Il triestino — Triestine · Italian lesson 114

Read and listen to the dialogue.
Make sure you follow the meaning and the story.
Study the vocabulary — read every word and phrase aloud. How to pronounce →
Work through the grammar and learn this lesson's key points.
Go back to the dialogue and read along with it for 15–20 minutes.
Do the role-play: practice for smoothness, and match the tone.
Do the exercises.
Read the culture point.
Optional: create your own dialogue.

0 of 9 done

Hover a line for its translation; hover a word for its meaning. Tap 🔊 to hear it.

Show meaning

Giorgio

Sono venuto da Milano apposta per questa discussione, perché sul dialetto Ada e io litighiamo da quarant'anni e non voglio perdermi il terzo round. Nell'edizione italiana si è deciso di non tradurre niente e di non mettere note, e qualcuno se n'è lamentato. Lei, Alex, cosa pensa di fare in inglese?

I've come from Milan specially for this discussion, because Ada and I have been arguing about the dialect for forty years and I don't want to miss round three. In the Italian edition it was decided not to translate anything and not to add notes, and some people complained. You, Alex, what do you plan to do in English?

Alex

Ci ho pensato molto, e un'ipotesi si è già scartata: non posso far parlare i marinai di Trieste come quelli di Liverpool o di Glasgow, perché il lettore li sentirebbe inglesi o scozzesi. Se uno legge una battuta in triestino, sente subito il porto, e in inglese mi serve un effetto simile, non una traduzione parola per parola. Pensavo di lasciare qualche parola in dialetto, in corsivo, e di rendere il resto con un inglese più parlato, un po' sgrammaticato.

I've thought about it a lot, and one option has already been ruled out: I can't make Trieste's sailors talk like sailors from Liverpool or Glasgow, because the reader would hear them as English or Scottish. If you read a line in Triestine, you hear the port at once, and in English I need a similar effect, not a word-for-word translation. I was thinking of leaving a few words in dialect, in italics, and rendering the rest in a more spoken, slightly ungrammatical English.

1How to study this lesson▸

2Dialogue▸

3Vocabulary▸

4Exercises▸

5Generate your own dialog▸

6Culture▸

Triestine, and the problem of dialect in translation