Welcome Back, Student Translator Life!

(Warning: long post!)

Let’s go back to September 14. I went to Forlì, 300 miles away from the town where I live, to sit an entrance exam for a Laurea Magistrale course (Master’s Degree equivalent) in Specialised Translation (ITA: Traduzione specializzata). It took me five hours and a half to get there, and it was also raining that day! I visited the city centre, and went shopping (I bought a shirt I wore during the exam). On the following day I sat the entrance exam (it lasted four hours, starting at about 9:45 a.m.) . It was divided into two parts (that lasted two hours each): in the first one you had to translate two texts into Italian, and in the second one you had to translate two texts into the languages you study. In my case, I had to translate from English and French into Italian and viceversa.

On September 29, the results came out, and I got in! What I felt afterwards is something that is difficult to describe. I was very happy, and tears of joy soon covered my face. In four words, a dream come true. I had wanted to study at the Advanced School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators for the last two years, since I was an undergraduate student. As some people already know, I wanted to become an interpreter, but I eventually chose to become a translator because I don’t think that I have the personality of an interpreter, and I also like translating written texts. Interpreters should translate quickly, and I am too much of a perfectionist when it comes to translating most of the times. I have to be sure that the words I’m using are the right ones for conveying the meaning of the source text I’m working on. I also think that learning words on lists in a decontextualised way is not for me (even if you can put examples on a glossary)… I prefer having dictionaries and other resources always at hand. I prefer working on something I can always proofread at a later time (unlike oral translations). I celebrated with a few friends of mine by inviting them at home, and we had piadinas for dinner.

On October 2, I started looking for a place to stay in Forlì. I found it on the 4th, and I moved there on the same day. Classes started on Monday (the first one I went to was an English Language and Linguistics one), which was my birthday. I celebrated by eating a crescione and a slice of Sachertorte for dinner. I started doing my first translations for the course (I’m studying literary, multimedia and technical translation), I met new people and got to know the School (SSLMIT from now on) and the city better.

On October 9, I went to my first translation-related conference (organized by the SSLMIT): “Technologies for Translation”. It was very interesting because I had the opportunity to discover CAT tools (especially TRADOS, since I’m going to learn how to use it during my M.A. course) and their latest versions, but also the latest developments in localization, machine translation and translation memory research. It was an international conference, so there were also presentations that were held in English. Simultaneous interpretation into Italian was available, and I alternated between the original speakers and the interpreters’ translation (by the way, they did a very good job!), otherwise I would have been mentally exhausted at the end of the conference, since I’m not used to listening to  another language for a very long time when someone talks using technical terms (and last, but not least, QUICKLY!!).

Okay, I think that’s all for now. As I’m going to be busy with my studies once again, I might update this site less often than usual, but I have to say: welcome back, student translator life!