When translating Italian into Dutch, the translator has to face quite a few difficulties,
due to differences in the language system of Italian and Dutch. One of these problems
concerns the translation of the past Tenses. After having presented some major divergences
in the temporal organisation of the verbs in both languages, we will present the
findings of a contrastive study of La coscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo and its Dutch
translation by Jenny Tuin. The examples given and their analysis will point out some
similarities and dissimilarities that should be taken into account when translating from
Italian into Dutch and when teaching Italian to Dutch learners.
