**** HAPPENS, in several languages

stercus accidit

hat shippins.

itshay appenshay

It's an idiomatic phrase so it's not likely that an exact translation would work or make much sense in most other languages. However, there may be similar expressions in other languages which convey the same idea but would not translate, word for word, as "**** happens."

A literal translation to Spanish would say: "La mierda sucede".
But that's a phrase I've never heard.

A meaningful translation to everyday Mexican Spanish conveying the same meaning would say: "Ni pedo" (literally: not even a fart).

Thank you all for being so prompt. I sauppose in Deutsch it would be "es sheiss gemachen" .
Ive never heard that exact phrase in the several languages Ive been exposed . However, every pop slang phrase needs to start somewhere. Why not here?

farmerman :

in my days germans simply said : "scheisse !" - it could be past , present or future - made no difference !
in hamburg we would use the low german "schiet" - anyone using the high german word would have been considered as being rather vulgar .
hbg

The thing is, the phrase has an implied meaning in English which doesn't come across when you choose a similar phrase in another language. There's a big difference between saying "**** happens" and just saying "Oh, ****!" The former phrase implies a kind of stoicism; we're saying that we're resigned to the fact that bad stuff can happen even to good people (like ourselves). So Hamburger's "Sheisse" doesn't really mean the same thing, doesn't get that sentiment across.

There's a Latvian colloquial expression "Sudi vaga" which literally means "[there's] **** in the farrow." But it means that we're in real doo-doo, and should probably do something about it. It doesn't carry that stoic connotation of "**** happens."

OK.
"Ni pedo" (not even a fart) in colloquial Mexican Spanish has the same meaning as "**** happens" in colloquial American English, with the "and there's nothing you can do about it" sense included.

I think, we could say: "So ein Scheissdreck!"
"**** happens" doesn't have the equivalent meaning in German when literally
translated to "Scheisse passiert". We'd either say "dumm gelaufen" or
"so ist das Leben" (such is life) .

I don't know about **** happening, but I learned a while back from Francis not to bother to call anyone a douche bag while in France.

Too bad, I feel so much better after calling someone that.

so francis doesn't come here anymore?

We in Germany on the other hand do have a "douche bag" for whimps - we'd call it "Waschlappen"

Francis was at the new a2k I think, but he's always traveling for business and
probably on the road.

Yes, indeed, CJ.
But I'm back for a few days.

Obviously, **** happens but isn't it nicer to say c'est la vie?

Good to see you, Francis. Don't be such a stranger.

In Slovakia, people just say "Na Slovensku je to tak..." -- "In Slovakia it is so..." It's about the same as **** happens... We are an optimistic bunch.

Am I?

Good to see you too, MA!

That's funny

In Dutch the literal translation would be "schijt gebeurt" (sounds better than "poep gebeurt," somehow), but that's not an existing expression.

An equivalent ... hmm. Maybe: "niets aan te doen" (roughly: nothing you can do about it). Or: "zo is het nou eenmaal" (that's just how it is). But those are more equivalents of "what can you do?" than of the more direct "**** happens".

Kyah karoo? (Hindi) What can you do?
Mo pan phat (Cantonese) No way to solve.

Hahaha, it's fun to see that people discuss this on a forum because a year ago I started to use the term: "Schijt gebeurt". (:

In german the literal translation might just be "Scheiße passiert".