In English, we may express regret colloquially with the rhyming phrase Shoulda, woulda, coulda! German speakers also use a rhyming phrase to suggest the same idea: Hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette!, which translates literally as “If only, if only, bicycle chain.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “German Rhyming Regrets”
In English, we express regret with the rhyming phrase, shoulda, woulda, coulda.
You know, I should have done this, I would have done this.
Yeah, but in German, there’s also a nice rhyming phrase to express the same idea.
It goes, hätte, hätte, farra, hätte.
And it means, you know, it’s pointless now to wish that something else had happened.
But what’s so great about this phrase is that if you translate it literally, it’s would have, would have, bicycle chain.
Would have, would have, bicycle chain.
Just because they rhyme, right?
Right.
Yeah, we do the same thing in English sometimes, I think, where we’ll just throw in a word because it rhymes, not because it’s important.
Exactly.
Heta, heta, faraketa.
Well, don’t say whatta shoulda coulda when you thought about a question that you really needed to get our opinion on.
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