Come hell or high water
Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech –Radio Prague’s Czech language crash course in which you can learn new idioms with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song, sung by Václav Neckář and Helena Vondráčková, is from a popular Czech fairy tale and is called Kdyby na sůl nebylo – if we couldn’t even afford salt.
Another quaint and somewhat old-fashioned expression with the same meaning is kdyby čert na koze jezdil– in other words something is certain to happen even if the devil were to ride a goat. Toto prosadím, kdyby čert na koze jezdil means I’ll see this through even if the devil were to ride a goat.
More commonplace ways of saying the same thing are ať se děje, co se děje, which is the Czech expression for come what may, stůj co stůj, cost what it may, or za každou cenu“at any price”. There are also a number of slang expressions denoting certainty that something will happen. To si piš–which translates directly as make a note of that, or to je tutovka– that’s a sure thing. Sto pro– an abbreviation for one hundred percent also means that you can count on something coming about or someone keeping their promise.
And finally there are one or two phrases you can use when you are sure something doesn’t stand a chance of happening. For instance nezhubnu, ani kdybych se rozkrájela–I can’t lose weight even if I were to cut myself into pieces. Or nezhubnu, i kdybych se postavila na hlavu, I can’t lose weight even if I were to stand on my head.
The one you want to keep in mind is naučím se česky, i kdyby trakaře padaly– I will learn Czech even if wheelbarrows were to start falling from the sky. This is Daniela Lazarová saying thanks for learning Czech with me and nashledanou!
