Hello there, and welcome !
I’m a professional interpreter and translator, on a mission to build bridges between people and their ideas.
What does that mean, and why should you choose a professional ? Here are three qualities – and a necessary remark – to take into consideration before turning to your closest bilingual friend or to AI.
Independent
Choosing an independent translator means that you will have a direct contact with the professional in charge of your projects – without any agency or intermediate commission. It also means that your project will be personally followed from beginning to the end with the best care and quality checks – and thus avoiding unaesthetic, automatic translations. Quite the deal!
Experienced
Practice makes perfect – and this couldn’t be any truer in our profession. I’ve been gaining experience as an interpreter and translator since 2014, working on a variety of missions in Italy and France, where I had the pleasure of working with a variety of people in diverse cultural situations. I can confidently work on strict deadlines, choosing the right tools and strategies at the right time, with one goal: to deliver the best possible translation for your ideas.
Trained
Having a knack for languages, being bilingual as per one’s family or residency, or even knowing grammar(s) by heart, still doesn’t make a professional translator. One still needs highly specialised, intensive academic training by professionals. I received mine at the Interpreting and Translation School (Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori) at the University of Trieste, Italy – one of the oldest and most renowned university courses for Italian professionals.
…Expensive ?
For some reason, interpreters and translators get that remark all the time. And yet, like any other professional, we get academic training (see above), keep up to date with the latest technology (CAT software, online tools, social media, website updates), keep training all the time (incl. with pro-bono projects), and will gladly spend time researching the best possible solutions (namely, sector-specific terms or “untranslatable” concepts) for each project – all that to deliver the best possible other-language-version for your ideas. As in any other market sector – medical, legal, engineering, you name it – this level of training, experience, accuracy and knowledge does comes at a cost. At QT, we pride ourselves in keeping our pricing as reasonable as possible – starting as low as 25€/hour for English classes, and up to 60€/hour for live interpreting. We know these prices to be fair and even slightly lower than current EU market prices, but we cannot know if that’s expensive for you: everyone has their own budget and priorities – so it’s up to you to decide.
What AI can’t get you – and probably never will
Now how do you greet your international business partner – is there a difference in greetings between male and female counterparts? Can you help yourself to wine at a French dining table? Is it professional to accept the final amaro at an Italian one? How do you explain to someone that they are standing a little bit too close to you, without embarrassing them? Should you, or could you, use informal speech in a meeting, and would it be advisable in certain circumstances ?
Anything we do as a social group is embedded with rituals. Call it tradition, heritage, or cultural diversity – the fact is, language alone is not enough to communicate. Think about the last time you travelled somewhere and you felt shock or amazement at someone’s behaviour or about how things run or work – anything from public transport to how people address you. Our posture, gestures, even our words, sometimes bring along deeply rooted, implicit meanings and perceived “normality” that, as natives to one language and culture, we are mostly unaware of, and as non-natives to a specific culture we might instantly feel as “not normal” or inappropriate. Inter-cultural knowledge is all about knowing those differences and filtering them into flawless communication. That’s what “building bridges” is all about – understanding the people and the context beyond the language. Having lived between Italy and France most of the time, I’m here to help you precisely with that. Some may call it “the human touch”, but it’s actually so much more than that – although a smiling and committed interpreter certainly does help.