# Once upon a time (beginning of a fairy tale)



## Leopold

Hello everyone, 

I'd like to ask the foreros to contribute to the translation of this formula into as many languages as possible.

I'd like to know the ways of opening and ending a children's story.

In Spanish it is: 
"*Érase una vez*"
[...]

Other options in Spanish are welcome (but that's not the point of this thread, so please refrain yourself and don't flood the thread with Spanish variants  thanks)

Other alphabets are very welcome too.

Thank you very much in advance.

Leo


Moderator's note: to know how to close a fairy tale, please have a look at this thread.


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## charlie2

Il était une fois... That's French for once upon a time ......, I think.
從前...... is the chinese way of saying once upon a time. (As in Spanish, there are variants in chinese too.)
I hope that's what you are asking.


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## belén

Hola Leo,

In Catalan:

Hi havia una vegada...
(no accent on "havia")

I will find out about endings,

¡Saludos!
Be


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## charlie2

I dare say most of the stories that chinese children are told have morals. That's at least the case when I was a kid. These stories always end with :這個故事教訓我們...... A strict "word for word" translation is : This story teaches us ...
As for the French version, I'd better leave it for the native speakers to contribute.
And they lived happily ever after :從此他們就快快樂樂地生活下去.
This exercise is really fun!


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## Outsider

En *portugués*:

_Era uma vez...
_


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## Eddie

Hey! How come no one mentioned the *Spanish *way of opening a fairy tale? (unless I missed it): _Había una vez..._


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## Leopold

Hello Eddie, you're right in Spanish we say "Había una vez" or "Érase una vez", it's the same. 

Leo


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## Eddie

Thanks, Leo. I completely forgot about the second Spanish phrase.


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## Whodunit

charlie2 said:
			
		

> Il était une fois... That's French for once upon a time ......, I think.
> 從前...... is the chinese way of saying once upon a time. (As in Spanish, there are variants in chinese too.)
> I hope that's what you are asking.



I think the obsolete French form is "Il y avait une fois ..."

In *German *we say as the beginning: "Es war/waren einmal ..." and to end a child's story, we know following:
"Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute." OR
"Und sie lebten glücklich bis an ihr Lebensende."

To Charlie: How do you pronounce the Chinese variants? I don't know the characters.


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## A.K

Hi, well, in Japanese it would be:

*Once upon a time:* 昔 (in kanji) or むかし (in hiragana, and specially for children coz they still don't know too many kanjis). The reading of this MUKASHI.
Also, if you want to express that the story happened A LOT of time ago you can say 昔々(in kanji) or むかしむかし. Being the way to read and say MUKASHI MUKASHI.

That's all.

終わり。


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## charlie2

whodunit said:
			
		

> I think the obsolete French form is "Il y avait une fois ..."
> To Charlie: How do you pronounce the Chinese variants? I don't know the characters.


On the French one, I have heard both forms and I could never tell. Sorry.
On the chinese forms, let me try the Mandarin pronunciations for you:
Once upon a time : cong qian ... 

 Let me know if you have any problem with these.


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## Javier-Vega

I may add yet another spanish fairy-tale starting phrase: 
"Erase que se era..."
It's a very odd expression, but it does exist.


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## mjscott

Once, in a time long, long ago; and in a land far, far away there lived....

....and because of the actions of the courageous knight, all was well in the realm of all of the kingdom!


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## Jana337

*Czech*:

once upon a time - bylo, nebylo
A literal translation would be "it was, it wasn't", which implies that the story is fabulated.
an alternative expression - žili, byli (like in Russian), literally "they lived, they were"

Jana


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## beatrizg

Hola a todos!
In Greek, children'stories begin:
"Mia forá ki énan kairó..." The meaning is very close to "Once upon a time".
I can attempt a literal translation into Spanish, como: "Una vez y un tiempo..."

(Leopold: I cannot use the Greek alphabet form my iMac at home.
If you are interested I coud try tomorrow to write it in Greek from my PC at work)


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## haujavi

En *euskera *sería más o menos así

*Erase una vez...= Behin batean/behin bazen*


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## JLanguage

In *Hebrew*: פעם אחת
Pa'am Achat


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## Leopold

Hello JLanguage, thank you very much for the Hebrew. And be very welcome to the WR Forums.  I hope you'll enjoy them.
And thank you, haujavi. 

Leo


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## Lancel0t

Leopold here are some *Filipino *translations:

Once upon a time ( Noong unang panahon )


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## cuchuflete

Leo,
Another common story opening, though not just for children:

It was a dark and stormy night.....


saludos,
Cuchu


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## pinkpanter

In *Swedish*,

*det var en gång * - once upon a time


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## gaer

I don't know if anyone mentioned Japanese:

彼らは、それからずっと幸せに暮らしました。
かれらは、それからずっとしあわせにくらしました。
Kare wa, sore kara zutto shiawase ni kurashimashita.

And they lived happily ever after [a long time].
(They that after a long time happily lived.)

[Japanese makes the most backwards German sentence structure look almost like English!]


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## merkkari

In *Finnish*:

Olipa kerran.. (Once upon a time there was)


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## vesna

Hello everybody!
Well, as promised this afternoon, Leopold, here's my part of this thread. 
I had to think really hard to remember these things, nobody has been telling me stories lately   

*Slovenian*:
Nekoc je zivel...  - There once lived...
Za sedmimi gorami in sedmimi vodami...  - Detras de siete montanas y siete aguas...
Pred davnimi casi...  - Long time ago.../Once upon a time...

Take care! V.


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## pinkpanter

Good luck with the graphic project!


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## Narda

Hi guys, I was also wondering about Había una vez...  

También:  Hace mucho tiempo, cuando...


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## Merlino

*In Dutch:*

"Er was eens..." (Once upon a time there was...)


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## Nocciolina

Once upon a time.....and they all lived happily ever after.


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## ivanbcn

*Italian*

My father used to start with:

"C'era una volta..."
or
"Tanto tempo fa..."


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## Whodunit

"Once upon a time" in *Romanian*:

A fost o data ca niciodata ...

I found it here.


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## MingRaymond

Cantonese: 喺好耐好耐以前


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## pasti_for_ever

I think in Ukranian it can be 
"jilu,buli sobi..." or "odnogo razu..." and in Russian is most same.


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## Nizo

Fairy tales and fables in *Esperanto* often begin with _estis iam..._ or _iam estis..._.  Both mean _there once was/were..._


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## alex.raf

*Persian:*
Yeki bood, yeki nabood یکی بود یکی نبود


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## Orlin

*Bulgarian*: имало едно време.


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## mataripis

*Tagalog*: _Sa matagal/lumang panahon may ........./ at sila ay nabuhay na masaya simula nuon._


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## Cilquiestsuens

Reviving this carbon-dated thread by adding the way to say so in the Breton language:

_*Ur wech e oa, ur wech ne oa ket hag ur wech e oa bepred*_.

(once there was, once there wasn't and once there was again/always)

My query was actually to ask if this kind of formulae (there was + then there wasn't...) can be found in other cultures. It seems that the answer is yes since it exits in Russian and Persian apparently any other languages (it seems that Arabic has it too?)


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## arielipi

JLanguage said:


> In *Hebrew*: פעם אחת
> Pa'am Achat


Also:
היה היה hayo haya - there was
היה היו hayo hayu there were

והם חיו באושר ועושר עד עצם היום הזה
vehem khayu be'osher va'*o*sher ad etzem hayom haze
and they lived in richness and happiness till this very day -
and they lived happily ever after


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## Grefsen

pinkpanter said:


> In *Swedish*,
> 
> *det var en gång * - once upon a time


It's almost exactly the same _*på*_ _*norsk *_(in Norwegian):

*Det var en gang* - Once upon a time


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## Radioh

Hi. In Vietnamese, it is *Ngày xửa ngày xưa*. Besides "once upon a time", it can be translated literally into English as *A very very long time ago.*


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## Xorazon10

*In Thai*

Hello guys, the phrase "once upon a time" could be said as
กาลครั้งหนึ่งนานมาแล้ว…
_(kala khrang nueng naan ma laew)
_
กาล _(pronounced on its own as "kan", but when followed by another consonent it is pronounced as "kala") _means time, as in an era or an epoch. 
ครั้งหนึ่ง _(khrang nueng) _means once or one time, as in this particular event took place at one time and not more. 
นานมาแล้ว _(naan ma laew) _means a long time ago. 

I hope this is helpful. ☺️


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## spindlemoss

In Welsh: *Unwaith* or *Un tro*, which both just mean "Once / One time".


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## apmoy70

beatrizg said:


> Hola a todos!
> In Greek, children'stories begin:
> "Mia forá ki énan kairó..." The meaning is very close to "Once upon a time"


In Greek fonts and IPA pronunciation:
*«Μια φορά κι έναν καιρό»* [mɲa foˈɾa ci‿ˈenaŋ ɟeˈɾo] --> _One occasion and one time_

*«Κι»* [ci] is the spelling of the phonetically reduced *«και»* [ce] --> _and, also_ when vowels follow.


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## Messquito

In Taiwan, we like to reduplicate 從前 and make it 從前從前......
We also say 很久很久以前...... (a long time ago)


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## Testing1234567

If I'm not mistaken, in Hokkien (aka Min Nan, Amoy, Taiwanese) one says 真久真久以前.


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## franknagy

Hungarian:
"Volt egyszer, hol nem volt,"= T"here was once, where wasn't".
The above phrase is continued svereal ways

ahol a kurta falkú kismalac túrt = where the short-tailed piggin was digibg
az üveghegyen túl  = beyond the glass mountain
az óperenciás tengeren is túl = beyond even the Atlantic ocean.


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