Your back against the wall in other languages

As you know, in English there is the expression to have one’s back up against the wall. In German we express the same concept in a very similar way: mit dem Rücken zur Wand stehen (to be standing with your back to wall). Interestingly enough, a similar expression doesn’t seem to exist in Russian. What your native language? Do you have a similar idiom?

Do you have a similar idiom?

Yes, we do. In Italian, that would be “trovarsi/essere/mettere etc. con le spalle al muro”. “Spalle” doesn’t mean “back” (which is “schiena”) but “shoulders”.

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Hi Ferdinand, can you please translate the Italian idiom word by word into English? I’d like to see how it is different to the English and German versions. Grazie mille.

Hi Ferdinand, can you please translate the Italian idiom word by word into English?

Sure:

  • trovarsi/essere/mettere con le spalle al muro.
  • finding yourself/being/put [someone] with the shoulders to the wall.
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I do not recognize it in Polish language. strange :slight_smile:

As far as I know the phrase doesn’t exist in Russian either.

In Japan there is an expression used in a similar, though slightly more positive way, which means “encamped back against the water,” with (as in the case of the wall) the meaning that one can not retreat, and this is ones last stand.

The expression comes from the famous Chinese history book in which the strategy of putting ones back to the water forced the best from some soldiers and lead to their victory.

In Japanese it is “Haisui no jin” (Hai=back, sui=water no="'s" and jin=“military encampment”) 背水の陣 In Taiwan Chinese it is written 背水一戰 which means back water one fight, or in the same way as Japanese 背水陣 back water camp, but for some reason a net dictionary of mainland Chinese gave a non back-to-the-X translation.

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The Russians say “припирать кого-то к стене” (to corner somebody by pressing them against the wall).

In Russian we can also say ‘быть загнанным в угол’ (to be driven into the corner).

The interesting thing is that the Russian version seems to be more drastic describing a more desperate situation than just ‘with your back against the wall’ which somehow implies that the person still has some freedom.

And interesting that the Japanese put a positive spin on it.

It is often used in the sense of “burn your bridges” – that if you cut of your escape route and fight to the death you can win.

A blogger explains, autotranslated here
https://tinyurl.com/haisuinojinpositive
that it does not even mean that but even more positively, 1) By fighting back to the wall/water you do not have to worry about your rear guard, 2) You give the enemy the impression of being in a desperate situation making attack complacently 3) By this means you can get a big victory.

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