May 11, 2021 09:35
3 yrs ago
20 viewers *
Serbian term
Professional Serbian-English translation
Native in: English 
Works in: Serbian to English, Serbo-Croat to English, Croatian to English, and 1 more.
šta zna dete šta je dvesta kila
Serbian to English
Art/Literary
Slang
sayings, jokes, idioms
Obviously a reference to the well-known joke, meaning you succeeded in doing something despite or because of the fact that you were ignorant as to how hard it in fact was. In the specific case it refers not to stealing bits of railway but to enrolling in a prestigious university not realising how high the entry barrier was. But I can't think of an English idiom, if there is one. I thought of "more luck than sense" or maybe "more brawn than brains", but neither is quite right, any ideas?
Proposed translations
(English)
| 3 +1 | fool |
Cmilja Milosevic
|
| 3 | bite off more than one can chew |
Jasna Trandafilovska
|
| 3 | ignorance is bliss |
Slobodan Kozarčić
|
Proposed translations
+1
1 hr
Cmilja Milosevic
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Native in Serbian
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Court Interpreter and Translator
Native in: Serbian
Works in: English to Serbian, Serbian to English, English, and 2 more.
fool
It can also refer to someone's foolishness and stubbornness to achieve something that others would not even think about:
- Fools rush in.
A very good and challenging question, indeed! :)
- Fools rush in.
A very good and challenging question, indeed! :)
Example sentence:
Fools rush in where angles fear to tread.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Pavle Perencevic
: "Fools rush in" sounds close in meaning, although it's a completely different register from "šta zna dete šta je dvesta kila".
23 hrs
|
|
Hvala!
|
3 hrs
Jasna Trandafilovska
Reliable, Hardworking, On-time
Native in: Macedonian 
, Greek
Works in: English to Macedonian, English to Greek, Greek to Macedonian, and 3 more.
bite off more than one can chew
Just a suggestion and more in the link.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
milena beba
5 hrs
|
| disagree |
Daryo
: doesn't agree with the explanations given by Asker ("you succeeded in doing something ...") - that would apply to s.o. who failed // even less to do with the meaning in the original joke, but that's another problem.
7 hrs
|
9 hrs
Slobodan Kozarčić
Serbia
Serbia
Native in Serbian
Serbia
900 films/500 medical rep/two books/tech
Native in: Serbian (Variant: Montenegrin ) , Bosnian
Works in: English to Serbian, English to Bosnian, Serbian to English, and 4 more.
Discussion
"šta zna dete šta je 200 /300 / 500 kila"
would have anything to do with "succeeding against the odds" nor anything of a similar vein.
Context?
And more importantly a "small problem" - that you have misinterpreted the joke!
In the context of the original joke it means something completely else! No real "superhuman achievement" to be seen anywhere, only hare-brained excuses.
In the joke the kid DIDN'T move a 200 kg piece of stolen metal - a few adults did it together, and are offering a pretty unplausible explanation as to who else could've done it.
It's a very old joke, but in case you don'y know it, here it is:
Šta zna dete šta je 500 kila
Ukrao neko šine sa pruge u blizini ciganskog sela. Dođe policija u selo i jedan pandur pita Cigu:
– Je li Cigo, gde su šine?
– Ne znam, majke mi – odgovara Ciga.
– Cigo, poslednji put te pitam, gde su šine? – nervozno će policajac.
– A ne znam, majke mi. Eno su neka deca tamo, možda su ona uzela…
– Ajde Cigo, ne lupaj – gde će deca da ukradu šine od 500 kila!
Na to će Ciga:
– Ma šta zna dete šta je 500 kila…
https://svet-scandal.rs/svetplus/sta-zna-dete-sta-je-500-kil...
Can you give the full sentence where this was used, to make you think that this means what you say it means?