An example of what I mean:
I, in China, told an English speaking Chinese friend I needed to stop off in the bathroom to “take a shit.”
He looked appalled and after I asked why he had that look, he asked what I was going to do with someone’s shit.
I had not laughed so hard in a while, and it totally makes sense.
I explained it was an expression for pooping, and he comes back with, “wouldn’t that be giving a shit?”
I then got to explain that to give a shit means you care and I realized how fucked some of our expressions are.
What misunderstandings made you laugh?
Huh. Maybe you could help me.
I’m listening to Stromae, Pomme - Ma Meilleure Ennemie (from Arcane Season 2) Lyrics w/ translation.
And one line is “Mais comme dit le diction: Plutôt qu’être seul mieux vaut être mal accompagne.”
French (sorry for butchering some of the letters, I’ve a Nordic layout), roughly for “But as the saying goes: Better than alone, is to be in bad company.”
Reading that, I remembered a Spanish line from last weeks episode of “The Day of the Jackal”: “Mejor solo que mal acompañado.”
“It’s better to be alone than in bad company.”
Opposite sayings?
A difference in views between the French and the Spanish?
Yeah, it does sound like they’re opposite sayings.
I wasn’t aware of the French saying, but was of the Spanish one, plus there’s one which is exactly the same as the Spanish one in Portuguese.
That said, feeding “Plutôt qu’être seul mieux vaut être mal accompagne” to DDG gives pretty much only results with the saying “Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné”, which is the same as in Spanish and Portuguese, so I’m thinking that the lyrics of the song are in fact purposefully reversing the well known saying “Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné” for impact.
Oh. Well, that does explain it. Thanks.
To understand lyrics by Stromae you need to check the French version of the lyrics on genius.com as there are explanations added by friendly native speakers. The texts are full of connotation, context, idioms - I’ve not seen anything like it in any modern song. It’s very cumbersome to translate all of that but I found it rewarding. Especially the lyrics of Papaoutai and Bâtard are masterpieces.
Check out your best enemy here: https://genius.com/Stromae-and-pomme-ma-meilleure-ennemie-lyrics