Hi,

As my teens are watching "Happy Days"...we've come across some lovely expressions but as I'm an Aussie and have learnt mostly British expressions, I tend to guess or get completely lost.

One of them is: Man, oh man we've got it made in the shade!

It's true that the language is a bit dated....as the series is based in the 50's but the teens actually like it.

I've got to translate loosely this expression and can't find a decent site that translates expressions.
Anyone found one?

If anyone out there is teaching French speaking students...how would you translate that sentence.

Thanks for your help.

Erm... I think a lot of that stuff may be made up, or ephemeral expressions from the fifties.

Something like "we've got it made in the shade" has some useful language in it: "We've got it made" and "in the shade" are both worth learning, but the whole expression would sound very wierd coming from the mouth of anybody but the Fonz.

So my advice would be to tell your students not to bother trying to memorize the whole of an unusual expression, but to look at the language inside it instead.

I pretty sure it just means that you have it real good, as opposed to being out in the hot sun.

One that my genereation used was "Sweet!" and I still use it to this day. My students like it too. Candy is sweet and most people like candy so "Sweet!" means "good" or "real good."

Most people would prefer the shade over the sun on a hot day. There fore if oyu have it made in the sahde then life or your present situation are good. As an aussie i 'm sure you can relate. Hahaha.

Thanks for that enjoyinglifeinseoul.

Now all I have to do is find a way of translating that into French
if they don't understand the meaning in English.

That's the tricky bit. :=)

Yes, Alison, I feel it was made up to suit what was expressed and to make it catchy and yes, only Potsie can get away with it...as he's always the one saying it.

I'll try that idea and break up the sentence if nothing else works.

We haven't come across the other sayings that Fonzie comes out with yet.
That's going to be a lot of fun as he's just started speaking...towards the
end of the first episode.

At any rate, we're having fun and they want to keep watching..so fingers crossed...we leap over these language barriers and get them going with speaking more English...even if the language is a bit dated...they're are lots of lovely verb tenses they're learning.

So thanks for all your feedback.