Translation of "When the going gets tough, the tough get going"

Question

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going"

is a popular proverb in English. According to Wikipedia:

The phrase is a play on words involving idiomatic (Proverb) and distinct meanings of "go" and "tough." In context, "the going" means "the situation," "gets tough" means "becomes difficult," "the tough" means "people who are strong or enduring," and "get going" means "become fully engaged." Taken together, the meaning of the phrase is "When the situation becomes difficult, the strong will work harder to meet the challenge."

How can we translate that into German? Since this is a play on words, we shouldn't hope to retain all aspects of the proverb. Nevertheless, we can try to get close.

Wenn der Gang zäh geht, gehen die Zähen los.

What do you think? Any other (elegant) suggestions?

Answer 1

Wenn es hart auf hart kommt, kommen die Harten in Fahrt.

oder

Kommt's hart auf hart, kommen die Harten in Fahrt.

Answer 2

There is an episode of Alf in which this proverb is translated to

ALF: ...denn wenn die Bälle hart geschlagen werden, dann sind die Harten hart am Ball!

Not necessarily the best translation but I have a reference ;)

Answer 3

Erstmal was ein bisschen zu uncooles:

Sind die Probleme richtig groß, legen die Starken/Harten richtig los.

Und noch ein paar Variationen über Wind:

Bei starkem Gegenwind, gehen die Starken in den Wind.

Es sind die Starken die in starkem Gegenwind im Wind sind.

Da geht bestimmt noch mehr, aber hier mein persönlicher Favorit:

Starker Gegenwind gibt Starken Rückenwind.

Allerdings denke ich, dass das ohne Kontext wohl nicht verstanden würde. Das Wort "tough" treffend zu übersetzen ist wohl das Hauptproblem und ziemlich schwierig. "Zäh", "stark", "hart"... all das passt nicht so wirklich und ist nicht so intuitiv klar wie "the tough ones". Im Fall, dass beiden Gesprächspartnern der oder die "Toughe" bekannt ist, könnte man vielleicht deshalb modfizieren und sagen

Gegenwind ist mein/sein/dein/ihr Rückenwind.

Das ist dann ein Wortspiel und transportiert die Message. Die Information "tough" käme dann aus dem Kontext.

Answer 4

You're hardly retaining any aspect of the proverb with your translation IMO. "Wenn der Gang zäh geht" doesn't make any sense, doesn't come across very generic and doesn't convey the actual meaning either (that the situation gets more difficult).

Also, in my opinion "die Zähen" doesn't really work for "the tough". It's an exact translation but it's the wrong word. The word "zäh" would be closer to the English words "enduring", "persisting" or "untiring" and it wouldn't be used to describe a tough person in that sense.

"Wenns hart wird, legen die Harten [erst richtig] los".

That would be my suggestion. I'm aware you lose a lot in comparison though. Re-creating a play on words of a similar kind in a different language is near impossible, though this came to mind:

"Wenn's hart wird, werden die Harten härter".

What I don't really like about it is that "härter" would rather translate into "get tougher" than "get fully engaged" or "get going". Being forced to work around "die Harten" (because it's the only word that properly translates to "the tough" in German IMO) it's the best I came up with though.

Answer 5

Wenn die Zeiten härter werden, kommt die Zeit für die Harten.

Answer 6

My translation woluld be: Wenn das Vorwärtskommen hart wird, kommen die Harten nach vorn. Boys you don´t know, how much you have helped me with your sentence.