October 25, 2004

Swedish Idioms in painfully literal translation. If you relish the exotic or the enigmatic utterance, this is the link for you.

"Now the boiled pork is fried."

posted by beeswacky 20 years ago
  • good stuff, bees. "No matter how you twist and turn your butt is always in the back." words to live by, indeed!
  • "Noo zee bueeled purk is freeed. Bork bork bork!"
  • Tack så mycket, beeswacky!
  • I hate to break it to you, but some of those "painfully literal" translations depend on deliberately mistranslating homonyms. For example, the translation of "känner du inte igen mig?" is given as "don't you feel again me?", but "känner" has two meanings: "feel" and "know". Correctly translating this word gives you "don't you know me again?", which isn't half so funny. I'm sorry for "treading in the lettuce"; I know you were having fun with this.
  • Wot salad is valid? A language is a sign of our failure. --Adrienne Rich
  • Heaven and pancake! Not to walk like a cat around hot porridge, I smell owls in the swamp.
  • Lovely link, beeswacky, although I fear a lot of the humour may well be lost on non-Swedish speakers, as Skrik points out... (and henceforth the Danish capital shall always be refered to as 'Buy a harbour' - hee hee)
  • I worked in Sweden for three months last year, and although I didn't get too far with the language, I loved it, as I loved the country and the people.
  • Thank you for loving me. *cuddle*