I am a translator and currently trying to find if there is an expression/saying/proverb that has the same meaning as the German
“Man muss die Feste feiern, wie sie fallen.”
Literal translation is:
“One must celebrate the celebrations as they fall.”
The meaning is that when there is something to celebrate, you should d*mn well celebrate it now and not later, even though you may not feel like it right now.
I got as far as “make hay while the sun shines”, but that is more like “beat the iron while it’s hot”, isn’t it?
Excuse the nitpick, but I think it may be possible to use the translation in a slightly different sense of “as they fall” if that can be said to refer to regularly recurring (as in seasonal) celebrations like holidays or religious observances.
If that variation can be allowed, then you might have:
If I understand the sense of the expression you have translated, I would suggest you consider these sayings: “take things as they come”, “play it as it lays”, “roll with the punches”. This last phrase has the additional conotation that one should show endurance.
Nitpick: I’ve never heard the expression “beat the iron”. Perhaps this is used by native speakers of English outside the U.S. I have instead heard it phrased as “strike while the iron is hot”, which roughly means one should seize an opportunity while it is available.
Having looked at a few lists of proverbs, the best ones have already been stated. I can only add the slightly feebler, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Or, of course, Ecclesiastes 3: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” But that isn’t so catchy.
Sorry, folks. I don’t think any of those are exactly right.
From what my in-laws do and say, and other German folks I know, that particular German “proverb” (sprichwort) seems to be saying for you to do things in their proper time.
The best example I can think of is birthdays. There is a very strong disinclination to celebrate a birthday on any day except the one it really occurs on. In the US, at least in my family, it was quite common to celebrate on Sunday a birthday that really falls on a Monday. That kind of thing lets you have a more relaxed party (one day early) rather than trying to squeeze it in after work.
Germans (in my experience) don’t tend to do that. They’ll have the party on Monday in the evening and cause themselves no end of stress in getting things ready for a party on a weekday - and then party late and have a bad day at work on Tuesday.
Also, the word “Feste” can refer to holidays, birthdays, or just any old reason you’d want to have a party.
DemonSpawn, I’ll ask you like I do my wife:
What are you trying to say?
It is much easier to dig up the appropriate phrase when I know the background. Depending on the circumstances, “Strike while the iron is hot” may be correct - or “Carpe Diem,” or even the quote from the Bible.
Mort Furd, you asked exactly the right question. And so do I, normally, when somebody asks me to translate something. I ask “what is the context?”, only in this case I didn’t - probably because it is a proverb.
However, after fumbling with the translation for a while, I remembered to do just that: ask the person why she needed this phrase translated. Turns out she is designing a bilingual invitation for a party. The German part has “Man muss die Feste feiern wie sie fallen!” as the headline, and she needs something similar for the English part.
Now things started getting easier: she does not need a real translation, just a similar phrase as a headline for an invitation.
So I suggested:
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” for a work-/office-related party
and
“18.08.2003 - Carpe diem!”
or
“Get the party started!”
for a family party or anniversary. I think she is pretty happy with that.
Oh, and Mort: you are right again about Germans’ reluctance to celebrate a birthday on a different day. More specifically we can celebrate a few days afterwards, but not before!!! That is serious bad luck. When I noticed that there is no problem whatsoever in the US with celebrating your birthday e.g. on the Saturday before the actual day I was really surprised. A second later I thought: “Well, why not? What a stupid superstition …”
I think “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” would be a pretty poor sort of translation. It would seem to say that we should party today, because it’s our last chance before we die. The German saying seems to be saying that we should party when the schedule calls for a party.
I’d say the translation depends very much on the context. I have heard the saying used in the sense of celebrating at the right season, as well as in the sense of being in favour of celebrating in general.
BTW Mort Furd’s example about birthdays is really a special case. Celebrating one’s birthday ahead of time, even by one day, is widely thought to be tempting fate - we Germans do tend to a more pessimistic mindset.
