Human-made language services
LINDA
ANSALDO
My roots
Born in Tuscany, I spent my childhood and teens in the countryside close to Florence. My passion for foreign languages, and my own, Italian, dates back to my early years: probably from my mum correcting my grammar and my grandma, who hadn’t been able to continue her schooling but looked after every single magazine and book with old-style grace and precision.
My grandma was a dressmaker, going from ladies’ clothes to sewing the costumes for my school plays and dance shows when she retired. I remember her immense chestnut table full of paper patterns and coloured chalk, the fitting sessions she made me do that went on and on. Because the fit had to be perfect, getting the armhole just so was serious stuff.
As I was sorting through her things, I came across a tin full of sketches and patterns. My mind went back to my childhood, to that sewing room full of tacked clothes, the thudding treadle Singer, the offcuts of material. And I realized that, even in the era of fast fashion, tailormade clothes have never gone out of style. They’re for special occasions, made to last.
Just like my translations, if you decide to come to me for your communication needs.
You don’t become a translator overnight. The language services I now offer – human translation, SEO translation, transcreation, language editing, subtitling and easy read – are thanks to nearly 20 years of study and professional experience.
My journey here
My journey into the world of translation started a long time ago, even before I decided what to do when I “grew up”. It began with my bedtime stories, the tales that my childhood friend penned and I corrected, my secondary school teacher’s fixation with accents.
I studied languages at high school, then I enrolled at the University of Bologna’s School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators in Forlì. I left the hills of Tuscany for the Po plain, moving on again a year and a half later to do Erasmus in Germany. After finishing my degree back in Forlì, I packed my bags again, this time for Heidelberg where I spent the two years of my MA in Translation Studies at the Ruperto Carola University.
With my MA in hand, I was all set to specialize in law. But then I answered a job advert I saw on the University of Heidelberg noticeboard. The marketing department of ALDI SUISSE in Schwarzenbach, Switzerland, was looking for a German-to-Italian translator. And so I left the heartland of Romanticism to move to the green meadows of the canton of St Gallen.
Which was where I first came face to face with Schwizerdütsch: Swiss German. Several evening classes at the Migros Club School and many a question to my colleagues later, I finally got to understand it. A question of sink or swim. At that point, seeing as I’d pretty much got my tongue around the lingo in St Gallen, I decided to try out the Zurich variety. In 2015 I changed job to become a project manager in a translation agency a stone’s throw from the Bellevue lakeside.
In 2016 I swapped the Badi, the bathing pools of Lake Zurich, for the Tyrrhenian Sea. I came home to Tuscany. I found an office with a view over the olive groves and started up as a German-to-Italian and English-to-Italian freelance translator. I’ve been translating for German, Swiss and Italian clients ever since. Take a look at their testimonials.
Since 2018 I have taught German-to-Italian translation for the BA in Language Mediation Sciences at the SSML Carlo Bo in Bologna.
In 2022 I became a qualified member of the Italian Association of Translators and Interpreters (AITI).
Come 2025, I am still studying and following CPD courses.
2025
• Webinar: “Accessible Training and Information for People with Intellectual Disabilities: Easy-Read Text”, ANFFAS
• CPD course: “Digital Technologies in the Translation Process”, SSML Carlo Bo
• Webinar: “Subtitling: Present Challenges”, AITI
• Webinar: “Reinventing Your Translation Business in a Changing World”, AITI
• Webinar: “GDPR”, AITI
• Elected treasurer of the Tuscany branch of AITI
• Webinar: “The Profession of Literary Translator”, AITI
2024
• Webinar: “Generative Intelligence and LLMs”, AITI
• Webinar: “Translating Food Labels”, AITI
• Webinar: “Terminology Search and Management Tools for Interpreters and Translators”, AITI
• Webinar: “UX Writing. Best Practices and Localization Advice”, AITI
2023
• Webinar: “Design Texts with SEO”, Langue & Parole
• Webinar: “Basic SEO”, Digital Coach
• Training course: “SEO Copywriting”, UniD Srl
• Webinar: “Inclusive Language”, Eurac Research
• Webinar: “Between Translation and Copywriting: Transcreation EN>IT”, AITI
• Seminar: “Introduction to Subtitling”, AITI
2022
• Webinar: “Contemporary Italian”, AITI
• Webinar: “Cybersecurity”, AITI
• Webinar: “Quality Assurance, Approaches and Tools”, AITI
• Webinar: “Social Media for Interpreters and Translators”, AITI
• Webinar: “The Language of High Finance”, AITI
• Seminar: “Sworn Translation: Who, How, Where, When”, AITI
• Joined the Italian Association of Translators and Interpreters (AITI) as a qualified member
2021
• Webinar: “Translating Law”, Archomai
2018
• Lecturer in German-to-Italian translation for the BA in Language Mediation Sciences at the SSML Carlo Bo in Bologna (ongoing)
2016
• Established English-to-Italian and German-to-Italian freelance translator business (ongoing)
2015
• Seminar: “Legal Translation: Prenuptial Agreements and Deeds of Succession”, Ius international law studio (Milan)
• Project Manager at Transcript Übersetzungen AG (today Apostroph Group), Zurich, Switzerland
2012
• Translator and language editor in the marketing department of ALDI SUISSE LTD, Schwarzenbach, Switzerland
• MA in Translation Studies from the Institute of Interpreters and Translators, Ruperto Carola University of Heidelberg, Germany
2010
• BA in Applied Interlinguistic Communication at the School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators, University of Bologna (Forlì)
2008-2009
• Erasmus at the Institute of Interpreters and Translators, Ruperto Carola University of Heidelberg, Germany
