Once upon a time

English

Phrase

once upon a time

1. The traditional beginning of children's stories.

Translations

Note: Many of the translations are literally "There once was". The translation of "Once upon a time, there was a princess" into Italian, for example, would therefore be "C'era una volta una principessa" (literally, "There was once a princess") rather than the literal "C'era una volta c'era una principessa", which would mean "There was once there was a princess" [sic].

• Albanian: na ishte njëherë
• Catalan: hi havia una vegada , això era una vegada
• Chinese: 往事 (wǎng shì)
• Dutch: er was eens
• Esperanto: iam estis
• Finnish: olipa kerran , olipa kerran kauan sitten
• French: il était une fois , il y avait une fois
• German: es war einmal
• Hebrew: לפני שנים רבות (lifnei shanim rabot)
• Hungarian: hol volt, hol nem volt , za siedmimi horami, za siedmimi dolami
• Spanish: érase una vez , había una vez, era una vez
• Swedish: (Det var) en gång för länge sedan
• Tamil: முன்பு ஒது தாள் (munbu odu tāl), முன்பு ஒது காலம் (munbu odu kālam)