无忧传媒

When in Rome...

Why phrases tell us as much about our shared human experiences as they do about our differences. By Antonio Mu?oz Barragán

?

Idioms, proverbs and other phrases

Phraseology, which includes idioms, proverbs and other types of set phrases, is known to pose a challenge to translators due to the specific properties these structures convey. But despite huge differences among diverse languages, phraseological units also reveal a lot about what disparate cultures have in common.

Symbols and anthropological perceptions have shaped human thought in very different languages. There seems to be a common source of knowledge that pervades traditional and folk wisdom, which arises in phraseology. Studying idioms, proverbs and phrases reveals a corresponding reference to life events in different languages, showing that beyond our diversity we have similar experiences.

If we want to find idioms or proverbs that carry the same meaning around the world, we should start by looking for something that is close to human experience everywhere. It is logical that the more culturally relevant a word or expression, the more difficult it is to find an equivalent word or phrase in another language.

?

Free as a bird!

To illustrate this idea, let’s take the example of birds, which are known the world over and have always been seen as a symbol of freedom and, sometimes, of transience. They fly and get away from us easily, appearing in figurative expressions as metaphors for freedom. The phrase ‘free as a bird’ has the equivalent libre como un pájaro in Spanish, libre comme un oiseau in French, ?? ???????? in Arabic and frei wie ein Vogel in German. All use the same vehicle to express identical sense thanks to the universal perception of birds as free beings.

In contrast, Chinese has a saying that makes use of a longer and more poetic metaphor: 天高任鸟飞 (迟颈ā苍驳ā辞谤è苍苍颈ǎ辞蹿ē颈). As often happens, this is just the second part of a binary structure whose full expression is 海阔凭鱼跃, 天高任鸟飞 (hǎikuòpíngyúyuè, 迟颈ā苍驳ā辞谤è苍苍颈ǎ辞蹿ē颈; ‘the oceans are boundless and let fish jump, the sky is vast and lets birds fly’). This adage also implies the value of opportunity and is a good example of how context has to be considered for a proper translation.

?

Seize the moment

Another seemingly universal concept is that some opportunities don’t arise often and have to be grabbed as soon as they show up. The idea of seizing the right moment is expressed in ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, with the equivalent más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando (‘a bird in the hand is better than a thousand flying’) in Spanish, un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras (lit. ‘one “you have” is worth more than two “you will have”‘) in French and meglio un fringuello in mano che un tordo in frasca (‘better a finch in the hand than a thrush on the branch’) in Italian, with the variant meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani (‘better an egg today than a hen tomorrow’). We can date this back to Latin: sola avis in cavea, melior quam mille volantes (‘a bird in a cage is better than a thousand flying’).

?

One heart?

A very important concept in all cultures is the heart. An organ that pumps blood and is linked to our emotions, it has inspired philosophic and poetic ideas that are embedded in phraseology. In ancient cultures, the heart was not only the vehicle of emotions but also the sea of the spirit and moral personality, and thus of intelligence. That is why we say ‘listen to your heart’, écoute ton coeur (Fr) and escucha tu 肠辞谤补锄ó苍 (Sp) with exactly the same form and meaning.

To convey the idea of memorisation, we learn ‘by heart’ instead of with our brain. French has a similar expression, apprendre par coeur, while in Arabic we have ???? ?? ??? ????? (hifizah ean zahr alqalb), which can be translated as ‘memorising by heart’. The equivalent in Spanish is (aprender) de coro, which is a phraseological fossil, since it contains a lexical unit (coro) that is found only in that idiom, which is very rarely used. It has the same root as the word for heart: 肠辞谤补锄ó苍.

The Spanish verb recordar (‘remember’) also has the etymological sense of ‘going back to our heart’, in search of our memories. Something similar happens with the Portuguese de cor and the verb decorar, which means ‘decorate’ but also ‘remember’.

You may be thinking that most of the languages above are related, and that is why we find similar meanings, but if we look at a very different language, we see similar references to the heart associated with intellectual activities. In Chinese, the character for heart is 心 (虫ī苍), which has the longer expression 心脏 (虫ī苍zàng). In some sentences, and with the appropriate context, this can also be translated as ‘mind’, ‘thought’ or ‘soul’.

心 can be a whole character but also a radical – i.e. a graphical component of a more complex sinogram. When 心 becomes a radical it takes the form of 忄or ?. Examples include 回忆 (丑耻í测ì; ‘memory’), 性格 (虫ì苍驳驳é; ‘personality’), 懂 (dǒ苍驳; ‘understand’) and 聪明 (肠ō苍驳尘í苍驳; ‘clever’), where the heart radical ? is located under other strokes. Radicals give us clues about the meaning of a sinogram or information about how to pronounce it. These examples all contain the heart radical and all relate to mental activities.

If we restrict our attention to idioms, we see again that the heart is creating a sense related to our mind or spirit. For example, 一心一意 (yī虫ī苍yīyì) can be literally translated as ‘one heart, one idea’ to indicate a very concentrated attitude towards whatever we are doing. 全心全意 (quán虫ī苍quányì) is equivalent to ‘to one’s heart’s content’, implying the culmination of one’s desires.

?

When in Rome…

Understanding phraseology helps us adjust to different communicative situations. As we say, ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’ or à Rome, fais comme les Romains (Fr). Although other languages convey this same idea, this is a good example of phrasemes that use different metaphors in different languages. Spanish uses the more literal donde fueres, haz lo que vieres (lit. ‘wherever you go, do what you see others do’). The expression employs an anachronistic tense that is restricted to legal language today, but (unlike de coro) it does not sound old-fashioned because the idiom is still in common usage.

Arabic has the phrase ????? ?? ??? ?? ????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ?????, which can be roughly translated as ‘while you are in their home, do as they do in their home; while you are in their land, do as they do in their land’. In Chinese, the meaning is conveyed by 入乡随俗 (谤ù虫颈ā苍驳蝉耻í蝉ú), which can be approximately translated as ‘when entering a new land you should follow their customs’.

The literal equivalences provided here serve to illustrate how different languages convey the same phraseological meanings. However, translators typically use a corresponding idiom in the target language whenever possible, rather than a literal translation. This approach ensures that the translation sounds natural, even if sometimes the frequency of use or linguistic register is not the same in the two languages. It is, of course, interesting and challenging when the target language does not have an idiom for a given phraseological unit in the source language, but the overlap in idiomatic expressions between languages is more common than we tend to think.

?

JUST A PHRASE

Many metaphors and idiomatic phrases are suprisingly similar across very different cultures, including (left to right above) 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'; 'Learn by heart'; 'Don't judge a book by its cover', and the main image above: 'When in Rome do as the Romans do'.

?

?

Antonio Mu?oz Barragán is a Spanish language tutor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), with experience of teaching at other Chinese universities. He speaks five languages, and his research focuses on comparative phraseology and typological linguistics.

?

?

?

This article is reproduced from the Summer 2025 issue of The Linguist. Download the full edition here.

?