Why English to Italian is harder than it looks
โYouโ splits into tu and Lei. Italian decides in the first word how close you are to the person reading, and the verb follows that decision all the way through. Lei to a friend is stiff; tu to a landlord or a client is presumptuous. Choose the tone before translating so the pronoun is not a guess.
Adjectives agree with the person speaking. โIโm readyโ is pronto or pronta, and โIโm tiredโ is stanco or stanca. English gives no clue, so this is the single most common thing worth checking in the preview on personal messages.
Italian prefers a warmer opening than English does. An English message that starts straight with the request reads brusque in Italian, where a line of greeting is expected first. A friendly tone adds that warmth rather than translating the bluntness faithfully.
English phrasal verbs have no Italian shape. โGet back to,โ โsort out,โ โlook into,โ and โcatch upโ are ordinary English and untranslatable as units. Simplifying them first โ โreply,โ โfix,โ โcheck,โ โmeetโ โ produces Italian that reads like Italian instead of like a translation.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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