the apostrophe, which follows the same rules as the determinative articles, and is spelled with no whitespace after it.

Example

Source text: From the hospital; from the beginning.

✘ Dall’ ospedale; all’ inizio.

✓ Dall’ospedale; all’inizio.

2.4. Pronouns

Italian, unlike English, is a pro-drop or null-subject language. This means that many subjects are not expressed with overt pronouns as much as in English.

Example

Source text: I will let you know.

✘ Lo le farò sapere.

✓ Io le farò sapere.

However, please note that when the source text contains a pronoun that has contrastive meaning, it must be translated with an overt pronoun, often in a slightly adjusted structure. Normally, you can infer if the pronouns is contrastive by the context, but occasionally those are even spelled in capital letters. Please see example below:

Example

Source text: We expect YOU to call us.

✘ Ci aspettiamo che ci chiami.

✓ Ci aspettiamo che sia tu a chiamarci (meaning: ‘e non noi te’)

Finally, pay attention to the difference between the literal use of ‘for you’ and the idiomatic one. Note that, in customer support contexts, the idiomatic use is overwhelmingly recurrent and it would be better not to translate it literally.

Example

Source text: I changed your password for you.

✘ Ho cambiato la password per te.

✓ Ho cambiato la password al posto tuo.

✓ Ti ho cambiato la password.

2.5. Verbs

When dealing with the proper translation of verbs there are two very tricky cases: the translation of the present continuous and that of conditional sentences.

Present Continuous

One property of the present continuous is that it can be used as subject or object of verbs. In Italian, that is done by the infinitive.

Examples

Source text: Cooking an Italian dinner will be fun.

✘ Cucinando una cena italiana sarà divertente.

✓ Cucinare una cena italiana sarà divertente.

Source text: Have fun driving through Tuscany.

✘ Divertiti guidando per la Toscana.

✓ Divertiti a guidare per la Toscana.

English is losing the use of the simple present that is slowly being substituted by the present continuous. In such cases, please use the present tense, and not the construction ‘stare + gerundio’.

Example

Source text: Can you tell us what you are seeing when you click on it?

✘ Ci puoi dire cosa stai vedendo quando ci clicchi sopra?

✓ Ci puoi dire cosa vedi quando ci clicchi sopra?

Conditional Sentences

Pay attention to ‘periodi ipotetici’ and the behavior of their modals. These sentences cannot be translated literally. See example below as reference.

Examples

Source text: If you purchased… you would be able to…

✘ Se hai acquistato… potresti essere in grado di…

✓ Se hai comprato… dovresti poter…

Source text: You could then… and that would be…

✘ Dovresti poi poter… e questo è…

✓ Potresti poi… e quindi sarebbe…

Source text: But if you waited to purchase… you would still be able to have…

✘ Ma se hai aspettato… potrai ancora avere…

✓ Ma se hai aspettato… potresti ancora avere…

3. Orthography

3.1. Abbreviations

There are three ways of doing abbreviations in Italian:

By contraction (when intermediate material is omitted)

Example

✓ fratelli → f.lli

✓ dottoressa → dott.ssa

✓ gentilissimo → gent.mo

✓ signora → sig.ra

If the result of the contraction is an abbreviation of only two or three letters, the ‘ . ’ moves to the end (to signal that it’s an abbreviation).

Example

✓ dottor → dr.

✓ confronta → cfr.

Using one or more letters from the beginning of the word:

Example

✓ dottor → dott.

✓ ingegnere → ing.

✓ avvocato → avv.

✓ signor/signore → sig.

With a consonant cluster that includes the initial letter of the word.

Example

✓ seguente → sg.

✓ pagina → pg.

Rare cases of pluralization are obtained by duplicating the (final) consonant, and are spelled with one single ‘ . ’ ad the end of every pluralised item.

Example

✓ seguenti → sgg.

✓ Piazza Santi Apostoli → Piazza SS. Apostoli

✓ Autori Vari → AA.VV.

Please treat ‘ok’ as a word and not as an abbreviation:

Example

✘ O.K.

✓ ok

For a complete list of abbreviations, please refer to this link.

3.2. Apostrophes

In Italian, the apostrophe is used after the determiner, when the last letter of the determiner is a vowel and the first letter of the following word is a vowel too: lo albero → l’albero.

Make sure there is no whitespace in between the apostrophe and the following word.

Please make sure that the following words are always spelled correctly:

Examples

Source text: there is…

✘ cè…

✘ c’é…

✓ c’è…

Source text: a bit

✘ un po

✘ un pò

✓ un po'

3.3. Capitalization

When it comes to capitalization, there are some differences between Italian and English regarding the usage of the capitalized letter and the small one. These cases will be described in the section below:

Capital letter

Italian uses capital letters with proper names (of people, places, events, works of art, etc.) and at the beginning of any text, after a period (.), after an exclamation mark (!) and after a question mark (?).

Please remember that the word following a colon (:) or semicolon (;) is lowercase.

Examples

Source text: We’ll do like this: first we go to the train station, then...

✘ Ora facciamo così: Prima andiamo alla stazione, poi…

✓ Ora facciamo così: prima andiamo alla stazione, poi…

Source text: Giovanni ate a pizza and he didn’t like it; I had a different one and I liked it a lot.

✘ Giovanni ha mangiato una pizza e non gli è piaciuta; Io ne ho mangiata una diversa e mi è piaciuta molto.

✓ Giovanni ha mangiato una pizza e non gli è piaciuta; io ne ha mangiata una diversa e mi è piaciuta molto.

Regarding multiple-words titles (proper names of works of art) only the first letter is capitalized:

Example

Source text: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is composed of three romances: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

✘ La Trilogia del Signore Degli Anelli è composta da tre romanzi: La Compagnia Dell’Anello, Le Due Torri e Il Ritorno Del Re.

✓ La trilogia del Signore degli anelli è composta da tre romanzi: La compagnia dell’anello, Le due torri e Il ritorno del re.

Lowercase

Unlike in English, the small letter in Italian is required in the following cases:

Days of the week, months and seasons:

Example

Source text: Monday, May, Summer

✘ Lunedì, Maggio, Estate

✓ lunedì, maggio, estate

Nationalities:

Source text: My best friends are coming from all over the world: one is Italian, one is English, one is German and the other one is Japanese.

✘ I miei migliori amici vengono da tutto il mondo: uno è Italiano, uno Inglese, uno Tedesco e un altro Giapponese.

✓ I miei migliori amici vengono da tutto il mondo: uno è italiano, uno inglese, uno tedesco e un altro giapponese.

Greetings:

Source text: Hello Vanessa,

Hope you’re doing fine.

✘ Ciao Vanessa,

Spero che tu stia bene.

✓ Ciao Vanessa,

spero che tu stia bene.

3.4. Compounds

Compound nouns, compound adverbs and compound verbs are spelled as one word (sottoscala, oltretomba, malvivente, malvolentieri, manomettere, etc.)

Compound adjectives that emerge by the combination of an adjective and a noun are spelled separated (verde acqua, biondo cenere, etc.), while adjectives made of two adjectives or an adverb and an adjective are, again, spelled as one word (agrodolce, sempreverde, etc.).

3.5. Diacritics

Please note that while Italian uses most frequently the grave accent ( ` ) some very common words are spelled with the accute accent ( ´ ). The three most common cases are:

-che compounds: perché, poiché, affinché, cosicché, sicché, benché, etc.
-tre compounds: ventitré, trentatré, settantatré, etc.
some forms of passato remoto of verbs ending in -ere: poté, batté, ripeté, etc.

3.6. Foreign words

The most important aspect when it comes to the proper use of foreign words and loanwords is to distinguish the two.

A loanword is an originally foreign word that entered the (Italian) lexicon and that undergoes grammatical and phonological processes proper of the language that embeds it. For instance, it’s pronounced in a consistent way, there is no dispute around its gender (the rule of thumb is to stick to the gender of its Italian counterpart, e.g ‘croissant’ vs ‘cornetto’). Morphology, for instance diminutive morphology or verbal, can apply to them. Loanwords are not spelled italicized.

Example

Source text: I had breakfast with a small croissant/a small croissant.

✓ Ho fatto colazione con un croissant/croissantino.

Please note that some loanwords have unmarked plural forms:

Example

Source text: You need to clear the cache and delete the cookies. (formal)

✘ Bisogna svuotare la cache e cancellare il cookies.

✓ Bisogna svuotare la cache e cancellare i cookies.

Example

Source text: You need to restart the apps on your phone (informal)

✘ Devi reiniziare le apps nel tuo telefono

✓ Devi reiniziare le app nel tuo telefono

There are exceptions to the rule that all foreign words are masculine. Please note that, as can be seen from the first example above, ‘cookies’ is always plural masculine in Italian, whilst ‘cache’ is feminine and singular. From the second example, ‘apps' is always feminine and singular, although the plural is realized by the determiner: le (feminine plural). In singular: l’app.

3.7. Numerals

Regarding numerals format (written in numbers or transliterated), you must always respect the source text: if they are written as digits in the source text, this should be maintained in the translation; on the other hand, if they are written as words, they should be translated to the target language.

Cardinal Numbers

Unlike what happens in English, use a point (.) to mark thousands, millions, and billions. And a comma (,) for decimals.

Example

Source text: 7,500.5

✘ 7,500.5

✓ 7.500,5 (‘settemilacinquecento virgola cinque’)

When translating long sequences of numbers (such as codes or phone numbers) always make sure that there is a perfect correspondence between source and translation.

Ordinal Numbers

Whenever possible, opt for transliterated forms (primo, secondo, terzo, … ventesimo, etc.) to allow gender and number inflection free of unnecessary spelling complications.

Example

Source text: first, third, seventh

✘ 5°, 3a, 7i

✓ quinto, terza, settimo

3.8. Symbols

Symbols, such as %, /, |, etc. are never preceded and followed by a whitespace when presented in isolation.

Examples

Source text: telephone/fax/email

✘ Telefono / fax / email

✓ Telefono/fax/email

✘ 100 %

✓ 100%

✘ 16 - 17

✓ 16-17

Please keep in mind that double whitespaces should never occur.

4. Punctuation

4.1 How to use punctuation marks

Periods, colons, semicolons, commas, question and exclamation marks are generally used like in Italian. Make sure that you never use commas to divide subjects from verbs, verbs from objects, adjectives from the nouns they modify, prepositions from their objects.

Example

Source text: I had dinner with a Margarita and some Nutella.

✘ Ho, cenato, con un Margarita e un cucchiaio di Nutella.

✓ Ho cenato con un Margarita e un cucchiaio di Nutella.

If you use commas to delimit parenthetical information and vocatives, please make sure you use both.

Example

Source text: We played with Luce, Mauro’s dog, until late.

✘ Abbiamo giocato con Luce il cane di Mauro fino a tardi.

✓ Abbiamo giocato con Luce, il cane di Mauro, fino a tardi.

4.2 Punctuation in greetings and closings

Punctuation in greetings and closings is like in English, but keep in mind that after the comma in the greeting, the small letter is always required.

Example

Source text: Dear Gary,

We found a solution…

✘ Caro Gary,

Abbiamo trovato una soluzione…

✓ Caro Gary,

abbiamo trovato una soluzione…

5. Register

5.1. Grammatical and Lexical Registers

Register refers to the level of formality used in the text. It shows how our clients address their customers and contributes to the voice of the brand itself. Register may vary depending on the company, the brand, the service they offer, the customers, and the target language.

We make a first main distinction between grammatical and lexical register: the first one regards the use of pronouns and verb person (for the languages to which this morphological feature is applied), while the latter is related to lexical choices, since some words and expressions also have a degree of formality or colloquialism.

Both these registers are also divided into formal and informal, as shown below.

5.2. Formal Register

This section will focus on Formal Register for Italian. Generally speaking, there are three main differences between formal and informal registers in Italian: grammatical structures, lexical choice, verbal forms. In what follows, we’ll discuss these main groups and we will look at some critical cases, or red flags.

Grammatical register

The most straightforward aspect of the formal register is what is conveyed through the use of grammatically formal pronouns, formal verbal morphology, and formal possessives. This is the so-called ‘dare del lei’ treatment form.

Example

Source text: When we phoned you, you didn’t reply. It would be better if you could get back to us, we would need a copy of your ID.

✘ Quando ti abbiamo telefonato, non siamo riusciti a trovarti. Se ci potessi chiamare tu sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un tuo documento.

✓ Quando le abbiamo telefonato, speravamo di trovarla. Se ci potesse chiamare lei sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un suo documento.

Please note that formal forms should not be capitalized, as it is an overly formal writing style.

✘ Quando Le abbiamo telefonato, speravamo di trovarLa. Se ci potesse chiamare Lei sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un Suo documento.

Also, do not use the third person plural and the pronoun ‘voi’ to express formality, as it is extremely obsolete or regional. Most likely, when you find ‘you’ in the source and ‘voi’ in the target, it’s because of the ambiguity of the English pronoun ‘you’, that can either mean ‘tu’ or ‘voi’. When it comes to formal register and when the subject is singular (so it actually means ‘tu’ or ‘lei’), please always use the ‘lei form’.

Example

Source text: When we phoned you, you didn’t reply. It would be better if you could get back to us, we would need a copy of your ID.

✘ Quando vi abbiamo telefonato, speravamo di trovarvi. Se ci poteste chiamare voi sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un vostro documento.

Lexical register

The second crucial aspect that characterizes formal register is what is expressed through lexical choice, for instance in greetings (A), in the selection of formal synonyms (B), in disallowing or allowing colloquial idiomatic expressions (C), in accepting or not accepting a wider range or loanwords (D).

Example A

Source text: Hello,

✘ Ciao,

✓ Salve,

Example B

Source text: To make those changes...

✘ Fare dei cambiamenti...

✓ Effettuare dei cambiamenti...

Example C

Source text: There’s a gap...

✘ C’è un gap...

✓ C’è un divario...

Please refer to the tables below for some features of grammatical and lexical registers:

FORMAL REGISTER - Lexical features

Greetings

Salve,

Salve [name],

Gentile [signor/signore, signora, sig., sig.ra, sig.na, name],

Closings

Cordiali saluti,

Distinti saluti,

Regarding the formal abbreviation ‘sig.’, please bear in mind that this the standard form used in Italian, and not ‘sig.re’, that is used to refer to ‘Our Lord’. For a more concise list of Italian abbreviations in Italian used in greetings, please refer to the table below:

Abbreviation in Italian	Extended Italian form	English abbreviation
Sig.	Signor/signore	Mr.
Sigg.	Signori	Messrs.
Sig.na	Signorina	Miss
Sig.ra	Signora	Mrs.
Sig.ra/sig.na	Signora/signorina	Ms.

It is important to mention that a very common error is to replicate the English greeting ‘Dear [name]’ in Italian. This is slightly ambiguous in Italian and, usually, it’s used in the informal register, such as ‘Caro amico,’. In order to avoid translation errors and ambiguities, we suggest you to follow the example below:

Example (formal register required)

Source text: Dear customer,

✘ Caro cliente,

✓ Gentile cliente,

The same applies when it comes to proper names, as follows:

Example (formal register required)

Source text: Dear Camilla,

✘ Cara Camilla,

✓ Gentile Camilla,

FORMAL REGISTER - Grammatical features
Pronouns	lei + verb in the 3rd person singular
Possessives	suo, suoi, sua, sue
Clitics	Le, la, glielo, glieli, gliela, gliele, gliene
Reflexive pronoun	si

Pragmatics of Verbal Forms

Another aspect of formal register is the way politeness is expressed through verbal inflection, for example through proper use of the conditional and the subjunctive:

Example

Source text: It’s better if you could call us, we would need a copy of your ID.

✘ Se ci può chiamare lei è meglio, abbiamo bisogno di una copia di un suo documento.

✘ Se ci potesse chiamare lei sarebbe meglio, abbiamo bisogno di una copia di un suo documento.

✓ Se ci potesse chiamare lei sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un suo documento.

Red Flags: Please

In Italian, unlike in English, ‘please - per favore’ it’s not used in the same way to indicate politeness. If you remove these instances, make sure the politeness is preserved. You can do that either adjusting verbs or inserting politeness particles such as ‘forse”, ‘pure’ and ‘tranquillamente’.

Examples

Source text: Please note that if you have set…

✘ Per favore tenga presente che se ha impostato…

✓ Tenga presente che se avesse impostato…

✓ Tenga presente che se dovesse aver impostato…

Source text: In the meantime, please let me know if you need anything else.

✘ Nel frattempo, per favore, mi faccia sapere se ha bisogno di qualcos'altro.

✓ Nel frattempo, mi faccia sapere se avesse bisogno di qualcos'altro.

✓ Nel frattempo, mi faccia sapere se dovesse aver bisogno di qualcos'altro.

✓ Nel frattempo, mi faccia pure/tranquillamente sapere se avesse/dovesse aver bisogno di qualcos'altro.

5.3. Informal Register

Generally speaking, Informal Register in Italian is the so called ‘dare del tu’, which differs from the formal one in the usage of pronouns, verbal features and lexical choices. We’ll discuss these properties in the sections below.

Grammatical register

The most straight forward aspect of the informal register is what is conveyed through the use of grammatically informal pronouns, informal verbal morphology, and informal possessives. This is the so-called ‘TU’ treatment form.

Example

Source text: When we phoned you, you didn’t reply. It would be better if you could get back to us, we would need a copy of your ID.

✘ Quando le abbiamo telefonato, non siamo riusciti a trovarla. Se ci potesse chiamare lei sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un suo documento.

✓ Quando ti abbiamo telefonato, speravamo di trovarti. Se ci potessi chiamare tu sarebbe meglio, avremmo bisogno di una copia di un tuo documento.

Lexical register

The second crucial aspect that characterizes informal register is what is expressed through lexical choice, for instance in greetings (A), in the selection of formal synonyms (B), in allowing or colloquial idiomatic expressions (C), in accepting or not accepting a wider range or loanwords (D).

Example A

Source text: Hello,

✘ Salve,

✓ Ciao,

Example B

Source text: To make those changes...

✘ Per effettuare dei cambiamenti…

✓ Per fare dei cambiamenti…

Example C

Source text: There’s a gap...

✘ C’è un divario…

✓ C’è un gap...

Please refer to the tables below for some features of grammatical and lexical registers:

INFORMAL REGISTER - Lexical features

Greetings

Ciao,

Ciao [name],

Closings

Ciao,

Saluti,

Arrivederci,

INFORMAL REGISTER - Grammatical features
Pronouns	tu + verb in the 2nd person singular
Possessives	Tuo, tuoi, tua, tue
Clitics	ti, te
Reflexive pronoun	ti

6. Localization challenges

6.1. Proper nouns

Proper nouns refer to unique entities, such as persons, places, organizations, brands, events, etc. As foreign proper nouns are concerned, languages may adopt different rules regarding whether they should be translated or kept in the original language. When editing a text, you should follow your languages rules for all different types of proper nouns listed below. However, please note that if there is a glossary provided by the client that includes these types of units, you should always apply the glossary items.

6.1.1. Persons

Names of people are generally left untranslated unless they are names of monarchs or contain title.

Example

✘ Queen Elisabeth, President Obama

✓ La regina Elisabetta, il presidente Obama

6.1.2. Places

Not every city, country, monument has an Italian translation. If available, please use it (unless it’s obsolete, like Nuova York).

Example

Source text: London, United Kingdom, United States, Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge

✘ London, United Kingdom, United States, Piazza dei tempi, Brooklyn Bridge

✓ Londra, Regno Unito, Stati Uniti, Times Square, il ponte di Brooklyn

6.1.3. Organizations

Names of organizations are generally kept untranslated unless there’s an official Italian equivalent (e.g. United Nations, Organizzazione delle Nation Unite, or simply Nazioni Unite).

6.1.4. Brands and products

Brands (e.g. Sony) and the products (e.g. PlayStation) are kept untranslated.

6.1.5. Other entities

Famous works of art — be they paintings, novels, plays, movies, etc.— typically have an established translation. However, newer ones (modern fiction, games, etc.) and brands might not, so if in doubt take some time to find out.

Example

✘ The Night Watch, Hamlet, Parco Giurassico

✓ La Ronda Notturna, Amleto, Jurassic Park

Please note that proper names of boats, buildings, fairs, and so on must be kept untranslated.

Example

✘ Il Titanico, Il palazzo a ferro da stiro, La mostra dell’arsenale

✓ Titanic, Flat Iron Building, Armory Show

Please note that when translating games such as poker etc, you might incur in cases of coexisting lexical items. Always opt for inner consistency, that is to say do not mix different words meaning the same thing.

6.2. Acronyms and initials

Acronyms

For every acronym you translate, make sure you are aware if there exists an Italian counterpart. For instance, ‘VIP’ is an acronym that entered the Italian lexicon as such, and its English internal structure (‘very important person’) is not accessible to the monolingual Italian speaker. Note that when there is no Italian translation (i.e. there’s nothing like PMI - ‘persona molto importante’ - or other) it needs to remain untranslated. When acronyms such as ‘IQ’ (‘Intelligence Quotient’) have a corresponding Italian counterpart, in this case QI (‘Quoziente Intellettivo’), they need to be translated.

Unless specified, political, religious and associations of other types should be left untranslated. The same applies to the acronyms of country names such as UK, USA etc. (but naturally not their full names, ‘Regno Unito’, ‘Stati Uniti d’America’. See section on proper names):

Example

✘ IQ, UN

✓ QI, ONU

Initials

The correct spelling of initials of proper names has to respect the following format: capitalized letter - period - space.

Example

✘ J.F.Kennedy

✘ J.F. Kennedy

✘ JF Kennedy

✘ J F Kennedy

✓ J. F. Kennedy

6.3. Date format

English differs from other languages by using, in general, the format ‘mm/dd/yy’. When translating into Italian please use the ‘dd/mm/yyyy’ format.

Example

✘ 1987/05/26

✘ 05/26/1987

✓ 26/05/1987

6.4. Time format

English differs from other languages by using, in general, an am/pm format. When translating into Italian please use the 24h format and the following spelling: decimal unit colon decimal unit:

Example

Source text: Open from 9am to 5pm

✘ Aperto dalle 9am alle 5pm

✘ Aperto dalle 9 alle 17

✓ Aperto dalle 9:00 alle 17:00

6.5. Measures

Measures should always keep the format of the source text and should never be converted. You should only translate them when they have an equivalent term in your language.

Translate ‘feet’ into ‘piedi’, ‘inches’ into ‘pollici’, etc., but leave all original abbreviations untranslated.

Example

✘ 5.000 feet, 5.000 p

✓ 5.000 piedi, 5.000 ft

6.6. Currency

Currency values should be left as they are in the source text, only translating the currency: for example, 100 euros (EN) → 100 euro (IT). The currency symbol follows the number indicating the amount. Currency symbol, currency abbreviation or currency full name are always separated by a whitespace.

Example

Source text: EUR100, 100 euros, €100

✘ 100EUR, 100euro, 100€, €100

✓ 100 EUR, 100 euro, 100 €

For more information about spacing after a monetary value and how to use currency symbols, please refer to this link.

7. Tricky cases

Use of possessives

Please note that general syntactic differences between languages often manifest in the fact that different parts of speech take over different duties. For instance, some of the jobs that Italian clitic pronouns (‘mi’, ‘ti’, ‘ci’, etc.) do are fulfilled by possessive adjectives in English. Pay attention while translating them, in that an excessive use of possessives in Italian sounds odd and non-native: sometimes, for fluency sake, it’s simply better to omit them.

Examples

Source text: We’re about to ship your parcel.

✘ Stiamo per spedire il tuo pacco.

✓ Ti stiamo per spedire il Ø pacco.

Source text: You can track your training.

✘ Puoi registrare il tuo allenamento.

✓ Puoi registrare l’ Ø allenamento.

Being able to → essere in grado, potere, riuscire

The translation of the English expression ‘being able to do something’ is a tricky one when it comes to translate it into Italian. The main thing here is what this expression means and how we can properly render this without sounding awkward. Let’s have a look at some examples and their meaning:

Being able to → essere in grado

Source text: If everything goes as planned, I’ll be able to solve the problem.

✘ Se tutto va come previsto, potrò risolvere il problema.

✓ Se tutto va come previsto, sarò in grado di risolvere il problema.

In the sentence above, the subject is capable of doing something because of its own internal capacity and there might be a reason or a fact that prevent the subject from doing that.

Being able to → potere

Source text: I’ll be able to send you that email after lunch.

✘ Sono in grado di mandarti quell’email dopo pranzo.

✓ Posso mandarti quell’email dopo pranzo.

The example described above is about the subject and its capacity to actually perform some actions without the occurrence of other events. It’s the actual and internal ability of the speaker.

Being able to → riuscire

Source text: After these changes, you should be able to change your password.

✘ Dopo questi cambiamenti, dovresti essere in grado di cambiare la tua password.

✓ Dopo questi cambiamenti, dovresti riuscire a cambiare la tua password.

In the example above, ‘being able to’ means that the subject can perform an action as a consequence of someone else’s action. This mean that ‘being able to’ is not depending on the subject (so the subject is not capable of doing something because of its own actions). As a rule of thumb, when the source text has the modal ‘should’ followed by ‘being able to’, the construction ‘dover riuscire a…’ is the best translation fit.

8. Most frequent errors

In the sections below we’re going to talk about the top 3 most frequent errors, being them lexical selection, capitalization and agreement.

Lexical selection

Being aware of lexical selection errors is a skill that a good editor can develop in time. Accuracy in lexical selection involves a near-native knowledge of the source language (i.e. English), and an even greater command of the target language (i.e. Italian). If in doubt, read your text out loud, try rehearsing it in your mind, does it really make sense? Is that really how you’d say it?

Here follows a list of very frequent errors, and please be weary of translation memory, sometimes those texts retain bad mistakes.

Examples

Source text: Customer service, customer care service, customer care

✘ Supporto al cliente

✓ Assistenza clienti

✓ Assistenza al cliente

✓ Servizio al cliente

✓ Servizio clienti

✓ Servizio di assistenza al cliente

Source text: A (customer service) ticket

✘ un ticket

✘ un biglietto

✓ una richiesta di assistenza

Source text: subscription

✘ sottoscrizione

✓ abbonamento

Source text: I’ve gone ahead/go ahead - *idiomatic*

✘ sono andato avanti

✘ ho proceduto

✓ ho cominciato a

✓ ho già (+ verbo al participio passato)

‘Provide’ shouldn’t always be translated as ‘fornire’. Sometimes it’s ‘dare’, sometimes is ‘indicare’, etc. Please be careful!

Capitalization

Regarding capitalization errors, there are some rules that might differ from English and that needs to be applied when translating into Italian. Please refer to the Capitalization section of these Guidelines in order to solve tricky cases.

Agreement

‘Agreement’ can be tricky in Italian when it comes to foreign words that are not translated and we’re not sure on how they agree in gender and number with determiners, meaning that it’s not always so straightforward to understand if they’re masculine, feminine, singular or plural. As a general rule of thumb, they don’t have plural form (we consider them only in their singular form):

Example

Source text: I had a lot of likes in that pic!

✘ Mi hanno messo tanti likes in quella foto!

✓ Mi hanno messo tanti like in quella foto!

As can be seen from the example above, even if ‘likes’ is plural in English, in Italian we only consider ‘like’ in its singular form, agreeing with ‘tanti’ in the plural.

For more information on how foreign words are rendered in Italian in gender and number, please refer to the Foreign words section of these Guidelines.