God Fortsättning
English translation: Hope you had a good Christmas
| 22:21 Jan 19, 2011 |
| Swedish to English translations [Non-PRO] General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters / cultural greeting | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Christine Andersen Denmark Local time: 13:25 | ||||||
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| Summary of answers provided | ||||
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| 5 +1 | Merry Christmas.....well sort of |
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| 4 -1 | Have a great year |
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| 2 +1 | Hope you had a good Christmas |
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Answers
3 hrs confidence: 
peer agreement (net): -1
peer agreement (net): -1Have a great year Explanation: The expression is used in early January, the first time you meet a friend or acquaintance after New Year. There is a similar expression in Hebrew...gmar tov. But we don't really have one in English. |
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8 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1Merry Christmas.....well sort of Explanation: This is just an explanation, not a translation as it is hard to explain. Christmas consists of 12 days, traditionally. You say "God Jul" on 24th and 25th and "God fortsättning" until Epiphany on 6 January. (In Sweden some people will continue to say it until "Knut" which is 13th of January and is the absolutely final day of the season.) After that, it would be unusual to say "God fortsättning" In Iceland, one continues to wish a Merry Christmas during the entire 12 days so that would be easy. What makes it hard to translate to English is that is seems like by 3pm on Christmas day in English-speaking countries everyone is done with Christmas, sadly. |
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12 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1Hope you had a good Christmas Explanation: So-called phatic expressions are often enormously dificult to translate, because they depend entirely on the situation and are highly cultural. Often they cannot actually be translated, as the words cannot be taken literally even in the source language, and sound ridiculous in another language. (Like the notorious How do you do? How do you do what? ;-) and the pointless Horrible/nice weather, isn´t it?) So you have to substitute some other remark. I have had several mails with ´I hope you had a good Christmas´ as the opening line, as an alternative to Happy New Year, which is the other common one used at this time of year. |
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