If you would like to become a professional, qualified translator and Italian is one of your languages, then you can’t miss this post! AITI (Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti) is the main non-profit professional association of translators and interpreters in Italy. It was founded in 1950 and its members are either freelance or in-house translators and interpreters. Potential members have to pass an exam in their chosen language combination.

Before you can sit the exam to become a professional translator, there are quite a few things you need to have. First of all, a degree is not enough. AITI requires you to have a master’s degree and at least one year of experience in the language translation industry, which means that you must have translated at least 500 pages in your chosen language combination (for example, from Italian into English). The less qualified you are, the more pages AITI requires you to have translated. This is to ensure that you have a balanced amount of university knowledge and work experience in language translation. Experience is important because it means that you have already entered the language translation market, found some customers, broadened your vocabulary and decided on a specialty by the time you apply to sit the exam.

After one or more years of language translation, you submit your documents. You must show evidence of the number of pages you have translated and a Commission has to decide if you are eligible to sit the exam. After this long process, the test can take place. It is usually held twice a year (April and November) and you can choose the field you want to be tested in, from several fields such as medicine, economics, politics, science and technology. The text is emailed to you and has to be completed in 3 hours. Here is an excerpt from a past paper about economics:

Europe’s new deal junkies – Risky borrowing is reshaping Europe’s corporate landscape.

In an industry condemned to believe that size matters, it is remarkable that the record for the greatest leveraged buy-out dates as far back as 1988 – when Michael Milken, the junk-bond king, walked tall on Wall Street. The $25 billion hostile takeover of RJR Nabisco, has remained a marvel of the corporate world not just because of its size, but also because KKR, the private-equity outfit that bought it, had a hellish task to recoup its money.

Inevitably, perhaps, this arouses European fears of cross-border raids by heartless asset-strippers. Some worry about curbs on investment and innovation, as private-equity groups instead seek short-term profits. Anyway, isn’t the lesson from KKR that all that debt is dangerous?

Not easy, is it? Even an English native speaker would experience several difficulties in understanding this text. Why? Because knowing a language doesn’t automatically make you a translator. Language knowledge has to go hand in hand with knowledge in a specific field, such as economics. Translators are those who have and apply both when they deal with a text.

So, do you think you might want to give the AITI test a go at some point in your career? I hope so and good luck!

Visit our page for more information about language translation.