Alicia in Translationland

"When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "It means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less."
"The question is", said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is", said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

—from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

In the Wonderful (but imperfect) World of Words, not everything is what it seems.

All you need is a dictionary to discover the different meanings of a word in a foreign language, but a dictionary will never be sufficient for translating a text.

It is the translator who intervenes in this confusing World of Words, and it is he who must be their "master", placing them in the most suitable context, and giving life to the text.

No dictionary nor any school, however valid, is able to provide a complete map to find one’s way in the Wonderful World of Words. Just like the country to which it belongs, a language changes over time. From my birth, the U.S., just like Italy, has been my native land, and so not only do I know the two languages, but I know their history—their nuances in meaning.

Two parallel lives. This way of life allows me to offer clients translations that are effective in expressing the subject and, above all, that are coherent with the context in which they are to be inserted.

This is clearly vital in the case of screenplay dialogues, but it is also very important in my other specializations.