A MAP of Barcelona's underground rail system with station names translated directly and literally into English has been 'revived' on Twitter – and instantly gone viral.
Originally created by a Reddit user in 2016, hilarious examples which show the dangers of using computer-generated translation functions in place of learning a language include the stop for the world-famous Sagrada Família cathedral, named on the 'alternative' map as 'Sacred Family', and the chic main shopping street, the Passeig de Gràcia, coming out as 'Gracious Broadway'.
Twitter user El Boig de Can Fanga (@BoigBCN) asks followers which their favourite is – and answers range from 'Sea Jungle' for 'Selva de Mar' to 'Hardrock' for 'Rocafort'.
Some of the entries on the map are fairly predictable, such as 'Saint Andrew' for 'Sant Andreu', 'Triumphal Arch' for 'Arc de Triomf', 'Clinic Hospital' for 'Hospital Clínic', or 'The Three Towers' for 'Les Tres Torres', or even 'Mary Christine' for 'María Cristina'.
But others are hugely creative – especially those with the word Can, or 'home', in the name, or Vila or Poble, which are 'town' and 'village' in the catalán language.
'Can Tries' station becomes 'Choose Home', 'Can Vidalet' appears as 'Lifelet Home', 'Can Serra' is 'Saw House' and 'Can Peixauet' is 'Fishauet Home'.
'Poblenou' is, as might be expected, 'Newtown', and 'Poble Sec' comes out as 'Dry Town'.
Names with 'Nova' or 'Nou', being 'New' in the feminine and masculine respectively, appear fairly frequently – La Bonanova turns into 'The Goodnew', and 'Mercat Nou' is 'New Market'.
Some of the silliest (they're deliberate, by the way)
'Barró de Viver' converts into 'Baron of Garden Centre', the suburb of Santa Coloma becomes 'Saint Pigeon', 'Bac de Roda' turns into 'WheelBac', and 'Encants' becomes 'Charms'.
Really? There's a metro station in Barcelona called ‘Baron of Garden Centre'? Check out this and other gems on this brilliant map created by u/teologico on Reddit (photo taken from @BoigBCN on Twitter)
A handful use alternative translations where two are possible, such as El Coll station – coll means 'small hill', but also means 'neck', so, predictably, the spoof translation appears as 'The Neck', and Collblanc is 'Whiteneck'.
Actual suburb or town names, along with Santa Coloma becoming 'Saint Pigeon', are morphed completely – Bellvitge turns into 'Beautifulvitge', 'Cornellà' becomes 'Cornshe' (ella is 'she' or 'her' in catalán and in Spanish), Olympic swimmer Mireia Belmonte's home municipality of Badalona becomes 'Badalwave' (ona being 'wave' in catalán), and given that peu means 'foot', the city's prestigious Pompeu Fabra University becomes 'Pomfoot Fabra'.
Some of the most outrageous include Vallcarca, translated as 'Oldfashionvalley', 'Ciutat Meridiana', which turns into 'MaryDiana City', Fontana comes out as 'Anafountain', Reina Elisenda as 'Queen Elipath' (senda is 'footpath'), Singuerlín as 'Withoutguerlín' (sin is 'without' in Spanish), as fons is catalán for the far depths of something and fondo means this in Spanish, Ildefons Cerdà appears as 'Islebottom Sow', Sant Ildefons as 'Saint Islebottom', and the Line 1 terminus of Fondo is now simply 'Bottom'.
Going back to ona for 'wave', Urquinaona station is now 'Urwhatawave' (quina means 'which', as a question, or 'what a...!' as an exclamation, in the feminine).
Possibly the best of all is Entença station – given that the question, Entens? Is asking someone if they comprehend or follow you, this has been translated as 'Doyouunderstanda'.
Special mention also goes to Florida station, which is now called 'Flowered'.
The Reddit user behind this genius spoof
The original 'pidgin English' Barcelona metro map was created and uploaded onto Reddit by u/teologico on February 26, 2016, with the legend, in English: “Something I've done just for fun. I like to think how names sound when they are literally translated into other languages. Some are wordplays, some are phonetic or semantic games. I had fun doing it, hope you enjoy it as well.”
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