# Swedish: Nej tack, inget kaffe



## retrolectro

Hello, guys!

I'm translating a sentence from Swedish and I don't know if this is an idiom or just a reassuring gesture. 
A policewoman is asking if a woman, whose child is missing, don't want to go inside the train station where they are standing.

Och jag vill inte gå härifrån. Hon markerade det hon sa genom att skaka på huvudet. Nej tack, inget kaffe.

"Nej tack, inget kaffe." is some kind of idiom or is it just a reassuring gesture, indicating that she don't want any coffee?

Thank you that much.


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## retrolectro

I'm sorry, this is my first post and I forgot to put "Swedish" in the title thread.


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## Ogago

I would say that "Nej tack, inget kaffe." means exactly what it says. She has probably been offered a cup of coffee on second before. Perhaps not even with words but a simple geste towards the coffeepot.

That's my guess...


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## retrolectro

Ogago said:


> I would say that "Nej tack, inget kaffe." means exactly what it says. She has probably been offered a cup of coffee on second before. Perhaps not even with words but a simple geste towards the coffeepot.
> 
> That's my guess...




Thank you so much! I'm still getting used to swedish narrative structure, and I have the Spanish and English translation of this text. Both versions excluded the sentence, so I thought it would mean something they wasn't able to translate and just eliminated, something I'm not used to do.


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## zyzzy

I've never heard it used as an idiom. I would definitely interpret it literally.


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## abdulwahid

Can I ask what book you're translating. Is it possible to give some more context? It seems odd that the other translators omitted that part. To go inside the trainstation might be taken as an indirect invitation to sit down and take a coffee, that is what many people do in Sweden, but it's probably common to do that in England (tea instead of coffee?) and Spain aswell (although the Spanish translation might be a translation from the English or the other way around).


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## retrolectro

Yes, I really think Spanish translation was made using English edition. Unfortunately I cannot tell which book it is for contractual reasons with my Publishing House. 
I'm doing a detailed comparison of English edition with the original, and there is a lot of sentences ommited. this is just an example.

And the context is this: A child is missing. The mother is being interrogated sitting on a bench at the train station where the child disappeared. A policewoman asks if the mother don't want to go inside the train station where they are standing, for it is raining outside. The mother says:

Och jag vill inte gå härifrån. Hon markerade det hon sa genom att skaka på huvudet. Nej tack, inget kaffe.

I think is literal. 

Thank you so much. I learn a lot with all the things I read in this forum.


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## Lugubert

It is a bit surprising that she would have mentioned coffee without having explicitly been offered some. On the other hand, an offer to go inside would rather automatically suggest coffee, like probably for tea in Britain, where I feel that a cuppa goes with any and all kind offers. So, to people less addicted to coffee than Swedes, not mentioning the beverage might cause less confusion than translating it.


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## cocuyo

I would get it as literal as well, so either the place suggested is a cafeteria or coffee has been offered. 

Idiomatically, "inget kaffe" would be akin to "no voy a tomar café" in Spanish, which I think is rather close to Portuguese.


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