This week, a translation.

This week, due to the horrible house stress I am still under, exacerbated by the do-I-don’t-I-need-a-codice-fiscale dilemma, I have decided to translate a short bit of legislation for my blog entry.

Originally found in this article on ilsole24ore.it, it answers the questions: “To rent an apartment to an EU citizen are there certain requirements regarding the documents that the potential lessee must have? […] What documents should I ask for?

To let a property to an EU citizen, the lessor need only check the ID card. In fact, article 12, comma 1 of Law 59/1978 says that, “anyone transferring ownership, or granting access to or any other permission regarding the exclusive use of a building or part thereof for a period exceeding one month, is obliged to notify the local public security authority, within forty-eight hours of handing over the property, of its exact location as well as the details of the buyer, lessee or person who is assuming responsibility of the property and the details of their identity documents, which must be asked of the interested person.” […]

Suggestions on how this translation could be improved are more than welcome.

In the meantime, I will continue to wait for a response from an agency that non risponde mai, and see whether they will accept me without it. If not, it’s off to the Agenzia delle Entrate at 8am tomorrow morning.

A balancing act

To summarise this week, I’d have to say it was made up of a selection of ever-shifting balances. These ranged from my relationship with the Italian language (spoken vs. comprehension of written legal material), work (flitting between all go and no go) and finally, too hot and too cold (but that’s just pretty standard fare for me).

It is quite possible – maybe even probable – that the feeling that my Italian is getting worse is part tiredness, part the feeling that by now I should be speaking it like my mother tongue. Obviously I feel reasonably confident with Italian, I have studied it for long enough… yet exactly what I want to say is not always right on the tip of my tongue. Every linguist reading this will know exactly what I am talking about.

Added to that is the dreaded “Lei” vs. “tu” – the difference in how you address someone formally (3rd person, Lei) and informally (2nd person, tu), a fundamental cultural aspect to speaking Italian. This being something that simply does not exist in English-speaking cultures, I have always had a problem with it. However, now more than ever, because I am working in the extremely professional environment of a law firm. My general skill in Italian speaking will certain improve when I finally move into my flat with two Italians next week; but the formal address… will I ever get my head around that or am I destined to be the rudest person in Milan for the next 10 months?

Meanwhile and on the other hand, I am confident my understanding of the documents I am given to translate is increasing, along with my knowledge of the certain areas of administrative law I have been working on. I can feel myself speeding up, too. This is also in part to the amount of repetition in the work I have been doing this week.

Unfortunately, though, that repetition is accompanied by a lengthy find, copy and paste procedure, as the firm does not wish to use CAT tools. The reasons are that every text they have for me to do is different. Although I know I could get one text done quicker, gaining appropriate consistency, by using a TM being created within the CAT tool as I go. Anyway, I can only keep going with the glossaries I am making, which will undoubtedly be of use to me when I use CAT tools in future.

The precarious balance at work, as I mentioned, is whether I have something to do or not. Wednesday for example I didn’t leave until 19.30, after having worked solidly all day. Today, instead, I have so far done a quick, half hour reviewing job (I can’t help but point out that I had already done it last week and yet was having to do it again…) and now nothing. I have been back from lunch for an hour.

On a side note (which, coincidentally, is also inflicted with this week’s positive-negative dichotomy) I made it to an Italian swimming pool for the first time! It was far too busy to do anything really productive but I was just glad to finally get some exercise. However. I had to buy my own padlock before going in order to use the lockers. It cost me €12 and it wouldn’t open (I promise I tried the code before I put it on), meaning I had to get it broken off. So I am rationing coffees to balance the books. Clearly I am a bit too reliant on coffee, can hardly keep my eyes open.

TGIF.

Still no codice, still no casa

The weekend was very stressful – as I should have expected, everything sort of shut down. And by shut down I mean people stopped adding rooms for rent to sites like easystanza.it, idealista.it, and so on. And by stressful I mean I thought the world was ending because I was due to start work on the Monday and all the houses in Milan had been taken and I was never going to find anything and rant, rant, rant.

Of course, when the only really urgent thing you have to do is find a house, it consumes your thoughts and becomes a disaster. I mean, I should probably have sorted out a codice fiscale before I started work, as now I am busy during the opening hours of the agenzia delle entrate. But I’m still not 100% convinced I need it.

Anyway, starting work on Monday actually helped to take my mind of things – a change of scenery and finally getting to grips with the very thing I had headed out here for! Added to that, everyone in the Studio Legale is super friendly, so I am feeling positive about the months ahead.  My first day involved translating an invoice, doing some reading on e-procurement and going for lunch with some of the trainees and lawyers. So far so good, nothing too demanding. On the second, Silvia – the trainee who is essentially in charge of me – and I checked over the invoice and entrusted me with translating a passage from a book. So I assume that I am still being checked to see what sort of skills I have – let’s be honest, why would a passage from a book need translating.

In any case, I seemed to surprise Silvia with how quickly I completed it (“You’re done?”), even though I thought it took me ages. The result of this was I had the afternoon free to look at houses online…

Day three consisted of a lot more free time as the only real task I had to do was read through, check and correct the English translation of the firm’s website (deadline: “yesterday” – welcome to the world of giurisprudenza). So I filled my time by doing further, self-motivated reading on the subject of my translation from yesterday and started making some glossaries, as well as bookmarking some amazing ones that I have found online. The internet is truly a wonderful place.

My research has so far unveiled to me that Eur-Lex (which we translation students at Leeds have somewhat relied on this year) is not always that helpful. Or rather, it is helpful for vocabulary or creating glossaries but not so much for structures and syntax. Why? Well, the Italian EU documents seem somewhat more simple than the average Italian ST, presumably because the translation has been carried out in the other direction (EN/FR/DE – IT).

I have stumbled across a very interesting little nugget of Italian legislation regarding the “nulla osta antimafia”, documentation that only the Prefettura – the territorial government office – can issue, but that is necessary for businesses and so on conducting transactions in the electronic marketplace.

Thursday got off to a mad start when one of the partners called needing a (personal) email translated, urgently. But after that took me all of about five minutes, I had nothing much more to do, meaning more glossaries – this time on Mergers and Acquisitions – Twitter, Facebook and Google-mapping where things were from my potential future apartments.

Thursday night I found the flat I want to move into but as it is not free until 15th October, I stressed out a lot about where I would stay until then and went to work on Friday having had very little sleep. I have now managed to sort out some temporary solutions and after these stressful two weeks I will finally be in my own place. I can’t wait to be in my own room.

After lunch and coffee with the girls on Friday I set about reading the material we have finally been given access to although, as the trainee is still working on something else, I still didn’t really do anything with it.

On the plus side, after all the stuff I have read, compared and researched, I feel like if I were given certain documents to translate, I would find I recognised a lot of terms and they would therefore be a) easier to understand and b) easier to translate. So, despite my feeling like it’s been a pretty stationary first week, things have progressed and I am confident my workload will continue to increase over the year.