# All Slavic: "Je ne sais quoi," "n'importe quoi", "don't-know-what"



## arn00b

Some languages, like French (and others), use expressions like "je ne sais quoi" (I don't know what), "n'importe quoi" (whatever, whichever), to mean things like:

"She has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi" -   There's something (I like) about her, but I can't really describe it.  English borrows the phrase from French as is, and uses it as a noun, to mean something interesting that the speaker cannot describe.

French also has "n'importe quoi", which means "whatever, (whichever)", but can also be used as a noun or as an adjective (I'll write it in English: Your style is really n'importe quoi - you really have no style at all.  Your style is rubbish.)   People also say n'importe quoi to mean nonsense, bullshit, unsubstantiated claims/allegations and so on.

The last one is an example from Gulf Arabic which I'll translate to English for clarity.  Just as "je ne sais quoi", Gulf Arabic uses "madrishinu" ( {I} don't-know-what ) but in a different way.  It is used as an et cetera, "and so on and so forth" - for example: (Criticizing someone's spending)  "And he bought a new TV, and a Playstation and a new phone and I-don't-know-what."   Here I-don't-know-what's is treated as a noun and the intonation of that phrase is as if it were another item on the list.  You could substitute it with "and a new car" and it would sound the same tone-wise.

Another variant of madrishinu is the rhyming madriminu (don't-know-who) and it is used in contexts like "He invited this guy and that guy and don't-know-who" - again, it's an et cetera.  A very good translation for this phrase in English would be "He invited this guy and that guy and God-knows-who (else)."   We could use God-knows-what(-else) in the first one, "A new phone, a laptop and god-knows-what-else" but it sounds as if the speaker does not know what else was bought, when he clearly does, otherwise he wouldn't be complaining.  

French has a variant of this, je-ne-sais-qui, used as a noun.  This song was written by a je-ne-sais-qui - someone unknown and unimportant.

Do Slavic languages have similar expressions like "don't-know-what" that are used as nouns to express such things such as anonymity, randomness, unimportance, et cetera, something good (je ne sais quoi) or something bad (n'importe quoi)?

I've heard some of the French expressions used in Russian, but I was wondering if there were Slavic expressions that are helpful to learn and know?

Thank you, everybody.


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## Lubella

je-ne-sais-quoi не знати що
n'importe quoi казна що


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## ivanone

For Serbian : 
n'importe quoi - *svašta, *as stand alone for nonsense bullshit. This is linguistically a similar base to the background of the French expression. 

In your example however, _Ton style est vraiment n'importe quoi_ - I'd say : Tvoj stil je stvarno *bezveze*.

je ne sais quoi - I see no literal translation to Serbian, I'd translate it more along the lines of "something undefined". 

Speaking French here in Switzerland, I hear "n'importe quoi" as a lot more common than "je ne sais quoi".


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## markomaria

In Croatian and what was Serbo-Croatian, one can say: "koješta!", in a reply or comment on something he/she deems nonsensical or stupid or unworthy ("n'importe quoi" in a sens "whatever", always depreciative). For "Ton style est vraiment n'importe quoi", one could say also: "Tvoj stil stvarno nema veze s vezom" (pretty informal). "Je ne sais quoi", in the phrase "Elle a je ne sais quoi" - "Ona ima ono nešto", but in cases of enumerating things or persons: "And he bought a new TV, and a Playstation and a new phone and I-don't-know-what" - "… Playstation i novi telefon i bogtepitaj što još"; "He invited this guy and that guy and God-knows-who (else)" - "Pozvao je ovog i onog i bogtepitaj koga još". "Bogtepitaj" means litterally "Ask-God (who or what)".


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## Милан

ivanone said:


> For Serbian :
> In your example however, _Ton style est vraiment n'importe quoi_ - I'd say : Tvoj stil je stvarno *bezveze*.


In Serbian it's spelled bez veze, not bezveze.


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## arn00b

Милан said:


> In Serbian it's spelled bez veze, not bezveze.



But the adjective is bezvezan, right?


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## Karton Realista

Polish


arn00b said:


> I'll write it in English: Your style is really n'importe quoi - you really have no style at all. Your style is rubbish.


Twój styl is nijaki. Nijaki - none, but as an adjective. Without character traits.


arn00b said:


> "She has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi"


Ona ma w sobie to coś.


arn00b said:


> Do Slavic languages have similar expressions like "don't-know-what"


Nie wiadomo co. Something non-descript, confusing, not worth paying attention to.


arn00b said:


> "He invited this guy and that guy and God-knows-who (else)."


Zaprosił takiego, śmakiego (owakiego; you can also in some contexts use fake surnames like Iksiński, X-siński, Igrekowski, Y-owski; ew. tego, tamtego) i Bóg jeden wie, kogo jeszcze.


arn00b said:


> "And he bought a new TV, and a Playstation and a new phone and I-don't-know-what."


(I'll use Polish pronounciation of foreign names )
Kupił sobie (colloquial, that's more likely to be used here is se) Plejstejszyn, nowy telewizor, nowy telefon i nie wiadomo co (wulgarne chuj wie co, chuj - obscene word for penis, dickhead) jeszcze.

In Polish there's a saying "Wiesz, że dzwoni, ale nie wiesz, w którym kościele" - you know that it rings but you don't know in which church. You have some general idea, but you don't really understand the core of the problem (or something else for that matter).


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## Милан

arn00b said:


> But the adjective is bezvezan, right?


Yes. You could say Tvoj stil je (stvarno) bezvezan.


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## pbosakov

In Bulgarian, we use "не знам си какво", a colloquial expression which seems to match exactly the example of "madrishinu".
"не знам си кой" is a personal version (like "madriminu")

"не знам какво/кой" mean literally "I don't know what/who". It's the added reflexive particle "си" that somehow does the magic 

In a similar way we may use "някой _си_"/"еди-кой _си_" (whoever) and "нещо _си_"/"еди-какво _си_" (whatever) when giving an example or telling a story, to indicate that you either don't know/remember the specific person or thing, or that you do remember it but it is unimportant.

All these expressions have a slightly negative connotation of not caring much about the person or thing you refer to; I cannot think of an example that has a positive meaning, like "je-ne-sais-quoi" is sometimes used in English.


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## Mishe

In Slovenian "n'importe quoi" would be "k'r neki". Tvoj stil je "kr neki". It literally means "what something" and pretty much sums up the meaning of "whatever" or "n'importe quoi". It is used in the same context. It is very informal, colloquial and slangy though.

For "je ne sais quoi" I'd say "tisto nekaj", which is pretty much identical to Croatian/Serbian "ono nešto". "Ona ima tisto nekaj ..."

In the sense "he bough this and this and this and I-don't-know-what", I'd use "in ne vem kaj še vse" (literally: I don't know what else).


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