Coordinating German translations

If it's worth anything coming from a Brazilian, I'm happy with your word choice: "Sie, Sie liegst mir im Herzen" doesn't feel quite the same. :P

ā€œSie liegen mir am Herzen.ā€

When you care about something, or ā€œsomethingā€™s [near and dear] to your heartā€, then

ā€œ_ liegt dir am Herzenā€. I found the reference, but no one that Iā€™m aware of would say ā€œim Herzenā€, because that sounds literal rather than figurative. Then again ā€˜am Herzen liegenā€™ is mostly used for events or circumstances, less so for people.

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I once read, in some philosophy book, an apocryphal anecdote concerning Plato's final moments, according to which the philosopher had wanted to hear some music and someone was brought to play the lire for him. As it went, at some point the musician let a wrong note slip and Plato gently guided her finger to the proper position right before he expired. True or not, I do like to think that his last action, even regarding something that didn't matter in the greater order of things, was to strive for harmony.

So, I take it youā€™re doing something similar. In this case, Iā€™d like to take the opportunity to ask if that verse was meant to sound literal, for one reason or another, or if the fact that it is so now is due to an idiomatic change over timeā€”according to Wikipedia, the song is ā€œbelieved to have originated in northern Germany around 1820.ā€

Then again, I have this friend of German heritage and sometimes Iā€™ll make a joke and heā€™ll answer in all seriousness, and Iā€™ll do the same, so weā€™ll go back and forth and embark in a long tangent until one of us finally asks: ā€œYou do know that I was just joking, right?ā€ I never did ask if that had cultural roots, so maybe your reply and my post share the same playful spirit?

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Oh, I just thought if Iā€™m going to correct the grammar (ā€œSie liegenā€), I might as well update the phrase to be more idiomatic with respect to contemporary German. In a ā€˜the more you knowā€™ kind of way.

Itā€™s obviously the figurative sense as in ā€œyouā€™re important to meā€, though the point could be made that it was the authorā€™s intention to convey [you are within my heart] in a sense of ā€œi always think feel of youā€ (in my heart). Thatā€™s defensible, because it would create a bit of an antithesis within the first 2 lines (loosely: i feel you in my heart, i think of you in my mind).

But that would require a wholly different construction altogether if weā€™re going for contemporary German. :smiley:

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So Plato it is. It rather suits you, smurph. Thank you for such a beautiful post.

(still canā€™t tag anybody without making the Chrome tab crash ā€¦ anoek?)

smurph, lucasfelix:

(assuming that this is what lucasfelix was referring to)

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Iā€™ve been checking for updates, nothing so far :frowning:

I canā€™t tag anyone without making the computer crash, trohde. :confused:

But yes, thatā€™s what I was referring to. Itā€™s Hermann Preyā€™s rendition that really makes me want to smoke a cigarette and think about stuff, though:

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Updates seem to be live now. All strings seem to use ā€œDuā€ now. Besides some other wording fixes, i did.

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