The tourism site Italia.it translates (to Totò) the Italian cities. And Garderobe becomes Camerino-Corriere.it

Raise your hand who, in translating a text at school, has not been betrayed at least once by the vocabulary, choosing a wrong word for the context of the sentence with an involuntary comic effect. When then automatic translators get in the way the risk of error multiplies. Welcome to italia.it, the government website dedicated to promoting tourism in our country that has just been relaunched – not without controversy – by the advertising campaign featuring Botticelli’s Venus in an influencer version.

Well, sifting through the thousands of pages dedicated by the portal to Italian locations, also presented in English, Spanish and German, surprises abound. Yes, because the names of some cities, in the version for German tourists, are translated more than literally. It goes from Lazio village of Foglia (Rieti) which becomes Blatte, leaf precisely, like that of plants, up to Prato – to remain in the botanical field – translated with Rasen, that is, the meadow of grass. To close the naturalistic page there is also Pigna (just over 700 souls in the province of Imperia), which becomes Tannenzapfen, that is the pine cone that encloses the pine nuts.

There is a dressing room, which becomes a garderobe, that is a wardrobe, but also a dressing room. Where you touch the sublime, for in Emilia-Romagna. We are in Premilcuore, pearl of the Foreste Casentinesi national park, Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. The translation goes far beyond the literal: Herzschrittmacher. Which no, does not mean exerts-pressure-on-the-heart-organ. No, it means pacemaker, you know, pacemaker. Stuff for strong hearts, one might say. Meanwhile, the web laughs with very popular characters such as Selvaggia Lucarelli who have noticed the thing, but also the Instagram page Wonder Daughters of Cermania, specializing in libertine uses of Italian words by Germans. Without bothering Tot and Peppino’s Noio vulevon savuar, one thing is certain: the computer has taken several Kantonaten.