Riccardo Schiaffino — English > Italian Translator

Aliquantum, Inc.
Denver, CO

• Organizing and leading major translation projects, especially in the fields of technology and software, for several major American and international translation and localization companies, as well as software and documentation translation, localization and testing for PeopleSoft.
• Translation Quality Assessment consulting for one of the largest translation companies in the world and for other translation companies.

University College, Denver University

• "Foundations of Translation" class teaching for the Modern Languages program

J.D. Edwards/PeopleSoft
Denver, CO
(now an Oracle Company), a leading American business software company

• Researching, planning, organizing, prototyping and managing the translation of new software projects, organizing and managing the Quality Assurance activities needed for each project, including such activities as feasibility study, drafting requirements, devising procedures for new multilingual projects, devising QA procedures and tools, and actually developing tools to help measure the quality achieved in our projects.

• Managing and supervising the work of two translation teams, with direct responsibility over a staff of twelve translators; hiring staff translators, contractors, and interns, managing schedules and budgets.
  The teams that I manage have consistently outperformed other teams, usually translating more material quicker and with a higher quality level than other teams.
• Lead the team that designed the requirements for the new software translation tools (developed internally in the translation department).

• Supervision over Italian translators; translation from English into Italian of software and documentation; accessory activities as terminology management and special projects such as responsibility for testing new translation tools and environments for the entire translation department, and actively participating in the implementation of the new documentation translation tools (IBM’s TM2).

• Translation of English into Italian of software and documentation, as well as such activities as terminology management, and programming utilities that were used to create a database of terms for the department.

Logos
Modena, Italy
a leading Italian translation company

• Translation from English, Portuguese and Spanish into Italian, as well as some Italian into English;
• Supervision over other translators’ work, both as senior translator (with responsibility for quality control) and as project leader.
  Areas of specialization:
  • localization of computer-related software and hardware packages;
  • engineering, including such fields as land reclamation and management;
  • legal contracts;
  • technical and scientific translations in general.
• Also evaluated and tested a new translation memory tool (Déjà Vu) that was later implemented in the company.

Liguria Traduce
one of the foremost translation companies in Genoa, Italy

Main areas of work:
• plant engineering, computers, contracts, and technical translations in general.
• Also in charge of purchasing for the company and of testing and evaluating new software and hardware.

Free-lance translator

• Worked for most of the major translation companies in Genoa, for important translation companies in Milan and Ispra, and for other customers, including one of Genoa’s leading lawyers, and the Genoa Court of Justice.
• In 1986 taught translation part-time in the fields of plant engineering and steel mills, as part of an adult education course sponsored by the Ligurian regional government and the European Community.
• Between 1988 and 1991 also taught part-time in a school for interpreters and translators in Genoa.
• Voluntary work for Amnesty International (translated several chapters of the 1989 report on the death penalty), and for Associazione Italo-Britannica in Genoa.

• Very proficient on PCs. Expert-level knowledge of word-processing and translation memory software (especially Trados), knowledge of some DTP packages, as well as other application software (spreadsheets, PhotoShop, database managers, flowcharting programs).
• Some programming experience (Excel macros, Word Basic, VBA, Visual Basic, Quick Basic, Power Basic and Java): among other things programmed filters for importing glossaries previously maintained in other formats into the new translation tools used at J.D. Edwards and programmed a tool to assist in the measurement of the quality of our translations.

Advanced School of Modern Languages for Translators and Interpreters
University of Trieste, Italy

• Languages studied: Italian, English, Spanish;
• Other major subjects: translation, international organizations, economic geography, linguistics.

Various professional and management courses, among which:
• Courses on Trados Workbench, IBM Translation manager, Java,
• Negotiating to Yes and The Leadership Challenge, as well as other management courses provided internally by J.D. Edwards

• Various other language and translation courses in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French at various universities in Italy and abroad

• Developing and using a translation quality index, Multilingual July/August 2006 (with F. Zearo, of L10nbridge)
• Translation Quality Measurement in Practice, Presentation at the 46th Annual Conference of the ATA (with F. Zearo, of L10nbridge) (also published on the Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the ATA)
• The Measurement of Quality in Translation: The Translation Quality Index and Other Methods, Presentation at the 44th Annual Conference of the ATA (with F. Zearo, of L10nbridge)
• The Measurement of Quality in Translation Using Statistical Methods, Presentation at the 43rd Annual Conference of the ATA (with F. Zearo, of L10nbridge)
• The Measurement of Quality in Translation<, Presentation at the 42nd Annual Conference of the ATA (with F. Zearo, of L10nbridge)
• How Not To Get Hired, ATA Chronicle, September 2000 (also published on the Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the ATA, where the article was given as a presentation)
• In Zona Cesarini: Problems with the Translation of Sports Metaphors and Terms, ATA Chronicle, June 1999
• How To Manage a Successful Translation Team, ATA Chronicle, October 1998
• Engineering and Translation: The Old Way, ATA Chronicle, August 1997
• A Rag-Bag of Web Pages for Italian Translators, ATA Chronicle, October 1996 (with C. Camera)
• Working for Italian Translation Companies, ATA Chronicle, October 1996
• A Survival Reference Kit for the Italian Translator, ATA Chronicle, October 1995
• Posting, Backup and Other Italian Words, ATA Chronicle, October 1995 (with C. Camera and A. Petrucci)