Trick or Translation? Italian Expressions That Make No Sense Word for Word

Among the many fun aspects of learning a language, false friends and tricky expressions hold a place of honour. And—once you get the possible trick—they’re the easiest to memorize!

In bocca al lupo!, for instance, is something you commonly wish to someone who is taking an exam, or is about to compete in a race, or is going to a job interview. Well, you’re literally saying “In the mouth of the wolf!”, so a word-for-word translation is not of much help in this instance. And this is true the other way around: “Break a leg!” obviously does not mean “May you break your leg!” for an English speaker, but for an unaware Italian, that’s how it would sound. Let’s see some of the most common Italian false friends and Italian expressions that make no sense word for word.

False Friends, AKA, Tricky Translations

Attualmente sono in libreria, sto bevendo latte e mangiando confetti. You might be tempted to translate this sentence: “I’m actually at the library, drinking a latte and eating…” What? Confetti?!? Yep, that final confettiwould probably ring a bell. The proper translation would, indeed, be “I’m currently at a bookstore, drinking milk and eating sugared almonds.” Which is still quite odd, actually! By the way, “actually” in Italian translates in realtà, in effetti, while the confetti that you throw is called coriandoli.

Some other false friends, easy to be tricked from, are: morbido, with means “soft, fluffy”, so nothing to be wary of; pretendere, which means “to demand” (so, if you pretend to be someone else —you never know, right? —the verb you’re looking for is fingere, or fare finta); camera, which is bedroom in Italian (if you’d like to level up the quality of your pictures, ask for a macchina fotografica). As their name suggests, false friends are tricky, but once you get them, you’ll easily remember them by association or contrast.

Italian Expressions Not to Be Literally Translated

Idiomatic, colloquial expressions have a figurative meaning, i.e., commonly, you can hardly translate them word by word. If you say Non vedo l’ora di vederti!, you’re literally saying, “I do not see the hour of seeing you!” whereas you mean, “I can’t wait to see you.” If you have a diavolo per capello (literally, “to have a devil for a hair”), you have nothing to be concerned about your hairstyle: you’re simply very, very angry! The list could go on and on to include the poetic cadere dalle nuvole (“to fall from the clouds”, meaning “to be caught off guard” or “to have no clue”) or the funny avere il braccino corto (“to have a short arm”) to indicate someone stingy. And remember that in Italian you don’t touch wood to dispel bad luck—you touch iron instead (Tocca ferro!). There are some exceptions, that is, expressions that have the same meaning and form, with different body parts involved, maybe, as in costare un occhio della testa versus “to cost an arm and a leg”; or that appeal to the same background, as essere al settimo cielo and “to be on cloud nine”. But mostly, these expressions have as much to do with culture as with language, so they have local, culturally based variations. So, Forza e Coraggio! (literally, “Strength and Courage!”, translatable with a less epic “Come on!”)—you’ll be familiar with these expressions in un battibaleno, AKA “no time”!