ศาลาชุมนุม

[Thomas]

Do all children love their (own) nuts because without them they would have a screw loose?

Remark: nut in the technical sense of a screw ... screw-fixer.

Because this is already a translation of a German text (for teaching grammar) first question even: Is this proper English?

[Tgeezer]

The play on words is fascinating, does German describe abnormal people as having a screw loose? If so is it English or German because we also have that expression. This goes to the heart of what I believe, that it is impossible to stop the migration of expressions between languages.
I find that my language is not the same as younger people's and am amazed when I hear people of my generation changing their language.
eg. How are you?
I am GOOD, thanks.
I hate 'fitting in' like that. It is like wearing fashionable clothes, even clothiers are now stocking trousers where the measurement from back waistband to front is reduced, I can only hope that fashion changes before we reach the point of a choice between having one's buttocks exposed or strangulation of the testes.
I digress, on language you can gather that I am conservative which is why I hate questions like "How do you say this in Thai." My first reaction is that you probably don't, but then how can I be sure, Thai native's are proud of their English and more than happy to oblige and thus can see no reason why not. So the language changes, what I think is original Thai is only a snapshot of how it was thirty years ago.
So who knows what is proper English? The criterion would seem to be, is it comprehensible? I think that it is, except that you have said that 'nut' is the mechanical fixing so I am not sure how every child would have a nut. We use 'nut to mean 'head' where resides the brain so yes, every child loves their nut because without it ( a brain) they would be behave abnormally- (have a screw loose.)
Sorry if you find this post is slightly off topic.

[Thomas]

The play on words is fascinating, does German describe abnormal people as having a screw loose?
... Sorry if you find this post is slightly off topic.

Eventually your post is precisely within the topic, or at the gist of the matter, or in des Pudels Kern (inside of the nucleus of the poodle), respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut

Of all these nuts I meant a specific one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_(hardware)

The translation of Nut_(hardware) into German would be Mutter, die --- seemingly the same like the German counterpart of mother.
This seemingly I used for explanation of German grammar to Thais.

The lesson worked as follows (including Thai translation):

ไวยากรณ์ภาษาเยอรมัน

(1) Alle Kinder lieben ihre Mütter. ลูกทุกคนรักแม่ของ (พวก) เขา
(2) Alle Kinder lieben die Mutti. ลูกทุกคนรักแม่
(3) Alle Kinder lieben Murmeln. เด็กทุกคนรักลูกแก้ว
(4) Die Schraube passt zur Mutter. ไขควงคู่กับน๊อต
(5) Alle Kinder lieben ihre Muttern.
(6) Lieben alle Kinder ihre Muttern weil sie ohne sie eine Schraube locker hätten?

For sentence 5 and 6 we (Thai students and me) are still struggeling with an appropriate translation. A guess for (5) from my side is:
เด็กทุกคนรักน๊อตของเขา
This sentence, at least the German version, was invented by me intentionally to be a surprise.

I thought then by myself: For which reasons children shall love their nuts_(hardware)?

In German I found an answer: Eventually children will love their nuts_(hardware) because they just know the German idiom "eine Schraube locker haben" (to have a screw loose). The idea? What is the cause for a loose screw? In many instances this may be a "lack of nut_(hardware)". So, in the picture of "to have a screw loose", childern will love their nuts_(hardware) for not becoming crazy.

To be honest, I don't understand the picture, or immagination, well. It implies that the brain is a machine having among other parts, screws and nuts, and if a screw is loose, the machine becomes crazy. A little bit odd for me but this picture/immagination/idiom occurs in two languages --- and don't ask me for reasons. I became aware of the English idiom not earlier than translating "eine Schraube locker haben" into Thai --- and problems occured thereafter.

Do you think that sentence (6), whether in German or "proper" English, is simply not translatable into Thai? Sentence (5) should be translatable, my view.

(6) Do all children love their nuts_(hardware) because without them they would have a screw loose?

[Tgeezer]

You have lost me now, I don't share your enthusiasm for confusing people. I sympathise with the students.

[Thomas]

No clue why I should have enthusiam in confusing people.

Last attempt of a translation was:

เด็กๆทุกคนรักถั่วของพวกเขาเพราะขาดมันเสียพวกเขาคงบ้าแน่ๆใช่ไหม

I feel that the Thai sentence does not make more sense after replacing ถั่ว by น๊อต.

Conclusion: The (German and English) sentence (each) has no meaningful translation. Perhaps I should have thought into this problem before posting the sentence. The sentence as such was not intended to confuse people, rather to give an explanation why children may love nuts_hardware. Since there is no good reason ... I should chose my sample sentences better. Overall conclusion.

[Tgeezer]

No problem, just run it out there, it keeps the forum alive.