# You can't make a silk purse/Aunque la mona se vista de seda.



## dahut

Hello!

Believe it or not, this is one of my favourite sayings and I was wondering whether there is an equivalent in other languages.

It is often used when someone pretends that has more class (upwards) or finer taste than the facts.
He/she wears very expensive clothes or drives luxury cars and then he/she opens his/her mouth and sounds vulgar or walks like an elephant pretending she is graceful.
They overdo protocol rules.

I haven't anything against "rich people" (blessed be) but just imagine one, as an easy example:
I woman wearing D&G or Gucci..., gets out of her Chrysler and she shouts to the parking-man "Ya, man, come and get my car. Treat her well or I smash your nose. Ha, ha, ha, Ya got the joke, ain't ya? Ha, ha, ha". As a witness you could say: _Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda._
*One can't hide behind appearances who she/he truly is.*

Thank you


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## Chazzwozzer

That's gotta be *"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" *in English, but I cannot think of any equivalent proverb in Turkish.


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## ameana7

hola dahut,

en turco hay una refran asi. we say "eşeğe altın semer vursan, eşek yine eşektir."
it means "you can put a packsaddle on a donkey but donkey is always a donkey." i think i cannot translate it very well but you can use it in the same situation in your example. it means people doesn't change by changing their outside appearence.


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## ameana7

no chazz there is an example in turkish too


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## linguist786

hmm.. can't really think of one in Hindi/Urdu/Gujarati. I'll keep thinking though


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## dahut

_Chazzwozzer_: Thank you so much. So bittersweet-funny!

_ameana7_: Muchas gracias. I can't read Turkish but when I read the translation I thought it was so cute! I might picture a donkey as a soft toy donkey... hm... weird!


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## Chazzwozzer

ameana7 said:


> Hola dahut,
> 
> En turco hay una refran asi. We say "Eşeğe altın semer vursan da, eşek yine eşektir."
> It means "you can Even if you put a golden packsaddle on a donkey but the donkey is always a donkey." I think I cannot translate it very well but you can use it in the same situation in your example. It means people doesn't don't change by changing their outside appearence.


Some little corrections for my Turkish fella! 

That's a perfect equivalent, by the way. Too bad, I couldn't think of that, it's such a popular saying.


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## dahut

So far:
Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda. (Spanish)
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. (English)
Eşeğe altın semer vursan da, eşek yine eşektir. (Turkish)

Anybody else?

Thank you


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## kgleoite

Irish
Cuir síoda ar ghabhar ach is gabhar i gcónaí é.
_Dress a goat in silk and he still remains a goat_​


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## Stéphane89

I don't know any exact equivalent for this but there are some French proverbs which could fit:

- On ne fait pas d'un âne un cheval de course _(One cannot make a race-horse from a donkey)_* That's the one that fits to the subject best.*
- A vieille mule, frein doré _(To an old mule, a golden bit)_* Used to design an old/ugly person who wears beautiful clothes to hide their ugliness.*
- L'habit ne fait pas le moine _(Apparence can be deceptive)_* It means that you mustn't judge someone by his/her clothes.*
- On reconnait l'arbre à ses fruits _(One recognizes the tree by its fruit)_* You recognize someone's valour by his/her actions.*

Well, here you are some. Chose the one which seems best to you.


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## claudine2006

In Italian something similar is:
L'abito non fa il monaco.


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## Henryk

German: Aus einem Kieselstein kann man keinen Diamanten schleifen.

Literally translated it's: You can't cut a diamond out of a pebble.


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## optimistique

In Dutch we have the expression: 
*Al draagt een aap een gouden ring, het is en blijft een lelijk ding.

*_Even when a monkey wears a golden ring, it is and stays an ugly thing_ (it even rhymes in translation!).


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## Chazzwozzer

claudine2006 said:


> In Italian something similar is:
> L'abito non fa il monaco.



Can you please tell us what it means?


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## Henryk

The suit doesn't make a monk, if I'm not mistaken.


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## beclija

It's maybe not 100% equivalent, but Serbian and Croatian you will hear something like this:
Noga lička, a cipela bečka.
_The leg from Lika, the shoe Viennese.

_I guess that it goes back to the days when Vienna was the adored capital, and Lika appearently considered as particularly backward or Barbarian. Today's Vienna doesn't deserve the honour.


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## Josh_

There may be one in Arabic that is closer, but this one might be able to pass as a rough equivalent.  In any case, it sort of expresses a similar, but still not exact, idea:

*العين ما تعلىش على الحاجب
*il-'een mati'laash 'ala il-Haagib
The literal meaning is "the eye does not rise above the eyebrow."
It means that one should know (and respect) his/her place in life; one should not try to be different than one actually is.


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## dahut

So great!! *Thank you so much to you all*!!

Here is the list (_so far_):

*Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda.*(Spanish)
_Even if a monkey wears silk, she is still a monkey_
*You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.*(English)
*Eşeğe altın semer vursan da, eşek yine eşektir.*(Turkish)
_Even if you put a golden packsaddle on a donkey, the donkey is always a donkey_
*Cuir síoda ar ghabhar ach is gabhar i gcónaí é.*_(Irish)_
_Dress a goat in silk and he still remains a goat._
*On ne fait pas d'un âne un cheval de course.*_(French)_
_One cannot make a race-horse from a donkey_
*L'abito non fa il monaco.*(Italian)
_The suit doesn't make a monk._
*Aus einem Kieselstein kann man keinen Diamanten schleifen.*(German)
_You can't cut a diamond out of a pebble._
*Al draagt een aap een gouden ring, het is en blijft een lelijk ding.*(Dutch)
_Even when a monkey wears a golden ring, it is and stays an ugly thing_
*Noga lička, a cipela bečka.*(Serbian and Croatian)
_The leg from __Lika__, the shoe Viennese._
*العينماتعلىشعلىالحاجب*(Arabic)  [il-'een mati'laash 'ala il-Haagib]
_*T*__he eye does not rise above the eyebrow_.


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## Grekh

StefKE said:


> I don't know any exact equivalent for this but there are some French proverbs which could fit:
> 
> - On ne fait pas d'un âne un cheval de course _(One cannot make a race-horse from a donkey)_* That's the one that fits to the subject best.*
> - A vieille mule, frein doré _(To an old mule, a golden bit)_* Used to design an old/ugly person who wears beautiful clothes to hide their ugliness.*
> - L'habit ne fait pas le moine _(Apparence can be deceptive)_* It means that you mustn't judge someone by his/her clothes.*
> - On reconnait l'arbre à ses fruits _(One recognizes the tree by its fruit)_* You recognize someone's valour by his/her actions.*
> 
> Well, here you are some. Chose the one which seems best to you.


 
I think "L'habit ne fait pas le moine" is better...if you see, it's exactly the same than the one in italian.


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## dahut

Grekh said:


> I think "L'habit ne fait pas le moine" is better...if you see, it's exactly the same than the one in italian.


 
Thank you for the suggestion.
However, I thought it could have a slight different meaning as it happens in Spanish.
El hábito no hace al monje. (Sp.) // Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda.
L'habit ne fait pas le moine (Fr.) // On ne fait pas d'un âne un cheval de course.
L'abito non fa il monaco.(It.) = L'abito non fa il monaco ?

Un saludo


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## DrWatson

The closest equivalent I can think of in Finnish is:
"Moni on kakku päältä kaunis, kuorelta kovin sileä
vaan on silkkoa sisässä, akanoita alla kuoren."
Normally it's shortened to "Moni kakku päältä kaunis."

It comes from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, and it's been translated like this in the English edition:
"Many loaves are fine to look on,
On the outside seem delicious,
On the inside, chaff and tan-bark!"

It basically means that something that looks beautiful and nice on the outside may not be beautiful and nice on the inside.


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## J.F. de TROYES

I'd like to add this other French proverb:

"La caque sent toujours le hareng"  (The (herring) barrel always smells of herring" ).

The Harrap's French-Spanish dictionary quotes it as a French equivalent of the Spanish one. 
What do you think about ?


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## dahut

Dr. Watson, I really like it. I guess I will take the short version, though.  

J. F. de Troyes, it sounded so brutally honest, that I had to like it... a lot.  

Thank you sooo much for your contributions.

Regards


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## LeMakiyo

In Chinese, I believe you can say "猪八戒照镜子" . 
猪 (zhu) = Pig
八 (ba) = Eight
戒 (jie) = Prohibitions
照 (zhao) = look at / reflect
镜子 (jing zi) = mirror
猪八戒 is actually the name of a mythologized character in a famous Chinese classic called 西游记 (xi you ji = Journey to the West). He has the head of a pig (and supposedly nature as well: which means he is gluttonous, lazy and amorous / leacherous (did I spell that correctly?)) and body of a human being. He is supposed to be a monk accompanying his teacher, a Buddhist monk called Xuanzang on a pilgrimage to India to get the holy scripts. (But his animal nature caused them a lot of trouble instead.)

Anyway, the gist of the saying means: when a person of little or no moral character looks at himself in the mirror, he is not really a human being in the best sense of the word.


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## *8)

I feel a better way of saying that in Chinese would be 打肿脸皮充胖子, which literally means to beat up one's own face to look like a fattie. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because the Chinese tend to believe that only the rich are fat.


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## dahut

Thank you to all of you for your contributions!


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## fazulas

En español, "el hábito no hace al monje" no es exactamente lo mismo que "aunque la mona se vista de seda..". La primera expresión se puede referir a habilidades, la segunda se refiere a cuestiones estéticas.


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## Nizo

The closest expression in *Esperanto* that I can find seems to be *kapuĉo monaĥon ne faras* (a habit doesn't make a monk), similar to the Italian.  This has been used in Esperanto at least since the early 1900s.


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## Zsanna

The usual translation of the saying in the title into Hungarian is: 
*Kutyából nem lesz szalonna*. (= A dog will never become bacon.)

_Kutya_ (dog) is a "negativ hero" here (has a general meaning of anybody "wicked") and _szalonna_ (bacon, i.e. a special Hungarian version of it with more fat than meat) is the "goodie" (to be honest I don't really know why, it is not very logical...). 
It is said about somebody who wants to give the impression to be different (not as he used to be), to have changed but you can't believe it/ one better not believe things like that. (Can be said also after he has just done something to prove that he cannot improve.) 
In other words, you could sum it up as "don't expect people to be able to change radically"/once useless (or "baddish"...), always useless ("baddish").

So it is not exactly the idea of "one can't hide behind appearances"...
_That_ would be more like the French and Italian versions given so far:
*Nem a ruha teszi az embert*. (= It is not your dress that makes you what you are.)


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## OldAvatar

In Romanian:

_ Nu poţi să faci din căcat bici._

*You can't make a whip out of a shit*_._


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## dinis.dinis

"The habit does not make the monk." is another English saying -- But notice that monks do not wear "suits" (within the monastery) but, rather, the habit of their order.

Best Regards, 
Dinis


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## dudasd

Central Serbia:

Od opanka nikad cipela.
Lit.: Of an opanak* (can) never (become) a shoe.
opanak - old fashioned kind of shoes, made of interwoven leather straps and thongs; symbol of village. The idiom evidently was born in urban environment, where villagers are considered to be rude and primitive.


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