You asked for it! (You had it coming)

Messquito

Messquito

Senior Member
台灣台北 Taipei, Taiwan
Chinese - Taiwan 中文 Taiwanese Hokkien 臺語
Let's say your friend kicked a sleeping dog and got bitten by it. You might say:
You asked for it!
You deserve that.
You got what you asked for.
Ha, you had it coming.
Ha, serves you right!

What would you say in your own language?

In Chinese:
你自找的 You looked for (it) yourself.
報應！ (Bad) karma!
誰叫你！ Who told you (to do that)? [Nobody asked you to do that; you have yourself to blame.]
罪有應得！ Every crime has what it deserves.
 
    • Τhe most common Greek expressions:

    «Καλά να πάθεις!» [ka.ˈla.na.ˈpa.θis̠] --> well deserved damaɡe!
    «Τά'θελες και τά'παθες!» [ˈt̠a.θe̞.le̞s̠.ce̞.ˈt̠a.pa.θe̞s̠] --> you seeked for it, you deserved it!
    «Πήγαινες γυρεύοντας!» [ˈpi.ʝe̞.ne̞s̠.ʝi.ˈɾe̞.vo̞n.das̠] --> you were ɡoinɡ around it! (imagine a bunch of kids poking a dog and running around it in circles)
     
    Catalan (Similar to French and Italian):

    Tu t'ho has buscat/cercat or T'ho has ben buscat/cercat. ('You've searched for it')
    T'ho mereixes. ('You deserve it')
    Ja t'està bé. ('It serves you right')
    Massa poc! ('Too little!' for what you deserve)
     
    Thank for all the replies!
    I love the parallelisms between the Romance languages.
    Also, it seems English is so far the only language that uses “ask for”; others (Greek, Catalan, Mandarin, Italian, French) all seem to use the equivalent of “search/look for”.

    Other very common ones I missed:
    活該！ live+should → That’s what (should) happens! / Well deserved!
    自作自受 Self+deed+self+suffer → You’ve made your bed, now lie in it!
     
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    A little foray into Celtia:

    Cymraeg/Welsh

    roeddet ti'n gofyn amdani!
    were you PRED asking about-her
    you were asking for it!

    rwyt ti'n magu cweir!
    Are you PRED breeding (a) hiding
    you are asking for it!

    mi gest ti dy haeddiant!
    PVP Soft Mutation received you your reward
    you got your reward!
     
    In Mexico you could come across any of these:

    • Bien merecido/ganado te lo tienes. = "You've got it well-deserved/well-earned."
    • Tú te lo buscaste. = "You looked [you] for it."
    • La culpa es tuya y de nadie más. = "It's your fault and no one else's."
    • Te lo ganaste a pulso. = [I find it very tricky to translate this one literally, but it could be something like:] "You earned it
    at a pulse." [Last minute edit: "A pulso" is used here to emphasize how much you earned or deserved something, so a non-literal translation of this one could be: "You really earned/deserved it."]
    • Te lo mereces/merecías. = "You deserve/deserved it."
    • Es tu karma. = " It's your karma."
    • ¡Qué bueno! = "How good!"
    • ¡Me alegro! = "I'm glad!"
    • ¡Tómala! = "Take it!"
    • ¡Ándale! = "Get going!"
    • ¡Para/Pa' [informal, shortened form of "para"] que se te quite! = "So that you lose it!" ('it' meaning here "wanting to annoy/screw others")

    Keep in mind that the last three expressions have other uses, as well, but they certainly may be employed for the one that concerns us here. ;)
     
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    Russian:

    Получи́л? “Got/received [what you wanted]?” — this one's quite rude, and is often said after someone suffers physical violence, especially from the speaker themselves, something like “That'll teach you to mess with it/her/me.”
    Доигра́лся?/! perf. “Toyed [with it] up to a certain result?”, from до “up to” + игра́ть impf. “to be toying, playing” + ся “reflexive”. This one's mildly shaming – the addresse has made themselves look silly.
    Так тебе́ и на́до! “Serves you right!”, lit. thus to-you INTENSIF. is-necessary.
    В сле́дующий раз не бу́дешь (так де́лать/лезть) “Next time you won't (do it/bother it)” – more likely to be added to any of the above.
    Бу́дешь (тепе́рь) знать! “(now) You'll know [what happens to those who do this]!”
    А что ты хоте́л? “And what [else] did you want?” – likely to be used with any affirmative expression.

    Finally, Russian does have an equivalent of En. “You asked for it (yourself)”, which is (сам) напроси́лся, a past perfective made up of на “onto” + проси́ть impf. “to ask for” + ся “reflexive”. The sense that the prefix expresses here is a combination of the terminative “repeat an action enough times to achieve a change of state” and the spatial “get oneself into a situation”, so something like “you asked for it hard enough and now you've got it”.
     
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    Swedish:
    Du bad om det - you asked for it!
    The word (att) be is used both for (to) ask, as in "jag bad om ett glas vatten" (I asked for a glass of water), as well as (to) pray, as in "jag bad till Gud" (I prayed to God).
     
    Sam się o to prosiłeś. - You asked for it yourself.
    Sam o to prosiłeś. - You asked for it.
    Masz, czego chciałeś. - You got what you wanted.
    Należało się. - It was due.
    Zasłużyłeś. - You deserve it.
     
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