Translation - Danish-English - NÃ¥r man har sagt forvel til livet, er det blot...

"When you have said goodbye to life......"

Well, it all depends whether this metaphor also exists in English. I am not sure, and I therefore preferred capturing the meaning rather than the letter.

Well, not sure it's a metaphor. Let's wait for other proposals.

Definitely a metaphor, since one cannot literally greet life farewell. literally it means to (decide to) die.

Yes, think you may be right. But don't you think we could use another word. You have got the right sense though it seems a bit heavy to me.

I agree with Gamine.
"When you have said farewell to life..."
Same word "farvel" in Danish and "farewell in English)

I prefer jedi2000's suggestion

When you have bidden life farewell?

when you've said farewell to live, only coffee does have a taste

the translation is too much free.. there are other ways to be nearer to the original text.

I'd say:
Whwn one has said goodbye for the life...

Is it not possible in this case just to translate directly, like thise:
"When you've said goodbye to life
only the coffee is tasting of something."?

As far as I know in English you say "It does not taste of anything"

well, "har sagt farvel" can be translated by "has said godbye" and "man" can not be translated by "you, because then it should have been "du"instead of "man".

So, I believe the correct form should be "When someone has said good bye to life".

The rest seems to be ok.

Hi Iepurica,
"man" can be translated in many ways. "Gyldendals røde ordbog" gives a very good explanation. But you
can (du eller man kan) also find something here:
http://www.ordbogen.com/opslag.php?word=man&dict=auto#daen

once you've said goodbye to life, it is only the cofee that has a taste.

when you say good bye to life,

I think the English translation should like the Danish and French ones use the act of saying goodbye in stead of the expression "take leave of" - because the latter one sounds as if you are already dead - but how can you then still taste the coffee? It is possible to say goodbye to life and still be alive... A while at least - long enough to have yet another cup of coffee...

'When you have taken a leave of life' can be changed to: 'When you've said goodbye/farewell to life'

Hi Sismo,

I love your sense of humour!
Ich habe mich Tod gelacht! Thus no more coffee for me!

When you have said goodbye to life,
Only coffee has a taste.