# 鱼做得恰到好处



## grzejnix

Hello my dear friends,

This sentence is bothering me rather bad recently:

 鱼做得恰到好处.

Or it's rather it's translation I found on skritter.com which goes "The fish is done to a turn".

I would rather say this sentence means just: This fish has been well prepared (in food terms).

Who is right? The skritter, me or neither?

Please help,

Best regards,


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## Lamb67

you are right.

done to a turn is not English.


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## viajero_canjeado

"Done to a turn" is English, just not commonly used English (that is to say, I've never heard the phrase before but can imagine it might be used in other dialects). Another wording might be more common, like the one you suggested, or "perfectly done", "cooked just right".


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## GamblingCamel

Lamb67 said:


> done to a turn is not English.


I agree with you LAMB.  
Though I do like VC's comment : "I've never heard the phrase before but can imagine it might be used in other dialects." 
Imaginary English. That's a very cool idea.

I googled "the fish is done to a turn." The primary example is a Vietnam travel site; however, it's slowly making its way east, popping up in a blog about Seattle, Washington.

In cooking terms, "done to a turn" would make more sense to describe when it's time to flip (turn) a steak or a fish on the grill.


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## viajero_canjeado

I tend to think of it in terms of non-discriminatory English. The scope of English usage has become so broad that calques and regionalisms which might not be present in my native dialect could well be found in India, South Africa, Australia or China. Just so happens that I didn't grow up saying it that way, but millions of other people might have.

While we're on the subject, the structure of "verb + to a ___" isn't uncommon to our language, such as "written/done to a t". I guess it's just a matter of connecting "turn" to the idea of "perfection". All that being said, I do agree that "to a turn" would make more sense to me if it's describing when to flip the piece of meat.


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## xiaolijie

As speakers of English, you should have heard of _"to a T"_ (= perfect, just right). 
_"To a turn"_ is a, kind of, variation of this.


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## swim4life

xiaolijie said:


> As speakers of English, you should have heard of _"to a T"_ (= perfect, just right).
> _"To a turn"_ is a, kind of, variation of this.


Yes. Native speakers of English should have heard of this phrase. "done/cooked to a turn": to be perfectly cooked (烹调得恰到好处)


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## GamblingCamel

swim4life said:


> Yes. Native speakers of English should have heard of this phrase. "done/cooked to a turn": to be perfectly cooked (烹调得恰到好处)



You're exactly correct, SWIM. Cooked/done to a turn, per Google, is definitely part of the vast EN language.
I had never heard it, though. I'll start using it here in the States and see if people understand me.



> Since at least the end of the first Millennium, food, especially meat, has been cooked on spits. The English abbot and scholar, Aelfric of Eynsham, referred to them as 'spitu' in Latin Grammar and Glossary, circa 1000.
> 
> The allusion in the phrase 'done to a turn', or 'roasted to a turn', is to food that had been *cooked for the precisely correct number of turns of the spit*. Both versions of the phrase date back to the 18th century and the 'roasted' form is first cited in a piece by an author called Mackenzie in Mirror No. 93, 1780.


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## grzejnix

Allright, thank you so much! 谢啦！


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## viajero_canjeado

swim4life said:


> Yes. Native speakers of English should have heard of this phrase. "done/cooked to a turn": to be perfectly cooked (烹调得恰到好处)



Allow me to kindly point out that two native speakers in the thread had, before today, not heard of it. So, at least in America, it's safe to assume that "done/cooked to a turn" is not a commonly-used or widely-known (though if you'd like more opinions, feel free to solicit them in the English-only forum) "turn" of phrase.

GamblingCamel may well change that, however.


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## strad

swim4life said:


> Yes. Native speakers of English should have heard of this phrase. "done/cooked to a turn": to be perfectly cooked (烹调得恰到好处)



Why should we have? 

I, like pretty much every other native English speaker on this thread, have never heard this phrase before.  I just asked a few other native English speakers in my office, and they had never heard this phrase either (the French guys hadn't either, by the way  ).

Is this phrase a recognized idiom for some English speakers?  Probably.  But to state "Native speakers of English should have heard of this phrase" is demonstrably false, and I therefore would not recommend it as a translation for 烹调得恰到好处.


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## GamblingCamel

strad said:


> Why should we have?


Haha. I'm easygoing, I guess. When a fellow from Shanghai uses a past conditional of a modal verb in ENglish, I give him the benefit of the doubt.


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## GamblingCamel

viajero_canjeado said:


> GamblingCamel may well change that, however.


You betcha. I've already used it twice today in conversations, describing the perfect steak I had for dinner last Sunday night.
And I discovered a good Google image for "done to a turn."


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## xiaolijie

strad said:
			
		

> I therefore would not recommend it as a translation for 烹调得恰到好处.


Here at http://idioms.yourdictionary.com/to-a-t you will see a reference to "to a turn", and you'll also see _"The roast was done to a turn "_ cited as an example sentence of the idiom *"to a turn"*. So the compilers of the dictionary must have been following this thread and then decided to take sides !


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## viajero_canjeado

xiaolijie said:


> Here at http://idioms.yourdictionary.com/to-a-t you will see a reference to "to a turn", and you'll also see _"The roast was done to a turn "_ cited as an example sentence of the idiom *"to a turn"*. So the compilers of the dictionary must have been following this thread and then decided to take sides !



Seems like I also read somewhere that "to a t" evolved from the original phrase "to a tittle", to the point that its ancestor is all but forgotten. At any rate, "to a t" is frequently heard where I come from. The dictionary you cited may have mistakenly connected "to a turn" to "to a t", which supposition is supported by the fact that "to a turn" appears much more narrow in its usage (ie. referring to meat, unless used metaphorically). I fear that, if someone uses it haphazardly in a conversation, they'll encounter a fair amount of raised eyebrows and "huh?"s, though we'll wait for Camel to publish his experiment results before we say for sure.



GamblingCamel said:


> You betcha. I've already used it twice today in conversations, describing the perfect steak I had for dinner last Sunday night.



Did people know what you were talking about?


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## bamboobanga

maybe it's a british thing?..


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## indigoduck

bamboobanga said:


> maybe it's a british thing?..


 
Or perhaps strickly European.  I've never heard of it in Canada.


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