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| A Valentine's Day themed blog post. |
Incredibly, the phrase book included four expressions for how to tell a Swedish woman, 'Sorry, I'm not interested,' and only one phrase to express interest. I have to say, whoever wrote the guide book must clearly have never have met any Swedish women, as all the Swedish women I've ever met would most definitely not prompt me to say, 'Sorry, I'm not interested.'
Anyway, although I'm not fluent in other languages, I nevertheless still find foreign sayings and expressions interesting, so in honour of Valentine's Day, here are a few romantic phrases from around the world...
Cute Pet Names
1) Cuddle bear
A cool German pet name which isn't used very often is 'Kuschelbär' which literally translates as 'cuddle bear'.
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| Little strawberry. |
An Italian pet name I like is 'fragolina' which means 'little strawberry'.
3) Little mermaid
'Sirenita' is a cool Spanish pet name which translates as 'little mermaid'.
4) Love Can Make You Rich
A Danish pet name I like is 'min guldklump' which means 'my gold nugget'.
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| Cream puffs. |
A French pet name which is apparently used in a jokey ironic manner is the long-winded expression 'mon petit chou à la crème' which means 'my little cream puff'.
6) Sweet nose
In Swedish the word 'sötnos' is often used to refer to a loved one. It basically means sweetie, but the literal translation is 'sweet nose'.
Weird Pet Names
Not all pet names are cute though, and in fact some are rather weird...
1) Itchy love
In French they have the pet name 'ma puce' which rather surprisingly means 'my flea'. I have to say if someone described me as a flea I wouldn't interpret it as a sign of endearment.
2) Love bug
A similar word is the Hungarian pet name 'bogárkám' which means 'my little bug' which doesn't strike me as very pleasant either.
3) Love is the disease
In Italian they go even smaller with the phrase 'microbino mio' which means 'my little microbe'. It doesn't sound particularly flattering to be described as the cause of disease, although I suppose some microbes are healthy.
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| Eggs. |
In English, a husband or wife might describe their partner as 'my other half' or if they're being complimentary as 'my better half'. Chinese women sometimes describe their husbands as 'my dumb egg' which sounds like an insult but apparently it's usually said in a jokey affectionate way.
5) Censored
The worst pet name of all though, surely has to be the Dutch expression 'mijn poepie' which means 'my little poop'. The person who first decided it would be nice to describe their boyfriend/girlfriend as a little poop must have had some serious issues.
Flowery patter
To round things off, here are some long winded expressions used by patter merchants around the world...
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| "What can we use this bucket for?" |
You would expect a collection of flowery romantic terminology to include a generous selection of French phrases, so to start things off here's the French expression 'Je vis d'amour et d'eau douce' which means 'I live on love and fresh water'. Apparently, this is a French phrase which basically highlights that emotions can be as important as physical things.
2) A love story without a beginning or an end
The Italian language is often associated with love and romance, but also sometimes with flowery patter, and this next expression fits in with that reputation. If you hear an Italian use the expression, 'Ho scritto una storia d’amore senza inizio e senza fine, per scriverla con te' it means, 'I have written a love story without a beginning or ending, so that we may write it together.'
On an unrelated note, the Italian expression 'Passare il secchio malati' means, 'Pass the sick bucket.'
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| "I love you up to my ears." |
Some flowery expressions can be quite cool, and I really like the Russian phrase to describe falling in love very strongly. In English we would say 'to fall head over heels' but in Russian the equivalent expression would be 'to fall in love up to your ears'.
4) Bears and honey
In English it's sometimes said that some women like bad boys and some men like bad girls, but personally I find nice people attractive. That's why I really like the German expression, 'He who wants to catch bears must have honey.' It basically means if you want to attract someone then be a nice person, which is excellent advice in my opinion, although admittedly I wouldn't recommend taking romance tips from me!
And you can find more Valentine's Day themed blog posts below:
Love and romance advice
True or false: Six romance themed 'facts' for Valentine's Day
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