# בכל פעם שכוס נשברת



## cfu507

Hi, please help me with the translation of:

בכל פעם שנופלת לי כוס זכוכית והיא נשברת כולם סביבי צועקים "מזל טוב!"

Thanks​


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## elroy

_Every time I dropped a glass cup and broke it, everyone turned around and yelled, "Mazal tov!"_

(I hope I got the tenses right.)


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## Flaminius

The verbs look to me in the present tense, *elroy*.  Also, I would translate _svivi_ into "around me."


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## elroy

Ah!  I misread the sentence!

Here's my updated translated:

_Every time I *drop* a glass cup and *break* it, everyone *around me* *yells*, "Mazal tov!"_


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## Nunty

elroy said:


> Ah!  I misread the sentence!
> 
> Here's my updated translated:
> 
> _Every time I *drop* a glass cup and *break* it, everyone *around me* *yells*, "Mazal tov!"_




Being in a picky mood this morning, I would translate slightly differently:

Every time I drop *a glass *and *it breaks*, everyone around me yells, "_Mazal tov!"

_In English (I speak the AE version since I lived there for many years), I would not expect to hear "a glass cup" in most contexts. "A glass", in my opinion, is כוס זכוכית. I prefer "it breaks" but I can't explain why.


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## cfu507

Good morning and thank you everyone.

Is there a translation to Mazal Tov? it means congratulations and literally it means good luck, but good luck in English is something else. Is there another way to tranlsate Mazal Tov?
Thanks


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## Nunty

I can't think of an idiom that is used the way that מזל טוב is used. 

In school a hundred years ago, if a kid dropped his tray in the cafeteria the other kids would laugh, applaud and shout "Way to go", which is the same sort of sarcastically congratulatory remark, but it is probably juvenile and _too_ sarcastic.


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## cfu507

Thanks for the story, it partly answers my next question. 
Have a wonderfull day!


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## Josh_

cfu507 said:


> Good morning and thank you everyone.
> 
> Is there a translation to Mazal Tov? it means congratulations and literally it means good luck, but good luck in English is something else. Is there another way to tranlsate Mazal Tov?
> Thanks


It's not tremendously common, but _mazal tov_ (with the Yiddish pronunciation (mazal tav), although you'll hear the Hebrew pronunciation once and a while) has actually found its way into the American culture and many would understand it.  I've never heard it used sarcastically, though.


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## elroy

Nun-Translator said:


> In English (I speak the AE version since I lived there for many years), I would not expect to hear "a glass cup" in most contexts. "A glass", in my opinion, is כוס זכוכית. I prefer "it breaks" but I can't explain why.


 I agree with you about "it breaks." 

As for "glass" vs. "glass cup," I wasn't aware that כוס זכוכית was simply a "glass," so I translated it literally.  After all, there is such a thing as a cup made out of glass, which is not the same thing as a glass.


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## Le Bélier

cfu507 said:


> Good morning and thank you everyone.
> 
> Is there a translation to Mazal Tov? it means congratulations and literally it means good luck, but good luck in English is something else. Is there another way to tranlsate Mazal Tov?
> Thanks



If the Hebrew version is truly meant in a sarcastic way, then _congratulations _should suffice if it is said with a sarcastic tone.  Like Nun-Translator, nothing more idiomatic comes to mind other than _"way to go"..._ and really, only because she said it!  Anything else that would have been used in my school days probably would have been more cruel rather than sarcastic.



Josh_ said:


> It's not tremendously common, but _mazal tov_ (with the Yiddish pronunciation (mazal tav), although you'll hear the Hebrew pronunciation once and a while) has actually found its way into the American culture and many would understand it.



Most of the non-Jewish people that I've come across who are familiar with the phrase understand it to mean _good luck_.  Some Jewish friends once explained to me that one cannot use the phrase in the same way when the English version connotes something that has yet to happen.  Rather, it is more congratulatory for something that has already happened.  This would seem to coincide with cfu507's indication of a different meaning of _good luck_.


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## Josh_

Le Bélier said:


> Most of the non-Jewish people that I've come across who are familiar with the phrase understand it to mean _good luck_.  Some Jewish friends once explained to me that one cannot use the phrase in the same way when the English version connotes something that has yet to happen.  Rather, it is more congratulatory for something that has already happened.  This would seem to coincide with cfu507's indication of a different meaning of _good luck_.


Whenever I've heard it used, it has only been as an equivalent to congratulations, for example, upon hearing that one is pregnant, or at a wedding, etc.  Of course, a non-native, American understanding of the phrase is different from a native's.  I agree that there may not be a good translation of the phrase in the context outlined by cfu507.


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## Nunty

About the sarcasm I mentioned - I wouldn't give too much weight to that. Saying _mazal tov_ when a glass or something breaks is surely rooted, at least in Jewish tradition, with lots of folk practices having to do with averting the evil eye. In that sense, _mazal tov_ is a kind of invocation. But in some circumstances it's said in a more jocular fashion than as an earnest wish for good fortune (or to avert the bad) and, of course, it is also used the way you use "congratulations" in English. I think that this ambiguity is what in certain circumstances gives it the (mildly) sarcastic overtone I mentioned.


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