A bad workman blames his tools!
“Work is lax in many cities.”
This proverb brought to you by the Malagasy, Maltese, and Mandarin languages.
Many hands make light work?
Yep c: I just wonder how cities got in.
Let me try again then. I like the result of this one even though I don’t think it’s too hard.
House is not house.
(Anyone played Baba is You, the video game?)
Fair enough.
Here is what I put in the machine: “A bad workman always blames his tools.”
Funny how “always” became “often”. Another pass and it would have gone “sometimes”.
And eventually disappeared in the answer.
Home sweet home?
Nope, although it’s not too far.
By the way, the languages were Shona and Traditional Chinese. (I find that going away from indo-european roots works better for mangling similar words together)
Is it “a house is not a home”?
Exactly, nicely done.
Initially I wanted to use the French proverb:
Not all those who ride horses are knights
(Tous ne sont pas chevaliers qui à cheval montent)
but I couldn’t find a better English equivalent. I liked this one because I suspected the difference between “house” and “home” could be lost in translation.
Not being native, it’s a bit hard to know which proverbs are well known… I tried to translate classical French proverbs or look at some lists such as https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/proverbs.html.
I guess you could always try book and film titles and things. It can still be tricky to get them far enough from what they started as. Here’s a film title that still somewhat resembles what it started out as
A day when the country is calm
Not all those who ride horses are knights
(Tous ne sont pas chevaliers qui à cheval montent)
I don’t think this quite maps to a house is not a home.
I’d translate it as not all that glitters is gold.