Do Indonesian native speakers say this phrase in a real life?
“Have a light hand” in English means “a person is good at handling things delicately” or “a thing (e.g. poem) has a metaphorically light touch.” The Indonesian sentence seems to me as a word-for-word translation but I guess it doesn’t mean the same as the English idiom.
@hasnadinar @HAGNi
Sorry to bother you. Any thoughts on this?
@MsFixer
Ringan tangan, while it does literally translate to light handed, has a completely different meaning from English's "light hand".
1) In a positive connotation ringan tangan refers to a person who loves to help others; a generous and charitable person. It also means someone who is willing to help as quick as possible when another person is in need.
"Kamu ringan tangan, kan?" means "you're helpful, right?" so this doesn't make any sense at all to me. When we ask for help to our friends we often say "Kamu baik, kan?" (you're kind, right?) jokingly, but of course we don't use it to superiors, but we rarely use ringan tangan in daily conversations.
2) In a negative connotation ringan tangan means someone who hits other people or physically abuses them. Mothers would tell their daughters "jangan mau sama laki-laki yang ringan tangan kalau marah" (don't be with a man who hits you whenever he gets angry) but then again, I have only heard this phrase said by mothers in their advices and really rarely used in daily life.
To refer to someone who is good at handling things, the closest idiom would be "tangan dingin" (cold hands), but it is used to refer to business owners or leaders of a certain area or country who is good at managing their business/country so that they prosper and succeed. It's not really used to refer to a person who is good at handling or crafting things.
The Japanese 手先が器用 translation matches the English translation but the Indonesian one is not suitable. I guess just saying "kamu terampil, kan?" without any idioms would be better as terampil literally translates to proficient or quick at crafting or finishing a task. But, using kan as a tag question in Indonesian to compliment others comes off weird, unlike in English and Japanese, and in Indonesian, kan is mostly used to seek the agreement of the listener, much like the Japanese ね.
So I think "kamu terampil, ya," would suit it better.
@hasnadinar
Thank you as always for your input. What an interesting connotation!
@change
Please delink this Indonesian sentence from the English one.
I'm not studying Indonesian, but I'm impressed by how in-depth you go with your discussions :D
@DJ_Saidez
Thank you for taking my request for change. I sincerely apologize for the confusion. The original author @dbahasa had edited the sentence before I sent the request, but I wasn’t aware of that. Currently, the Indonesian sentence is “kamu terampil, ya”, which was proposed by @hasnadinar . Would you kindly link it to the English “light hand” sentence #16008 again?
@dbahasa
Thank you for your quick response!
I linked it again
Thank you @Shisir for cleaning up this mess.
Tags
View all tagsLists
Sentence text
License: CC BY 2.0 FRLogs
This sentence was initially added as a translation of sentence #16008
added by dbahasa, July 6, 2014
linked by dbahasa, July 6, 2014
edited by dbahasa, May 31, 2021
edited by dbahasa, May 31, 2021
edited by dbahasa, May 31, 2021
unlinked by DJ_Saidez, May 31, 2021
linked by Shishir, May 31, 2021