When a significant other has a great set of qualities and looks just perfect, English speakers will say “He/She’s a keeper”. What about your country?

18 comments

1. We say *koneemne*, which roughly means potential housewife.

   edit: *mannsemne* works as well for potential husband.

2. We say “something is wrong, nobody is that perfect” 😉

3. **Tu as trouvé une pépite** meaning *you found a gold nugget* or **C’est une vraie perle** meaning *(s)he’s a real pearl*.

   **Il est bon à marier** / **Elle est bonne à marier** meaning *(s)he’s good to marry* aka ready to be a good husband or wife.

   And more generally, there’s **C’est la bonne** / **C’est le bon**, meaning *(s)he’s the right one*.

4. I don’t know how much widespread it is but at least my grandma always used: *”Má všech pět pé.”* (“He/she has all five P’s.”)

   The saying assumes there’s a list of five core desirable features one seeks in a mate that all start with the letter P (I guess in English it would work better with the letter F because of the aliteration “Five F’s”). I never got an answer what these features are supposed to be though.

5. “È da sposare” (s/he is marriage material) is the closest expression I can think of.

6. “dat is een blijvertje” roughly meaning that’s one to keep

7. Only noun I can think of is Traumfrau/Traummann (literally: dream woman/dream man).

8. “Vajze per shtepi”, translated word for word as “girl for a home” meaning she’d make a good housewife. Though it’s more and more rare to hear it used nowadays unless ironically.

9. 🇭🇷 “To trebaš ženiti” literally means “you should marry that

10. Sometimes you can hear ” Den/die solltest du dir warmhalten”, which translates to ” You should keep him/her warm for you”.

11. «Γυναίκα για σπίτι(gynéka gia spíti)» means “woman for a house” basically meaning a woman to marry/to have a family with

12. “Ta on täitsa tore” (“He/She is quite nice”)

    Yeah, I don’t think we really have a saying like that. And that’s just as far as our compliments go.

13. “Des isch a guate” in northern italian german dialect, basically means “that’s a good one” (reffering to the woman) but this can also be said in a sexual/horny way like whe a girl has attractive sexual organs

14. The most interesting term is “svärmorsdröm”, meaning “mother in law’s dream”. It means a young man (usually) with good manners and prospects.

15. This is not real but I had to think of this How I met your mother quote:
    “Victoria is wunderbar, but she is not my “Lebenslanger Schicksalsschatz.” She’s my “Beinahe-Leidenschaftsgegenstand”… it means the thing that is almost the thing that you want, but it’s not quite. That is Victoria to me.”

16. We are still an English speaking country so maybe this doesn’t count, but in Ireland we have another saying which is “You wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crisps”. Not as loving or romantic but definitely more colourful.

17. AMERICAN* speakers.

    We speak English in many Caribbean countries and we don’t say this.

18. I mean, OP’s portuguese, so they probably know this one, but our expression for this is *ser um [bom partido](https://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/portugues-ingles/partido?express=bom%20partido)*, which is based on the old days, back when marriages were basically a business venture.

    So a “good catch” in portuguese, was basically just a “a good offer/proposition” or an “advantageous deal”. Something along those lines.