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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Du är vacker i profil."
32 Comments
I find it an hilarious insult. 'You're beautiful... in profile.'
You're basically telling them they are pretty as long as they don't look straight at you. Which is the funniest way I've ever heard of saying someone's ugly.
Ah!
210
To a German this doesn't sound horrible/insulting at all. In fact, most Germans will tell you which side they want photographed. We call it our Schokoladenseite - "chocolate side".
does this literally mean, 'the outline of your body/face is beautiful'? or does it refer to a 'profile' as in - an online description / dating profile /facebook profile etc. If it means the latter, I believe the English translation is incorrect and implies the former.
- 1454
It means only the former in Swedish. The latter would have to be expressed otherwise, like Du är vacker på din profilbild or something like that.
What does this even mean in English? :S in profile? I've never heard that before. Does it mean in person?
I guess it’s an expression which is more common in Swedish than in English.
I don't know that one would necessarily say "My, you are beautiful in profile!" as a common complement (that would be a very specific, flattering thing to say, or creepy, depending on the context!), but a beautiful profile is definitely a thing in English. It's a little poetic.
Not necessarily, it's pretty old fashioned it's true, dating back to a time when cameos and miniatures were in vogue, but as a photographer it's still something that I might say!
I came here to ask if this is what this sentence meant... I knew "profile" but I've never seen it used like this way before as I think it would come across as unnatural.
Does it mean, "you have a beautiful figure"? I've never heard profile used like this... and I've lived in 3 English speaking countries as well as being British myself. It seems very unnatural and almost insulting or maybe even creepy. I automatically assumed it was referencing an online profile, which would make it even more insulting. Lol
This is not how we say it in english. It is proper to say "You have a beautiful profile".
"You have a beautiful profile" should be accepted as well. It has the same meaning and uses the same words but in a different order. And as an added bonus, it also works in English!
Does anyone else very clearly hear the normal-speed TTS pronounce the verb as "var"?
- 1743
Yes! I do - not sure if I'm mishearing it or if it's meant to sound like that or if it's a problem with the TTS. (It is May 2017 just now - in case that helps with which TTS version people are using). Any thoughts?
- 775
So does this mean like a pose? I'm a native English speaker and didn't have a clue what this meant until reading these comments
"your profile is beautiful" was marked wrong. It certainly doesn't have the implied insult of the preferred translation. Does it catch the Swedish meaning of the sentence or is that also a bit rude like the given translation?
- 1454
Yes, it's Din profil är vacker in Swedish. I think it works pretty much the same in both languages – if you put it that way, you run less risk of being rude. Unless you stress profil a little too much …
Definitely go with Margie on this one... Otherwise it's a case of unidiomatic translationese.
Why isn't "your profile is beautiful" accepted? This is the more natural way of saying this in English.
As a Canadian english speaker, I would say "you are beautiful from the side". In profile and from the side mean the same thing to me in this context, but the later is the natural translation.
why wont duo accept "you are lovely in profile" it has previously accepted lovely for vacker
It is always difficult to know whether Duolingo wants a literal translation that sounds a bit odd in English, or a translation to what an English person would say, which is "you have a beautiful profile".
Creators of portraits (photographers and artists) certainly would use this expression.
