ITI Profile: Stefania Franzecco Junior Associate

For many years I have been teaching Italian as a foreign language to adults but recently I have been attracted to translation, which I am now developing as a second career.

I have been fascinated with languages since an early age so when I completed my secondary education I chose to study French and German at university in my native Italy. I came to England to further my studies and subsequently settled in the country. I decided not to complete my studies at this time and started working. I did various jobs, including shop and office work until I found employment in Adult Education teaching Italian. I have really enjoyed this career and have achieved DTLLS teaching qualifications at Canterbury Christchurch University.

Many years later I decided that I wanted to achieve a formal higher level qualification in languages. I therefore joined the Open University as a mature student and studied part-time for a degree in French and Spanish. After passing my degree I decided to continued studying and received an MA in Translation, specialising in translating from English to Italian. It wasn’t easy studying and working at the same time as looking after a growing family and it took many years and lots of patience and understanding from my husband and children who supported me through this journey.

During my MA I joined the ITI as a student, but I have to admit that due to a lack of time I didn’t completely take advantage of what it had on offer. Although, in those early stages, I joined the Italian Network which I am still part of. Through the Italian network, for a couple of years, I took advantage of their mentoring initiative where, each time, I was paired with a mentor to practice my translation skills. I am now also a member of the SHEA and the Food and Drink network groups. I find being part of all these networks invaluable for connecting with other translators and as a source of information.

At present I am working to develop my career as a freelancer but as I don’t yet have a lot of work, I am volunteering as a translator for a couple of organisations and networking within these organisations. I have also been investing time on my personal development and the ITI has been invaluable at providing interesting webinars run by the different networks I am part of. These are proving to be particularly good at providing opportunities for webinars, conferences and other interesting initiatives promoted by other organisations. They help me to keep updated on my fields of interest which are also where I would like to position myself as a translator. 

Looking ahead, I want to establish myself as a translator specialising in food and sustainable horticulture, areas that I find particularly interesting since I enjoy gardening in my spare time. As a final project for my MA I translated a section of a book on growing vegetables sustainably; to extend my knowledge of this topic, and to develop my specialisation in this area, I am doing an online course learning the basics of horticulture. I also want to refresh my French and Spanish to bring them up to a level from which I can translate confidently.