Italian language service provider

The relevance of translations into Italian is not limited by the frontiers of the Republic of Italy: Italian is also an official language in San Marino, in the Vatican City, in Switzerland and obviously also in the European Union. Italian also has the status of a regional official language in Slovenia and Croatia. It is also widely used in Malta, Albania, Argentina, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Brazil. The Italian state is also active in promoting the spread and use of its language. With measurable success: Interest in the Italian language and culture continues to grow. In 2014, Italian was the fourth most popular foreign language among language learners. Italy also enjoys a close economic and trading relationship with Germany. In 2021, mutual trade between these two countries amounted to approximately 142,6 billion euros. And if you look at Germany’s most important trade partners for Germany, you will see Italy in sixth place. Germany’s main export items were motor vehicles, vehicle parts, machines and chemical products. Logically enough, this is also reflected in volume of translations needed for the Italian market, which continues to be high: Technical translations are most in demand for sectors such as automotive engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, marketing and law.

As with translations into French – in fact, for translations into romance languages in general – you must also take into account the effect of “language expansion” when translating into Italian. A German source text will be between 15 and 20% longer when it is translated into Italian. This is something that must be considered when you create the basic layout, particularly if your text is to be printed in several different languages. If not, you can be faced with a significant amount of work at the DTP (desktop publishing) stage in cutting down the text and modifying the layout. Right from the very start, you need to ensure there is enough space for translations from German or English into Italian when localising software interfaces (GUI) or websites, display texts and other formats with a limited number of characters.

A distinctive feature of translations into Italian is also the pervasive influence of the English language. Ever since the end of the Second World War and the economic boom in the 1950s, Italian has adopted more and more Anglicisms. This is particularly noticeable in specific areas, such as commerce (boom, business, manager, marketing), new sciences and technologies, radio, cinema (cast, film, set), and also in sport and everyday life (boss, boy scout, gangster, shopping). In the age of social media, Anglicisms are being used and becoming established in Italian faster than ever before.

Translations destined for use in Switzerland also have their own quite specific requirements. The primary difference between Swiss Italian and standard Italian is the number of loan words that have crept in from the other two main national languages used in Switzerland: German and French (IT: prenotare; IT-CH: riservare; DE: reservieren). Swiss Italian is used in the Tessin canton and four valleys in the Graubünden canton.