In Translation Lost

      I was lucky enough to be brought up bilingual, a gift that, if I choose to have children, I intend to pass on. Of course this was something that I took for granted, not realizing how lucky I was at the time. In fact, years passed in which I spoke no Italian, not because I refuted the language, but because.... I just didn't. My mother would speak to me in Italian and I would respond in English, something which my friends found hilarious until they got used to our bizarre one-sided conversations. So, for me, hearing and understanding Italian is as second nature as hearing and understanding English. Case in point: once on a transatlantic flight to NYC before we were married, my husband changed the language channel on my ear phones for the in-flight movie I was watching without my realizing it. It took a not-insignificant portion of the following scene for me to catch on to the prank, and then it was only because I noticed that the actors' voices were no longer synchronized with their lips. He had a good laugh at that one.

      So moving to Italy really wasn't a challenge for me in terms of communication, though I admit that I was a bit rusty at first. That being said, if you come here as a tourist, speaking not a lick of Italian and hoping to get by on only that small bit of high school Spanish that you remember, you'll be fine. Almost everyone speaks at least a little bit of English and they are more than happy to have someone to use it on. And that's okay. If you need to ask someone how to get to the Trevi Fountain or on what track your train leaves from, then you're really more interested in the information that they are giving you than you are in the grammatical correctness of it all. And hell, the accent mixed with the enthusiastic confusion of word order and verb tenses is really pretty adorable when you come right down to it. So I pass no judgment on the average Italian pedestrian. I pass judgment on the signs. Which leads me to main point.

      Why are there so many badly translated signs in Italy? This is a question that I ask myself repeatedly and that I continue to find inexplicable. Each time I go through a similar thought process: “Really? That's what you came up with? There was NO ONE around who could double check that for you? Not one single native English speaker that you could run that by in a country full of American and UK ex-pats?.....(sigh).” I know that if you've been here you've seen some of these signs that I'm referring to. You probably chuckled to yourself and took a picture.

      The way I see it, there are three tiers to the category of bad translations. The first (and the least excusable) tier is that which includes mass produced public transportation signs and tourist info signs. In other words, there is money behind these signs and there are people out there in the world whom one can pay to do a professional translation. Instead I have a vision of someone in an office who's job is the opposite of doing a translation, but who has falsely bragged about his impeccable English for so many years that when it comes to actually translating something, it is a matter of pride that he do it himself... and that he ask no assistance... and that he save the company the meager amount that it would cost to translate a sentence fragment such as “in emergency case”. True, these particular signs do still manage to get the meaning across and maybe, just maybe, do have something charming about them, but still. Shouldn't it also be a matter of self respect? (Actually, now that I think about it maybe the whole thing is staged to make it seem as though the entire country is oozing “sexy, charming, Italian accent” from its pores. Something to think about it.)

      The second tier of bad translations, which just make me shake my head in wonder, are the restaurant menu translations. A few examples: Not everyone knows what “pajata” (peye-YAHT-ah) is and most people I know would be quite dismayed to order and eat it by accident. The difference between “seasonal” and “seasoned” is significant. “Aubergine” and “rocket” are not the most common ways to say “eggplant” and “arugula”. “Forest fruits” are “mixed berries”. Etc, etc. And then there are those that just literally translate the name of the dish, probably using a free online translator. “Linguine al pesto” becomes “linguine pesto to”. Seriously. (There are really far too many examples to list here. Please look at the photos at the end of this post.) To be quite frank, I used to avoid restaurants that translated their menu at all because I assumed that they were probably catering to the tourist crowd and sacrificing quality in the process. Nowadays that is no longer the case since tourists are everywhere. So, given the circumstances, I have taken to using a new method of selection. If the translations on the menu are too good (or if there are too many different languages), then it's too touristy and I don't go there. Come to think of it, perhaps I should actually be grateful to these translations for helping me to weed out the tourist traps. (Or perhaps this too is a well thought out ploy to convince us of the unadulterated authenticity of the cuisine. Something else to think about.)

      The third and final tier doesn't really have a defining characteristic beyond the very home-made, do-it-yourself format of the material, and for this reason I feel no frustration but only a tender sort of affection, as I would feel for a small child showing me a scribbly drawing and telling me that it's a castle. In these instances a small business may have typed something up, printed it out, and taped it to the window or wall of their shop/restaurant. It's something intended to be helpful or instructional, but it never will be because it is completely incomprehensible. Probably someone with absolutely no understanding of how languages work wrote something out in Italian and then looked up each word in a dictionary, disregarding the proper placement of nouns, verbs, and participles and not accounting for the fact that certain words have multiple meanings. On more than one occasion I have considered offering my translation services to them (for a free dinner?), but have decided that it could be misconstrued as invasive and condescending. Besides, I like to think that there is a hidden camera recording people as they try to decipher these signs and that someone somewhere is getting a good laugh.

      Now I do realize that not everyone has the good fortune of being brought up bilingual and that perhaps I'm being overly critical. Maybe I should try to embrace each poorly constructed phrase as a symbol of one culture reaching out to another in order to be understood. Maybe we would all find it boring if suddenly all of the signs were thoroughly proof read. After all, even something as little as a clumsily written sign becomes a small stroke of color in the larger painting of one's trip. But while I may make the effort to accept it, unless it turns out that these errors are actually part of an elaborate national ruse intended to help establish the ambience for one's vacation, I will continue to be baffled. Or should I say, “I will continue to being perplexed.”

And now just a few example from a menu so you see that I'm really not making this stuff up.

Bruschetta Olive's cream






Bruschetta Artichoke's cream

Ricotta and Spinach Ravioli to the Sage

Linguine to the rock-cliff

Linguine to the seabass

Fettucine with porky mushrooms