{"id":169,"date":"2012-06-19T19:15:49","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T19:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rottendanish.com\/?p=169"},"modified":"2012-06-20T00:20:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T00:20:29","slug":"close-but-no-cigar-in-danish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"“Close, but no cigar” in Danish?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word “Close” is hard to translate without context.
\nIn English it can mean both\u00a0to shut something down, be near something or someone, or to successfully finish a sales negotiation. Of course this opens up a plethora of pitfalls for the diligent linguist\/translator, even in-context:<\/p>\n

“Close the deal!” was translated as “Luk handlen!”, which can be understood as “Shut down the business!”. \ud83d\ude42 It should have been something like\u00a0\u201cF\u00e5 Ordren!\u201d or “Luk salget!” (i.e. “Get the Order!”).<\/p>\n

“As close as you can” was translated as “luk det s\u00e5 godt som du kan” (“close it as well as possible”). The correct translation would be “s\u00e5 t\u00e6t p\u00e5 som muligt”.<\/p>\n

“It is close to my heart” ==> “det er mit hjerte n\u00e6r”. Interestingly when we go “poetic” in Danish we like to reverse the word sequence. Saying “det er n\u00e6r mit hjerte” would be a geographic description of something located near my heart, with no emotional content.<\/p>\n

Close, but no cigar!<\/em>
\nAnd what about “Close, but no cigar!”: what would be a good translation of this Idiom into Danish? Maybe “Lige ved og n\u00e6sten sl\u00e5r ingen mand af hesten”? (“Close-to and almost\u00a0does not knock any man off his horse”).
\nErik Moldrup has compiled a very impressive list of English-to-Danish idiom translations at: http:\/\/lakjer.dk\/erik\/engelsk\/enidiomstb.html<\/a>\u00a0. But “Close, but no cigar” is not amongst them.\u00a0Ahem… close, but no cigar…\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 I will ask him for advice.
\nThere’s also an impressive list of Danish proverbs with explanations (in Danish) at: http:\/\/da.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Danske_ordsprog<\/a>
\nand a corresponding one of English proverbs\u00a0in English: http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/English_proverbs<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n \n \"Fb-Button\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word “Close” is hard to translate without context. In English it can mean both\u00a0to shut something down, be near something or someone, or to successfully finish a sales negotiation. Of course this opens up a plethora of pitfalls for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,4,12,1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambigous-english","category-different-meaning","category-funny","category-same-words","category-uncategorized","category-word-sequence-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rottendanish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}