Buondì.
I hate translating, in particular because it reminds me of my younger days when I would take on any job that paid, teach anyone that wanted teaching, translate anything that needed translating, no matter how pointless or badly written.
However, and as I used to tell my kids when they were small, sometimes you just have to do stuff you would prefer not to do.
Especially if it’s in a good cause!
Which brings me to a petition on Change.org entitled ‘Salviamo la formazione linguistica italiana dal fallimento‘ (which I’ve translated as ‘Let’s save Italian language training from bankruptcy‘).
If you’re unfamiliar with Change.org, as I was, basically it’s a website where people can start petitions addressed to influential people and invite others to sign them.
You visit the webpage of the petition that interests you, fill in your name, surname and email address and CAREFULLY review the privacy settings which are:
- “Sì! Fatemi sapere se questa petizione vince, e come posso aiutare altre petizioni importanti.”
- “No. Non voglio sapere se ci sono novità su questa e altre importanti petizioni.”
LARGE RED BUTTON
- “Acconsento a condividere nome e indirizzo e-mail con Asils – Associazione delle Scuole di Italiano come Lingua Seconda, per ricevere aggiornamenti su questa e altre campagne anche al di fuori di Change.org”
- “Non mostrare il mio nome e il mio commento su questa petizione”
You can work those out for yourself (good reading practice!), but if it interests you, I think I only clicked the second radio button, thereby agreeing to append my esteemed name to the document (by not clicking the fourth line), refusing to share my details with the petition’s sponsor (the third line) and opting out of receiving emails from Change.org itself (the first two lines).
One assumes this is deliberately intended to be as confusing as possible, but as I said, it’s in a good cause.
Privacy settings minefield navigated, to actually sign the petition there’s the LARGE RED BUTTON on which is written ‘Firma questa petizione‘ – again, you’ll figure that one out for yourself.
At which point, you’ll be sent an email, which you need to find and click the link it contains, so as to confirm your adhesion to the good cause. Assuming you read and understsood the privacy settings, your email address should not result in additional spam.
And that, I thought, would be the end of it.
EXCEPT NOT – the website then invited me to donate some money. Which came as rather a surprise. Donations are supposedly used to ‘promote’ the petition. Website owners have to eat, obviously. But I passed on the chance to fatten them further.
So, ready to take a look at the petition itself (in Italian, of course)?
Here’s a highlight:
This second DPCM, even while widening the range of new Ateco codes that will benefit from financial support following the new measures relating to red zones, continues to not include ATECO code 855930 (Language Schools and Courses).
This is a serious omission and it is unacceptable that sexy shops, dating agencies, tattoo and piercing parlours, pet shops, dog sitters and gun shops come before culture.
And yes, I deliberately mistranslated ‘sexy shops’, because it amuses me to do so, and because I once wrote a poem about precisely that.
But gun shops? Dog sitters? Tattoo artists? Coming before language teachers?
That’s clearly something worth getting hot under the collar about!
And my translation is in the P.P.S. at the bottom of this article (though why not try reading the Italian version first?)
A mercoledì, allora.
P.S.
Saturday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news is here, waiting, with a sad face, for you to cheer it up by reading and listening to it.
P.P.S.
Source: https://www.change.org/p/giuseppe-conte-salviamo-la-formazione-linguistica-italiana-dal-fallimento?
Let’s save Italian language training from bankruptcy
Asils – the Association of Schools of Italian as a Second Language – has launched this petition and addressed it to Giuseppe Conte (President of the Council of Ministers) and to 4 others
Asils launches this petition to protect the Italian language training sector.
The provisions of the 24th October 2020 DPCM aimed at financially supporting businesses that have been impacted by the anti-Covid measures totally ignore the Italian language training sector and in particular the organisation of language holidays in Italy. The decree is even discriminatory, in so far as, amongst the beneficiaries of support are included companies with ATECO code 855209 (Other Cultural Training), but not those with ATECO code 855930 (Language Schools and Courses).
The 3rd November DPCM renders the situation even more alarming, establishing that “public and private training courses can be carried out only online” and totally ignoring the fact that online teaching is not a practicable alternative.
This second DPCM, even while widening the range of new Ateco codes that will benefit from financial support following the new measures relating to red zones, continues to not include ATECO code 855930 (Language Schools and Courses).
This is a serious omission and it is unacceptable that sexy shops, dating agencies, tattoo and piercing parlours, pet shops, dog sitters and gun shops come before culture.
The language education sector has been on its knees since February, first because of the closure of our schools by decree and, later, after the reopening, because of the drastic reduction of clients due to the near impossibility of offering group courses while maintaining social distancing rules. The situation is even more dramatic for schools of Italian for foreigners, which do not benefit from a domestic market and which have seen their businesses wiped out by the cancellation of many international flights, the ban on tourists from non-EU countries entering Italy, and by the recommendation by many EU governments to not travel to Italy.
The language schools in our country come into the category of businesses which have lost between 75% and 95% of their turnover. Even though the sector is currently “open” thanks to online teaching, in reality it is closed because this type of teaching is not a practicable alternative. Our sector does not form part of compulsory education and so cannot oblige our students to follow online courses. As a consequence, we find ourselves without work and with no support.
15,000 jobs are at risk, along with the future of our country, in so far as a knowledge of foreign languages is not something that we can do without in a world which is ever more connected and globalised.
We want to make the government aware of this point: we cannot be discriminated against because we are authorised to work online. If there will not be concrete financial support for our businesses, which have suffered huge losses from the end of February to today, someone must assume responsibility for the collapse of the entire Italian language training sector.
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