This is not a movie review. This is not about how poorly translated texts can have negative consequences in Global politics although after reading this you might open your eyes up just how intricate languages are and why the by product of translations can be misunderstandings. This blog is about a single word in Danish or rather a simple phrase using a simple word. I'm attending university at the moment and I'm currently doing an exchange in Japan, naturally we would have to talk about translations. So here in the winter break I was tasked with this simple assignment, pick a word or phrase in any language that cannot be directly translated to (preferably) English. Since I'm a native Danish speaker I chose a Danish phrase. I figured it might be an interesting little read for someone out there, hence why I put it up here on #Minds. Hope You Enjoy!
Arbejdslyst
I’ve chosen a common Danish expression since I’m from Denmark. The phrase is “God arbejdslyst” a direct translation would be “Good work lust” but that doesn’t really give the full picture, since the word “lyst” in Danish and the word “lust” in English have different connotations. In the Danish sense the word “lyst” is the feeling of wanting something, not as extreme as lusting for something. So to get a better picture of what the meaning of the phrase is, a closer translation could be “Good wanting to work feeling” “Good” in this sense being the same as in “good morning” or “good day” where you are wishing a good day upon someone else and not just stating that it’s a good day. In Danish this phrase is a farewell to someone who leaves for work, commonly used by a loved one but can be used by friends as well. To give the most natural sounding English translation it would probably just be “have a nice day” but would in this case lose the original connection to work. The “fix” to this could be to add in “at work” making it “have a nice/great day at work”. This translation works and would be understood to mean the same to an English and Danish speaker. However they still do differ if we dig a little deeper than just the surface meaning. In the English context you are wishing of external or outside forces to make the day better for the person on the receiving end. Where in the Danish context you are wishing the best from within or internal to better the day for that person. The difference is subtle yet the mindset behind each of the statements is drastically different. If we really dig deep you could say that in the English context you are implicitly telling the person that if they don’t get their way it’s okay, it’s the bigger forces at play and not their fault, they are in a sense not in control of whether or not they have a good day, they are but a mere pawn in the game of chess played by some mystical bigger forces. In the Danish context you are implicitly telling the person that their mentality shapes the day and are wishing them to go in with a good mindset to better their odds. In other words “every man is the architect of their own fortune, so make the best of it”. Personally I like the “Danish version” better, it’s more poetic, but it’s also not really fair to compare the two because “arbejdslyst” in Danish is just one word, there is no equivalent in English, all you can do is describe the Danish word. If you look up the word in a dictionary the translation is “have fun” or “enjoy yourself” but none of those actually describes the true meaning of the word. The phrase is used no matter how a person might feel toward their job, even if they hate their job they will be asked to “enjoy yourself” and if they manage to do it, then it’s way easier to move through the difficulties of life. Perhaps the best translation is “enjoy yourself at work” but since you have to take into account the target language, here being English, the more appropriate is just “have a nice day”.
