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- "Zum Glück fehlt mir nichts."
11 Comments
Actually, I thought the same and I had to read it about 5 times before realizing what's going on here. The German sentence sounds like someone getting away from a car crash without being injured. 'Zum Glück' then would mean 'fortunately', which is the most common translation of that phrase, or 'luckily' as igb suggested. 'Mir fehlt nichts' usually means "I'm fine, I'm really alright" in reply to a maybe worried question. That being said, you might translate this as "Fortunately, I'm absolutely fine", you got away without a scratch. What I assume though is, that all this escaped duo, since the German sentence might be read another way, which would be uncommon: There's nothing missing to make my personal fortune/joy/happiness complete. This, however, is very misleading, due to the idiomatic use explained above. Only when asked "Was fehlt dir zu deinem Glück?", you might reply "Zu meinem Glück fehlt mir nichts". Without any context, you might say 'Zum Glücklichsein' – for being happy, you miss nothing. But then, the wording is still pretty odd.
In German are at least two meanings depending on the context, and as the context is not given we don't know, this is a typical DUO "thing"! 1st: Zum Glueck fehlt mir nichts! with an exclamation mark, = luckily I escaped for instance a car crash, and I am alright (unhurt), 2nd Zum Glueck fehlt mir nichts. (normally in different word order. "Mir fehlt nichts zu Glueck" {oder zum gluecklich sein}). = Nothing's missing to be happy. I have everything to be happy/content whatsoever. The trouble is DUO's tranlation doesn't fit. "Luckily I am not lacking anything" is not a translation of "Zum Glück fehlt mir nichts." If you want to say that everything is still there after you checked your pockets, you would say, "Zum Glueck, ich habe noch alles / ich habe nichts verloren/ ich vermisse nichts etc."