nędzna imitacja

He would want a real woman, not a pale imitation.

Training was a pale imitation of battle, but he would be satisfied with it.

Any other woman would be a substitute, a pale imitation.

What they have access to, however, is a pale imitation.

The pieces had been unpacked and set together in a pale imitation of a working system.

So how successful is a pale imitation going to be, 30 years down the line?

Didn't you turn into a pale imitation of a Yank instead?

For Ritter the pale imitation left much to be desired.

The new child was a pale imitation of the old.

Now I learned that both the playing and the training were pale imitations of the real thing.