The story behind Traducendo Ltd

Traducendo Ltd is the idea of 2 people: me and Irene (Irene is the one with no beard).

We are both translators, I guess. At least we can accept this definition.

Personally, I have always studied foreign languages. My hippy parents were convinced (lucky me!) that if their child studied a foreign language from the age of 3 he would became smarter. I don’t think I managed with the smartness, however, I was able to understand what they were talking about when they spoke English between each other not to let me  understand. At 12, I also started to study French. Apparently they realised that with English only I didn’t become smart enough. I have always been a poor student, a lazy one, one of those feeling sooooo  cool for  not doing the homework, you know, the one making jokes all the time disturbing during the lessons, the one who  spent more time hitting on girls and arranging his weekends  rather than listening to the teacher.

I had a lot of fun. My parents a bit less. I have to admit it.

Anyway, I got to go to university, Political Sciences, 6 months, I dropped out.

At 21, I enrolled again at University, different faculty this time:  “Foreign languages and Translation” .

Again, lazy student, very lazy....I mean, I have been a lazy student my entire life, but my level of French and English was much higher than the one of all those wannabe coiffeur or secretaries or hotel receptionist that attending   my classes, so I  added Rumanian as well to my curriculum. However, thanks to all this partying around, I have met my first Erasmus friends. I discovered a new world, I could go  study in another country, getting rid of my parents, of Italy, of the useless Italian way of teaching languages. I was really moved by loads of good wills, and, of course, I have decided to go to Barcelona, Spain. 

Ok, you probably have watched the movie “L’auberge espagnol” (if you didn’t here is the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsvJFtUDfl0), well, Erasmus in Barcelona, in reality, is much more!!!

Loads of parties, loads of friends from all over Europe, huge mess, little study, loads of girls, but one in particular: Daniela.

The discovery of Latin America…..ahhhh. I fell in love, so much, so much but so much that I took a decision: she was the woman of my life, I had to get rid of university and live forever and ever with her, in Barcelona, of course.

I went back to Italy, in 6 months I got rid of all the remaining exams of my degree (19 exams, seriously 19!!!) demonstrating that maybe my parents were right on the studying-languages-since-a-child business, as it did make me slightly smarter (just a bit, though.). I got back to Barcelona, rent an apartment with Daniela, sublet some rooms to be able to afford it, furnished it, moved in with her, ready to live my little corner of paradise on  earth. 

We lasted 3 months.

You can imagine the depression, the tears, the ways I humiliated myself to get her back….no luck of course.

Well, I was there, just turned 23, depressed, no house, no perspective, working at Starbucks….lame….and I couldn’t go back home, I didn’t want my parents to tell me the “We told you so” about not moving in together with a girl I had met during Erasmus  2 months before…

So I stayed in Bcn, 5 years.

I worked as waiter, as toilet cleaner, as janitor in the markets, flyer giver, PR for clubs (s real low quality ones), security guy for the erotic museum, car washer, hippy crap seller, t-shirt seller, barman, dog-sitter, baby-sitter, Italian teacher, events steward, cruise ships land steward, promotions steward, chauffer, builder, to make it shorter, anything that gave me a bit of money.

And then, one day, a friend of mine, Marco, introduced me to this girl. She came from a village in the north of Rome but spoke with such a strong  Neapolitan accent  that I honestly wanted to shout at her to shut her up! Anyway, the gal was kind of funny (apart from the accent) and we became friends. Loads of parties (yeah, in my life I went to loads of parties, I’m not the typical  nerd translator ehehe), loads of crazy things, actually, all the crazy things that you can find in Barcelona, and trust me, there are plenty.

One day, eventually, I  found out what Irene was doing for a living: she was barwoman (of course) and translator.

Cool, I have studied languages my whole life, I can be an amazing translator!!

Of course not! But at that stage , I didn’t know yet.

Well, so we decided to translate a book together, Irene and I. It was a Spanish thriller book by a rather unknown Andalusian writer. But it has been my first real translation. Even though we have never finished it.

However, that day, even if we didn’t know it just yet, Traducendo Ltd was born.

I was father!!!!