Translation in Italy
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Overview
The translation industry in Italy is very diverse and therefore it is not possible to provide accurate statistics. There is no law regulation to the profession and basically everyone can work as a translator nowadays, but there are some translators' associations making efforts in order to achieve some kind of consistency in the translation business. Word of mouth and valued contacts can play as large a role as the internet or associations.
Most part of technical and scientific translators make business with translation agencies, while editorial translators often have to make contacts with publishing houses directly. On the other hand, universities, cultural associations and institutions are the main business partners to translators working in classical studies fields such as religion, history and philosophy. There is very little room for in-house translators nowadays. Most translators are freelancers (VAT registered) but there is also a strong presence of people working as translators under other contract forms such as pure occasional collaboration.
Globalization and Internet development (as well the development of software for online collaboration) are changing Italian translation industry very fast. Nowadays many Italian translators tend to work for foreign agencies, especially those which work in high profile scopes (such as genetics, finance and so on). On the other hand there is a strong reduction of the mid-profile workload (non-specialized user's guides, newspaper articles in not specific fields, ...) and this has led to a constant downgrading of these translations' value, both in terms of quality and rates offered.
Main translators' associations in Italy are ANITI (Associazione Nazionale Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti) and AITI (Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti).
