I came across someone who's collecting Karlsson's phrases in as many languages as possible If you've read the book by Astrid Lindgren or watched the cartoon, you know what this is about - expressions like "lugn, bara lugn" or "das stört keinen großen Geist" (someone actually commented that they thought this was just a regular idiom in their native German).
Here's a list of the phrases in Swedish, English and Russian (in Russia this is the best known story by Astrid Lindgren). The link currently has the phrases in French, Italian, German and Dutch as well (scroll a bit). I have the Belarusian edition of this book so that's what I'm contributing.
Obviously it's also fine to discuss other things about the book here, especially how this or that thing was translated etc.
The greeting phrase
SE: Hejsan hoppsan!
EN: Hi-ho!
RU: Привет!
The boasting phrase
SE: Vacker och genomklok och lagom tjock
EN: Handsome, remarkably wise, and just plump enough
RU: Красивый, умный и в меру упитанный
The all-purpose calming phrase
SE: Lugn, bara lugn
EN: Calm, be calm!
RU: Спокойствие, только спокойствие!
The all-purpose apology phrase
SE: Det är en världslig sak
EN: It's a small matter
RU: Пустяки, дело житейское
The sulking phrase
SE: Jag är inte med!
EN: I'm going home!
RU: Я просто вне себя!
The phrases in Belarusian:
Гэйсан, гопсан!
Прыгожы, разумны і ў меру тоўсты
Спакойна, толькі спакойна!
Гэта - звычайная рэч
Я не знаходжу сабе месца
is just my opinion on some translations, couldn't resist I definitely understand that it's hard to translate these in a funny and peculiar way!
Karlsson's catchphrases (multilingual)
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Re: Karlsson's catchphrases (multilingual)
It was my favorite book in childhood and I used to know long passages of it by heart. In the elder classes, my deskmate was also well-acquainted with the book and we were constantly using expressions from it. Like, whenever I said "No, thank you", he instantly understood that I meant "I'd rather die". (I've don't know how it sounds in the official English translation, but I think you get the idea.)
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