Pick up an English music book for beginners and the first thing you will notice is the plethora of Italian terms. For many children in the UK, Italian is the first foreign language they encounter, long before their first school language lessons. Italians must be bemused by the music-lovers they meet who can reel off a string of bizarre phrases such as allegro ma non troppo (fast but not too much), un poco maestoso (slightly majestic) and con spirito (with spirit), and yet would have no idea how to buy a return ticket to Naples.
In fact, when it comes to ‘holiday’ Italian, you had better leave your musical phrase book at home. The differences between the musical meaning and the literal sense could lead to some awkward situations, especially in the case of rubato indicating a more flexible tempo, but, literally translated, means ‘stolen’...
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.pointoneservices.com/linksanddownloads/Music%20article_Hitting%20the%20right%20notes.pdf
Part of an article originally published in the journal of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting: ITI Bulletin, September-October 2007, pp 22-23, ISSN-0954-1799
© 2007 Nicola Bottrell
Ramblings of a translator through languages and translation
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About Me
- Nicola Bottrell Hayward
- Brought up in the UK, I became passionate about languages when I was at school. Little did I know when I embarked on the language trail that it would take me through France, Germany, Belgium and even Russia. I had my first taste of the translation industry in 2001 and never looked back, setting up my own business as a freelance translator in 2007.
