# Ainda bem que (PT)/It's just as well (EN)



## Encolpius

I am studying Portuguese and found a very interesting thing. Portuguese have an idiom *Ainda bem que* that could be translated into English as *It's just as well*. The strange thing is if one translates the Portugese idiom literally into Hungarian he gets the same meaning. Czechs have something similar but not the same. Spanish use *Menos mal que* and that's not the same. I think it's not possible Hunagrians took that idiom from Portuguese (we took idioms from German) so I thought maybe Germans have the same idiom. Unfortunately I did find only 1 single reference in the inetrnet. But maybe a native speaker can say if *Noch gut daß.. *exists or does not. Maybe in Austria? Thanks a lot. 
Ainda bem que.. = Ein Glück, dass...


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## evanovka

Hello Encolpius, 
in German (and Bavarian, if that counts  ) "noch gut, dass" does not exist. Possibly in some very isolated dialect, who knows... interesting idea however


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## Hutschi

Möglich ist es durchaus als elliptische Konstruktion. 

Mein Auto ist stehengeblieben.
(Es war...) Noch gut, dass ich meine Monatskarte für den Bus mithatte. (Ich hatte doch noch etwas Glück und meine Monatskarte dabei.)

In dieser Konstruktion ist es ähnlich zu "nur gut".

"noch gut, dass ... " - bei all dem Schlimmen gab es noch etwas Gutes. (Es ist ähnlich zu "Ein Glück, dass ...", es klingt nur etwas pessimistischer.)
Eine übliche Wendung ist: "nur gut, dass ..." - sie bedeutet "glücklicherweise", hat aber eine andere grammatische Form. 


It's just as well. = Es ist besser so. (Stimmt das?)


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## Hexlein

Olá, encolpius, é certo o que diz evanovka, "ainda bem que" não se pode traduzir palavra por palavra ao alemão, mas existe a expressão "nur gut, dass" a qual é equivalente.


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## evanovka

Hutschi - Dein Beispiel mit dem Auto kann ich nicht nachvollziehen, das hört sich für mich definitiv falsch an. "Ein Glück, dass" und "Nur gut, dass" kenne ich beides, aber "Noch gut, dass" geht nicht. Klar kommen im mündlichen auch mal "falsche" Sätze vor (wenn man sich z. B. in der Satzmitte für eine Konstruktion entscheidet, die ein Akkusativ- statt einem Dativobjekt benötigt, kann das schnell passieren) - aber mit dem Argument kann man eigentlich alles durchwinken... 
Bezüglich Dialekt mag das anders aussehen, aber dazu traue ich mich nichts zu sagen


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## Encolpius

Too bad it does not exist in German. I still hope it exists in Austria. 
But Nur gut, daß is very close. 
Altogether I have know idea why the perfect Hungarian-Portuguese coincidence.  maybe through French? Who knows!


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## berndf

"[Es ist] noch gut, dass..." is a very typical Swiss expression. The "noch" has no meaning in the sentence itself but is used to indicate that you want to shift the focus of the discussion or that you are making an off-topic remark.


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## Encolpius

Wow, thank you so so much!


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## sokol

Encolpius said:


> Ainda bem que.. = Ein Glück, dass...



Well ... the Swiss one (Noch gut dass ...) is not known in Austria. But Swiss or - better - Swabian influence would be very possible as quite some of the German new settlers in Hungary came from the Swabian/Alemannic dialect region.

In Austria one could say:
- Na zum Glück!
This is also an elliptic sentence, literally translates as "Well, to luck" which of course doesn't work at all in English.
But it hasn't the same meaning, it would translate as "That's luck!" or "This did turn out lucky."

I think Italian would be a better bet here - I can't quite imagine how the Austrian version given above would translate into Italian while I have a gut feeling that in Italian this should be possible (though my knowledge of Italian is even less than cursory ...). And an impact of colloquial Italian on Hungarian speech is not completely unthinkable of. Also probably Romanian could be considered.


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## Robocop

Dictionary.com erklärt "be just as well" mit "to be fortunate; to be no cause for regret" und findet, "be just as well" heisse auf Deutsch "schon gut so sein".
Demnach würde "Perhaps it is just as well that there was no escape clause in David Beckam's contract with Los Angeles Galaxy." lauten:
- Schon gut so, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt.

Varianten mit schwierig zu beschreibenden Nuancen:
- Ganz gut, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt.
- Vielleicht besser, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt.
- Nur gut, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt.
- Ein Glück, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt.
- Noch gut, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt. ==> Das ist die "Glück im Unglück"-Variante, welche sich von den anderen "irgendwie" abhebt...

An anderer Stelle heisst es, "used to say that an occurrence, or situation, is not only fortunate, but that for the contrary, it could have been a lot worse" (das verstehe ich nicht so richtig) und gibt folgende Beispiele (die ich absolut einleuchtend finde):
- There are 16 female cabdrivers in town, most of them Koreans with limited English skills. Which is just as well, says Alla Tinker, because they don't want to understand much of what their male customers say.
- Marshall stepped away from the conversation, and it was just as well. It could only have gotten hotter from that point.

Anhand der letzten beiden Beispiele kann man gut sehen, dass die oben angeführten Varianten kontextabhängig mehr oder weniger gut passen.


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## Hutschi

Robocop said:


> - Noch gut, dass David Beckhams Vertrag ... keine Ausstiegsklausel enthielt. ==> Das ist die "Glück im Unglück"-Variante, welche sich von den ...



Das ist es, was ich auch mit der "Auto-Variante" meinte. "Glück im Unglück" beschreibt es sehr gut.


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## Hexlein

Ich würde in diesen Fällen aber auch "Nur gut, dass ..." sagen. Auf regionale Unterschiede können wir das nicht schieben, Hutschi, ich bin auch aus Dresden. So klein ist die Welt!!


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## Hutschi

Hexlein said:


> Ich würde in diesen Fällen aber auch "Nur gut, dass ..." sagen. Auf regionale Unterschiede können wir das nicht schieben, Hutschi, ich bin auch aus Dresden. So klein ist die Welt!!



Ich würde es im Normalfall auch sagen. Aber das ist die optimistische Weltsicht.
Aus pessimistischer Weltsicht heraus würde ich "noch gut" sagen ...

Es gibt einen Unterschied: "Nur gut" wird relativ häufig gebraucht. 
"Noch gut ..." ist sehr selten.

Ich bin übrigens "Hergezerrter", geboren in Steinach. Deshalb beherrsche ich auch den örtlichen Dialekt nur wenig.


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## Hexlein

Okay, ich glaube, ich verstehe den Unterschied langsam. 

Ein "Hergezerrter"... - das klingt nicht eben nach Freiwilligkeit... ??

Viele Grüße,
Hexlein


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## Hutschi

Wenn man drei Jahre alt ist, nehmen einen die Eltern einfach mit, auch wenn man bei Oma und Opa bleiben möchte  ...

Aber in der Zwischenzeit ist es freiwillig. Nur gut ...


Noch gut, dass ich in den Ferien immer hinfahren durfte. (Wenigstens durfte ich in den Ferien immer hinfahren.)
Nur gut, dass ich hier neue Freunde gewonnen habe.

Viele Grüße aus dem Elbtal von Hutschi


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## Encolpius

Hello again, I'd like to return to the topic, because now it seems the idiom exists in Dutch. Do you say in German something like: 
*Doch gut, dass... *???
Thank you


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## sokol

Could you please give us the Dutch idiom (or probably link to a Dutch thread?) - it might help. 
(It might remind us of similar constructions in German; still, I doubt that we've got something similar.)


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## brian

Hi, two clarifications:

1) _ainda bem (que)_ in English would be _(it's a) good thing (that)_ or depending on context simply _I'm glad (that), thank goodness!, _etc.

The expression _It's/That's just as well_ is different, though again depending on context it might be possible.

2) @sokol, the Italian version is the same as Spanish: _meno male (che)_.

So basically the translation into German is really going to depend on context:

_Ainda bem! -- Gott sei Dank!_
_Ainda bem que... -- Gut, dass..._
etc.

And I don't think there are any expressions containing _noch_ or _doch_. Or at least I don't know any--but I'm not a native.


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## ink-heart

At least in Northern Germany, the expression _"man gut ..."_ exists:
_"Man gut, dass es Betten gibt. Ich hätte keine Lust, auf der Erde zu schlafen"_ (no idea where this example comes from ). But it's absolutely colloquial, I think I've never seen it in written form so far. (I was really wondering whether to write "man" or "mann" for a moment.)


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## Encolpius

sokol said:


> Could you please give us the Dutch idiom (or probably link to a Dutch thread?) - it might help.
> (It might remind us of similar constructions in German; still, I doubt that we've got something similar.)




With pleasure. I found the idiom in a large dictionary. 
Dutch: *Toch maar goed *dat hij is meegegaan. 
German translation: *Doch gut*, dass er mitgegangen ist.


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## sokol

brian8733 said:


> And I don't think there are any expressions containing _noch_ or _doch_. Or at least I don't know any--but I'm not a native.


Thanks for clarifying this, Brian; my knowledge of Portuguese is close to non-existant. 
Further, I am even more sure than I was before that no similar constructions, matching either the Portuguese or the English one (despite the fact that both don't mean exactly the same), does not exist in German. Because that one here:


Encolpius said:


> Dutch: *Toch maar goed *dat hij is meegegaan.
> German translation: *Doch gut*, dass er mitgegangen ist.


isn't a set phrase really; German "Doch gut" here is perfectly correct and idiomatic, but it isn't really meaning "It's just as well", neither "Ainda bem que" (and neither is Swiss "Noch gut" as discussed above) - it only can mean in some specific contexts something similar (like here), but both English and Portuguese phrases are set phrases which have acquired a broader meaning than the literal one.
German "Doch gut" on the other hand just has the literal meaning, the only thing which is unusual here is that the verb is left out ("Doch gut" < "Ist doch gut" < "Es ist doch gut"), so a simple elliptical construction - that's all.


ink-heart said:


> At least in Northern Germany, the expression _"man gut ..."_ exists:
> _"Man gut, dass es Betten gibt. Ich hätte keine Lust, auf der Erde zu schlafen"_ (no idea where this example comes from ).


 That's rather "Man*n* gut", isn't it? (I know it from films only, it isn't used in Austria, and that's how I "heard" it. )


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## ink-heart

sokol said:


> That's rather "Man*n* gut", isn't it? (I know it from films only, it isn't used in Austria, and that's how I "heard" it. )


 
Now you've confused me again.  No, really, I looked it up and it is definitely 'man'. The "Großwörterbuch" says it is actually mostly used in Northern Germany as a sort of intensifier. It has exactly the same meaning as "nur".


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## Outsider

For those who might be wondering, a literal translation of the Portuguese phrases into English would go more or less as follows:

_ainda bem_ = still well / yet well
_ainda bem que_ = still well that / yet well that

It is a set phrase. _Ainda_ can have various meanings, but I can't think of another instance where it combines with "well" or "good". At best, I can say that there are cases where ainda means "also". Then you could parse the two phrases as:

_ainda bem_ = also well
_ainda bem que_ = also well that

As for the proper translation, see Brian's post.


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## ablativ

sokol said:


> That's rather "Man*n* gut", isn't it? (I know it from films only, it isn't used in Austria, and that's how I "heard" it. )



Das denke ich eigentlich nicht. Dieses "man" scheint mir phonetisch mit dem niederländischen "maar" ( nur, jedoch, mal [oder oft auch nur als Füllwort verwendet]) verwandt - bzw. könnte sich durch die gemeinsamen sprachlichen Wurzeln etymologisch parallel entwickelt haben.


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## sokol

ink-heart said:


> No, really, I looked it up and it is definitely 'man'. The "Großwörterbuch" says it is actually mostly used in Northern Germany as a sort of intensifier. It has exactly the same meaning as "nur".





ablativ said:


> Dieses "man" scheint mir phonetisch mit dem niederländischen "maar" ( nur, jedoch, mal [oder oft auch nur als Füllwort verwendet]) verwandt ...


Well, if it is a dialect word for "nur" then that's a different story.  - Ihr habt beide sicherlich recht, wie schon erwähnt ist mir sowohl dieses "man" als auch norddeutscher Dialekt generell fremd, daher hab ich die Form mit Hochdeutsch "Mann/man" (beides etymologisch mit derselben Wurzel) verbunden.


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