food
5 Tips for translating Italian menus
If you love Italian food as much as I do, translating an Italian menu might be your dream project. Have you ever been lucky enough to translate foodie texts or menus from Italian? Then you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s more challenging than you first think. (more…)
Eating Up Italy: Food for Thought
I’m currently reading Matthew Fort’s book, Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa, which follows his journey through Italy, from south to north, on a culinary quest for the truth, culture and people behind Italian cuisine, in all its many varieties.
I’m really enjoying the book and the author’s way of writing, but what I want to focus on here is:
- how foreigners describe Italy
- why this is an important factor to consider when translating.
Let’s start with the first point and have a look at how Italy is seen from the outside with the help of Matthew Fort.
In contrast to many who write about Italy, Matthew Fort does not present himself as a great expert of the country, but rather as someone with limited knowledge of the language and the country in spite of his obvious interest in the place. (more…)
Bread is bread…isn’t it?
Today I wanted to look at how to translate the word ‘bread’.
Easy, isn’t it? Bread. Pane. Pain. Pan. Brot.
But before leaving things at that, just think for a moment about ‘bread’. What comes to mind? A loaf? Sliced bread? White bread? Brown bread? If you’re from Umbria you will probably be thinking (more…)
Anything you fancy on the menu?
Why is it so difficult to translate a menu?
If you’re looking for a truly exotic dish, you need look no further than the many badly-translated menus in English…you’ll find all sorts, from ‘fried fishermen’ to ‘revolting eggs’, from ‘feet with jam’ to ‘fried friendship’ and even ‘saucepans in butter with fried hormones’! Mmmmm….delicious!
Errors in menus which have been translated into English often just make us laugh. But they are no laughing matter for those who work in the restaurant industry -with a badly-written menu you can quickly lose valuable customers! (more…)
Other food texts
- Two large-scale projects for websites selling top quality Italian produce. I was involved in translating an extensive range of product descriptions to inform and entice potential buyers. This required the use of persuasive language as well as extensive knowledge of range of regional products from throughout Italy.
- Book Revision of a fictional travelogue and recipes – The “protagonist” of this book was a world-famous Italian cheese. The translation had to be checked for readability and accuracy.
- Presentation video – I translated the texts for video material presenting a leading company in the gluten-free sector
- Seasonal menu translation for a restaurant specialising in local cuisine from the Lake Garda area.
- Translation of promotional magazine for a large supermarket with recipes and product descriptions.
- Product labels for a cheese and cured meat producer.
- Translation of a promotional book detailing the celebrations of an important anniversary of a leading pasta producer in Italy
- Translation of voiceover texts for a promotional video on sanitisation technology in wine production
- Translation of website texts and press release for company specialising in the production of authentic panettone in Italy.
- Translation of website texts for a Franciacorta wine estate.
- Translation of a cake-making TV series for subsequent voice over.
- Translation of profiles with details of the experience and stories of rising stars in the world of pastry chefs.
- Transcreation of a slogan and promotional texts for a chocolate brand.