In my Danish class yesterday, we had this exercise. I thought it would be fun to write the Danish expression, then the literal translation, and then the "real meaning" translation. A lot can be learned from such exercises about a country/language/people, and about how useless it can be to look one word up in the dictionary at a time, instead of having the ability to translate entire expressions.
1. Han aner ikke en pind.
He sees not a stick.
He knows nothing.
2. Han har sommerfugle i maven.
He has butterflies in the stomach.
He is excited and a little nervous.
3. Han har det som blommen i et æg.
He has it like the yolk in an egg.
He has it really well/He is very protected.
4. Der er hul i hovedet at købe aktier nu.
It is a hole in the head to buy stocks now.
It is very stupid.
5. Dér ligger hunden begravet.
There lies the dog buried.
We have here the explanation.
6. Han tog benene på nakken.
He took the legs on the neck.
He goes his own way.
7. Han har meget om ørerne for tiden.
He has a lot on the ears these days.
He is busy.
8. Han har ti tommelfingre.
He has ten thumbs (by the way, "Ti Tommelfingre" is what "Home Improvement" was called in Danish)
He is very impractical.
9. Han har taget billetten.
He has taken the ticket.
He is dead.
10. Der er ingen ko på isen.
There are no cows on the ice.
Everything is OK.
11. Hans planer gik i vasken.
His plans went in the wash.
Don't matter none.
12. Slå koldt vand i blodet!
Throw cold water in the blood!
Take it easy!
Of course one of the first things I noticed was that all of these examples used the male pronoun "han", and did not use the female pronoun "hun" at all. I think that the "cows on the ice" expression was the most interesting, as in everything could be going wrong, but at least "there's no cows on the ice!". This goes a long, long way in describing the Dane's (in general) quality of always looking ONLY on the bright side of things. For a realist and pragmatist, this can be soul-crushing.
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