Reading Google's Translations from Italian

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Google Translate is now pretty good, good enough that, except for a few words here and there (which I've asked Andrea Vitali to explain in the text), the essays in Italian on the site LeTarot Associazione Culturale are readable in English, and probably other languages as well, when run through Google Translate.

Fortunately it is easy to do that on that site without having to cut and paste the essay piece by piece into Google Translate itself. You just search Google for "Saggi letarot", click on "translate this page" and then click on the one you want from the list in English (or other language) on the left.

After that it is largely a matter of knowing a few alternative translations that Google Translate isn't yet able to choose correctly between:

(a) "by" instead of "for" and vice versa (Italian per);

(b) "from", "with", "by" or "to" for "of", and vice versa (Italian di, da, dai, etc.);

(c) "who" for "that" or "which" and vice versa (Italian che);

(d) "as" for "like" and vice versa (Italian come);

(e) "fortune" for "luck" (Italian fortuna), "hence" for "waves" (onde); "cleric" for "religious" (religioso); "Minchiate" for "bullshit".

(f) "her", "your," "you", and "she", for "him", "his" "my", "them", "it" and "he", missing subject pronoun, and vice versa (Italian sua, suo, il, la, lei, and missing subject pronoun);

(g) "himself," "herself", "itself", "themselves", for "yes" (Italian si)

(h) the present participle (verb + -ing) for the past participle (verb + -ed);

(i) moving phrases around in the sentence, e.g. from the end of the sentence to the beginning.

This is for English. Google Translate from Italian to other Romance languages will probably work better than to English.

I have undoubtedly missed a few pointers. Feel free to add them. Some words, especially archaic ones, will still have to be looked up individually. Wiktionary is a good source. Otherwise, Treccani, Crusca, and other Italian to Italian dictionaries will have them. If nothing else just google the word and see what comes up.
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