Please, help to translate!

[Warrior555]

Hi everybody!
I don’t know if somebody would be willing to help me… but I really hope so. I need to translate one speech into Italian. It’s very important… but its 350 words to translate… I don’t know Italian at all, but I learned by myself how to read in Italian, and I need to make a call to one Italian signora.
Hope to find a kind soul here… Best of all, if someone native Italian could help me… Please!



Here is the text for translation:

Buongiorno signora! My name is … I’m Mary’s son. I don’t speak Italian at all, only English, so please, don’t say anything; don’t ask me anything, just listen please! Just in few last days I learn by myself how to read in Italian and ask some people to translate me this speech (this words) just to tell you this: My mom has no family in Italy, the only family she has - it’s me on the phone. Signora, you have to allow her to talk to me on the phone, your home phone. She doesn’t call from your phone, I call her. You are not going to pay for that nothing at all, not even a penny! It will be absolutely free for you, not going to cost anything, but it will make two people happier, and one person less homesick! It’s very expensive for me to call on her mobile phone and it’s very expensive for her to call me, but it’s very cheap for me to call on your home phone!
My mom works very hard, and you know that, so I’m sure she deserves some free time to talk to her son! Please! Family is the most important thing in this world, after God of course! And even there, away from home, my mom is not alone, I’m with her, even that I’m not near by!
And also, I know that my mom not going to tell you this, or ask you anything, but she has stomach ulcer, and she cannot be hungry or lift very heavy weight. I’m telling you this only because I worry about her!
I heard that Italians are very hospitable, I hope it’s true!
And I hope you understood my Italian and you understood everything that I said.
So, signora, can I, please, call my mom on you phone? Just say yes or no, because I’m not going to understand more above that.

Thank you! (Too bad!)

Thank you for listening to me. Have a good day (night).

[Carlo]

Hi

I translated your text with only a few minor changes. I hope it helps.

It's none of my business but I can't help but wonder - will you be able to pronounce Italian in a way she can understand you? Wouldn't you be better off writing to the Italian woman?

Buongiorno (or buonasera if it's evening), signora. Mi chiamo... Sono il figlio di Mary. Non conosco una parola d'italiano. Conosco solo l'inglese. Quindi le sarei grato se potesse solo ascoltare, senza farmi domande che, purtroppo, non capirei. Ho imparato da solo a leggere in italiano e mi sono fatto tradurre questo testo solo per dirle questo: mia madre non ha famiglia in Italia, ha solo me. Le sarei molto grato se le permettesse di parlare con me al telefono (il suo numero di telefono fisso). Non sarà mia madre a chiamare. Chiamerò io. A lei non costerà nulla ma farà la felicità di due persone e farà sentire meno la nostalgia di casa a mia madre. Chiamare sul cellulare costa molto, sia per me che per mia madre, mentre mi costerebbe molto poco chiamarla al suo numero di casa.
Mia madre lavora tanto, certo lei lo sa, e sono sicuro che meriti di poter parlare con suo figlio. La prego! La famiglia è la cosa più importante al mondo (dopo Dio, naturalmente!). E anche se mia madre è lontana da casa non è sola. Io sono sempre con lei, anche se sono lontano.
So anche che mia madre non glielo dirà, ma ha un'ulcera allo stomaco. Non può stare digiuna a lungo o sollevare oggetti pesanti. Se le dico questo è solo perché mi preoccupo per mia madre.
Ho sentito che gli italiani sono molto ospitali. Spero che sia vero!
E spero che lei capisca il mio italiano e abbia capito tutto quello che ho detto.
Allora, signora, posso chiamare mia madre al suo numero di casa? La prego di rispondere solo con un sì o con un no, perché non sarei in grado di capire altro.

[Warrior555]

Carlo, thank you sooooooo much!!! It was so fast!!!

Can you tell me what kind if miner changes did you make, so that I will know?

Can you, please, also translate last two sentences, they are part of the speech:

Thank you! (Too bad!)

Thank you for listening to me. Have a good day (night).

It's none of my business but I can't help but wonder - will you be able to pronounce Italian in a way she can understand you? Wouldn't you be better off writing to the Italian woman?

Excellent question!!! I don’t know!!! I don’t know if she will understand me, but I hope so. I learn to read by myself in just a few days, from book and software (not the best way, I know, but it’s the only way I had). But I’m confident that I can do that! I have to do that! I don’t know address of that signora, she doesn’t have computer, and regular letter will take many days. Most of all I worry about pronunciation stresses. Italian language is pretty simple to read, not like English , but I don’t know were to put stresses. Carlo, can you help me with this too? Can you put stresses on most of the words (or all of the words, or just a difficult ones), or capitalize stresses? Only if you can of course! I’m already very thankful for you!
Will Italians understand me if I will put wrong pronunciation stress on some words???
Also, we can check if my Italian is good enough or not! I can record this speech, that you just translated for me, in mp3 and upload to rapidshare (or any other website), and you can download and tell me if my Italian is understandable .
THATK YOU ones again!

[Warrior555]

I think I see those miner changes.

[Carlo]

"Thank you" is "Grazie" and the other one is "Grazie per avermi ascoltato. Arrivederci".
Quite frankly, putting accents on each word would take me ages and wouldn't help you much since you also need to get the sounds right. You could use one of these two sites to hear the trickier words pronounced by natives:

http://actor.loquendo.com/actordemo/default.asp

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/t ... hp?sitepal

[Warrior555]

And how to translate “Too bad”? Because I don’t know what kind of answer she is going to give me… maybe it will be “no”.
Will she understand me if some stresses will be wrong?
Thank you for links. First one didn’t really worked, but second one is excellent!
I will record today or tomorrow mp3 and upload it… I’m sure it will be interesting and for you, and for me

[forumuser]

Ciao Warrior, Carlo was very kind indeed! I hope your call has the desired outcome.

Anyway, too bad is peccato!

Then it'd be nice to say goodbye = arrivederci [/b]

[Warrior555]

Ciao forumuser!
Even if it will be peccato, I'm still going to say: Grazie per avermi ascoltato. Arrivederci

[Warrior555]

Hi ones again!

Carlo, I went through the translation, everything is grate, except few things. I hope you can help me with them too!

“mia madre non ha famiglia in Italia, ha solo me.” – from this sentences it looks like I am in Italy too, but I’m not. I meant that she has me only on the phone (over the phone). She has more family than just me, but only I call her on the phone. So, can you please change it to ha solo me on the phone (something like that)?

One more:
“You are not going to pay for that nothing at all, not even a penny! It will be absolutely free for you, not going to cost anything, but it will make two people happier, and one person less homesick!” – this is the most important part. You made it much shorter. The problem is, that signora thinks that she will be paying for phone calls that I make on her phone. That’s why I mentioned like three times that it will be free for her. Because one person already tried to explain her, but it didn’t work. So, can you please translate it ones again more closely to what I wrote?

Also, what does this sentence mean: il suo numero di telefono fisso? It doesn’t look like “home phone” (numero di casa) that I meant.

Everything else looks great! Of course it’s probably strange to hear that from somebody who doesn’t know Italian at all .


P.S. Second link that you gave me only a short demo, so I couldn’t really use it long enough . But that’s OK!

[Carlo]

"Telefono fisso" is "landline phone" so it's the same as "numero di casa".

Yes, I shortened that a bit. Here's the literal translation:

“You are not going to pay for that nothing at all, not even a penny! It will be absolutely free for you, not going to cost anything

Lei non pagherà nulla, neanche un centesimo! Sarà del tutto gratuito per lei, non le costerà nulla

can you please change it to ha solo me on the phone (something like that)?

Mmmm...literally it would sound a bit odd. Maybe "le mie telefonate sono l'unico contatto che mia madre ha con la famiglia".

[Warrior555]

Maybe "le mie telefonate sono l'unico contatto che mia madre ha con la famiglia".

It’s a little bit better. Can you just tell me where can I put the word “practically”(praticamente), because my calls not the only contact she has with the family, she makes calls too, but mostly I call, so, I just need to put in this sentences the word “practically”.

Thanks again for your patience and help!

[Warrior555]

Oh, and is it OK if I pronounce all or most of “e” as open “e”, and all or most of “o” as closed “o”?

[Carlo]

"Le mie telefonate sono praticamente l'unico..."

I wouldn't worry about open and closed "e" and "o". If you get the rest of the pronunciation right she will understand you.

[Warrior555]

Moment of truth!
I recorded this speech in MP3. Here it is:

http://rapidshare.com/files/35816653/Italian_speech.mp3 (1.4 Mb)

(Hope you know how to download from rapidshare).

At the end of this audio file I said “parlare” instead of “chiamare”, but I didn’t want to record it again. Of course there might be many more mistakes. Correct me, please, after you will listen to it.
So, that’s what I learned in just a few days. Tell me if it’s understandable!



P.S. I recorded audio file with voice recorder. I didn’t use any software where I could correct some mistakes that I made during recording. So, what you will hear is how my call will sound like.

[Carlo]

I'm afraid I wasn't able to download the audio file. Could somebody else take a look?