Ironic phrase like Russian’s “no, didn’t hear”
Rise to the top 3% as a developer or hire one of them at Toptal: https://topt.al/25cXVn
--------------------------------------------------
Music by Eric Matyas
https://www.soundimage.org
Track title: The Builders
--
Chapters
00:00 Ironic Phrase Like Russian’S “No, Didn’T Hear”
00:31 Answer 1 Score 14
00:49 Accepted Answer Score 10
01:13 Answer 3 Score 4
01:48 Thank you
--
Full question
https://english.stackexchange.com/questi...
--
Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...
--
Tags
#translation #conversation #dialogue
#avk47
ANSWER 1
Score 14
A corresponding conversation in English might go something like this:
― You should get yourself a girlfriend!
― A girlfriend? What’s that?!
It’s more sarcasm than irony, and the reply is often “deadpanned”.
ACCEPTED ANSWER
Score 10
Another idiomatic option (at least in British English) would be:
You should get yourself a girlfriend.
Sorry, never heard of it.
The use of the impersonal pronoun "it" is part of the humour; it indicates that the speaker not only has no girlfriend, but doesn't even understand the concept that a "girlfriend" might be a type of human being.
ANSWER 3
Score 4
If you want to turn the sarcasm back on the person giving obvious advice, you could say something like
A girlfriend? I didn't get the memo.
or
A girlfriend? I must have missed a meeting!
or
A girlfriend? Gee, why didn't I think of that?
Any of these implies that the advice is so obvious that the person giving it is either stupid or callous (or both) for bringing up a topic that is already causing you significant discomfort.