German to Italian Translation

This direction comes into play when a German document has to be put before an Italian-speaking authority. The pair is needed most visibly in regions where the two languages are official side by side: in Italy’s South Tyrol (Alto Adige) region German and Italian are used together and documents are frequently converted between the two; in Switzerland, too, papers move from a German-speaking canton to the Italian-speaking one. Submitting a document issued in Germany or Austria to a procedure in Italy also falls into this direction.

The typical users are people living in this bilingual geography or dealing across borders: someone submitting a document drawn up in German in South Tyrol to an institution in the rest of Italy, a specialist seeking professional recognition in Italy with a German diploma, a family moving from a German-speaking Swiss canton to Ticino. What they have in common is a document drawn up in the German administrative tradition and carried into Italian legal vocabulary and procedure.

The particular difficulties of this pair

Both languages use the Latin alphabet; the real difficulty is matching two legal terminologies. German’s long compound terms open out into prepositional phrases in Italian. In number formats German’s use of the full stop is adapted to Italian usage; umlauts and ß are aligned with the passport spelling. The differences between German and Austrian legal concepts and those of Italian civil law are preserved; company forms (GmbH) are not converted straight into an Italian abbreviation but explained.

The second difficulty is the bilingual reality of South Tyrol. In that region most place and institution names are officially bilingual (Bozen/Bolzano, for example); using the correct official form matters if the document’s identity is to be recognised. German educational and professional titles are not forced into an equivalence with an Italian degree; the recognition decision is left to the relevant body, and the German grading system (1–6) is explained rather than converted. The positions of seals and signatures in the source document are preserved in the translation with a note.

Third, the Italian sworn translation procedure (asseverazione) physically binds the translation to the original document and records it in the register at the court office; since this formal requirement is strictly applied, all pages of the document are submitted in full. Abbreviations in German documents are not carried into Italian as they stand but unpacked; registry and file numbers are not translated, and the record they belong to is stated. In multi-document files, names, the renderings of institution names and the date format are kept consistent throughout, because a different spelling of the same person can halt the procedure.

The bilingual reality of South Tyrol has practical consequences in this direction. In that region documents are often already drawn up in German and Italian together; when such a document travels to the rest of Italy, the Italian column is expected to be complete and in official form, and the official bilingual versions of institution and place names are preserved. Where a monolingual document from Germany or Austria is involved, the Italian authority will place it within its own legal framework, so carrying the concepts across by their function and with the correct Italian term is decisive. For diploma applications Italian institutions often also ask for a comparability statement such as the one issued by CIMEA; that document is prepared in line with the translation. The German original having obtained, from the country of issue (Germany, Austria or Switzerland), the apostille required by the target Italian authority matters as much as the validity of the translation, and this step is confirmed at the outset; a missing layer of approval can send back even a flawless translation. Telling us the target authority before you send the document lets us choose the right level of approval and the right Italian term from the start.

Which documents call for this direction

Diplomas, transcripts and professional qualification documents lead the way; they are followed by civil registry, residence and criminal record documents and then by trade registry extracts, contracts and company documents. Bilingual documents originating in South Tyrol and Switzerland are common in this direction.

• Diplomas, transcripts and professional qualification documents
• Civil registry, residence and criminal record documents
• Trade registry extracts, contracts and company documents

The chain of approval

Italy approves translations by the procedure of swearing them in court (asseverazione); for education applications a Dichiarazione di valore issued by a consulate may be required. The Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland applies cantonal notarisation. The document issued in Germany is expected to carry an apostille. Look at the approval regime of the country you will be applying to and the document requirements.

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