What are some (non-English) idioms, and what do they mean (both literally and in context)? Odd ones, your favorite ones - any and all are welcome. :)
For example, in English I might call someone a “good egg,” meaning they’re a nice person. Or, if it’s raining heavily, I might say “it’s raining cats and dogs.”
Catalan:
Enfilar-se per les parets — To be climbing the walls — To be very angry and / or nervous.
Ficar-se de peus a la galleda — To get one’s feet in the bucket — To say or do something inconvenient and / or embarrassing.
N’hi ha per llogar-hi cadires — [Roughly translated] You could rent chairs for this — Refers to something very noteworthy or interesting.
(Anar a) canviar l’aigua de les olives — To (go) change the olives’ water — To (leave for a quick) piss.
Descobrir la sopa d’all — To discover garlic soup — To believe you’ve discovered or come up with something that’s commonly known (except, apparently, to you).
(Estar) tocat del bolet — (To be, or have been) touched/hit on the mushroom — (To be) insane.
Fer figa — To do or make fig (literally, the fruit, or figuratively, the vulva) — To become weaker, unable to perform one’s intended function.
Fer el préssec — To do or make the peach — To put yourself in a ridiculous situation.
Fer uns ulls com unes taronges — To open one’s eyes like oranges — To look very surprised or interested.
Fer pinya — To make (like a) pinecone — To work together for a common cause.
Partir peres — To split up pears — To break up a relationship (sentimental, professional, or otherwise).
Remenar les cireres — To mix up the cherries — To be the person who makes the decisions, to be in control (in a partnership, organisation…). Also, Tallar el bacallà — To cut up the cod. Also, Tenir la paella pel mànec — To hold the pan by the handle.
Somiar truites — To dream of omelettes — To believe things that will hardly be possible to be possible. And, by extension, Somiatruites — Omelette dreamer — Someone who regularly does that; an extremely unreasonable optimist.
Suar la cansalada — To sweat (the) bacon — To do very hard tiring work or exercise.
Aixecar la camisa — To lift (someone’s) shirt — To scam, misdirect, or lie (to someone).
Això són figues d’un alter paner — These are figs from a different container — This is a completely different matter (than what we were talking about).
Bon vent i barca nova! — Good wind and a new boat! — Farewell to someone or something you’d rather never see again.
(Això és) bufar i fer ampolles — (This is) (like) blowing and making bottles — Refers to something that’s very easy to do or achieve. Can be used literally or ironically.
Caure-hi de quatre potes / peus — To fall in with all four legs / feet — To fall for a scam or lie.
(Ser) cornut i pagar el beure — (To be a) cuckold (literally, to have horns) and pay for the drinks — To voluntarily sacrifice for others who take advantage of you.
_(Donar) gat per llebre — (To give) a cat pretending it’s a hare — To lie, scam, or misdirect. To substitute a lower quality product for what you agreed to provide.
El més calent és a l’aigüera — The hottest stuff is in the sink — Work hasn’t even started yet on whatever endeavour we’re talking about.
En un tres i no res — In a three and nought — In a very short time.
La mare dels ous — The mother of the eggs — The main cause or reason (of/for something).
Lligar els gossos amb llonganisses — To tie up the dogs with sausages — To be wealthy.
Fer mans i mànigues — To do/make hands and sleeves — To put as much effort as possible into something.
Fer un riu — To make a river — To piss.
Veure el llautó — To notice the brass — To notice the concealed truth behind appearances. (Literally, it refers to noticing something is made of a poorer quality metal than it’s claimed to be.)
Tenir mà esquerra — To have (sic) left hand — To be good at diplomacy.
Un orgue de gats — An organ (musical instrument) made out of cats — A very noisy and chaotic room or place.
And there’s plenty more, but I’ve already spent more time than I could afford typing these.
Oh, but also, not exactly an idiom, maybe, but something I’ve always thought says a lot about Catalan worldview: the Catalan word for pigsty is cort. Which is exactly the same word (and with the same meaning) as the Catalan word for court. As in royal court.
Maybe that’s where Orwell got his idea for Napoleon & co to be pigs…?
I love how much food is part of these!
Thank you for sharing! These are really interesting. I love that pigsty and royal court are the same word; very appropriate.
In most languages, “get well soon” is expressed as good wishes. In Russian, they use the imperative form, so it is like an order or a command. It’s буд здоров(а), which is literally “be healthy” as a command. They also use it as “bless you” after sneezing. (For those whoe can’t read Cyrillic, in Latin it’s approximately said like “bud zdarov(a)”. The -a suffix is the female version, without it is male.)
In French, the expression “du coup” (it means something like “therefore” or “so” or “thus”) can be used in place of like 10 other expressions.
- Ainsi
- Donc
- Alors
- Tout à coup
- Soudainement
- En conclusion
- Si je comprends bien
- De ce fait
- Ce qui fait que
- En conséquence
- Consequémment
Is all being replaced by “du coup”.
In German, capitalisation matters. In contrast with many other languages, nouns must be capitalised, or it changes the meaning. For example:
- Helft den Armen vögeln
- Helft den armen Vögeln
Notice how only the capitalisation changed. The first sentence means “help the poor to fuck” while the second sentence means “help those poor birds”.
I didn’t know that about German and capitalization. That’s fascinating! How would that play out verbally? Would you just have to figure it out from context?
Yes, from context
I took German classes in high school and have been struggling ever since not to automatically capitalize nouns when I write in English. It’s been like 25 years.
“Get well soon” is imperative!
Irish: Ar muidne muiche.
Literally “on the pigs back” and means “doing great” for example in response to “how are you?”
It is not the yellow from the egg but I understand only train station. My lovely gentleman’s singing club, I think I spider!
What that just one idiom ?
No, that are 4 different ones.
“Masamang damo”, or weed, as in unwanted grasses in your garden, not the marijuana. You call that to someone undeniably evil (or to just someone whom you hate) but just won’t go away or die, especially old corrupt politicians.
“Huwag kang pilosopo” which literally means “don’t philosophise” but its casual meaning is “don’t be a smart ass”. However, knowing people in my country especially after electing the son of a former dictator thanks to “Facebook researches”, this expression implies to someone not to think critically.
The Germans have a similar expression, “Unkraut vergeht nicht”, it means something like “weeds do not go away”, but it is usually used in a self-deprecating way, for example as a response to wishes for good health when ill.
Weeds don’t wither would be a better translation
“o que é um peido pra quem já está cagado?”
What’s a fart to someone who already shit himself?
If you’re already 30 minutes late, don’t speed recklessly to save 3 minutes.
That is awesome
Haha! The equivalent in Ireland (not sure if it’s used in other English speaking countries) is “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”
Makes me think of " Why cry over spilled milk?" Which never made any sense to me lol
tnh I think the spilled milk saying is more about things that you can’t control / already happened.
and the Brazilian saying is more like “it’s ok to let a little more milk get spilled”, however I can’t think of a nice way of saying that.
edit: thinking more about that, maybe the milk saying can be used for this, but not necessarily
Yeah it didnt feel directly relatable but maybe adjacent to it
In Danish we have “Goddag mand økseskaft” (literal: goodday man axe shaft) which can either mean you and another person is misunderstanding eachother/speaking about two complete things while thinking it is related, or it can mean that something gives absolutely no sense. The reason why I like it, is that even the Danish sentence makes no sense, eg. not a valid sentence. Another one I like is “ikke kunne se skoven for bare træer” (literal: not being able to see the forest for because of bare/naked/leafless trees - another might be: not being able to see the forest because of the trees) it means to lose the bigger picture, or to not find something right infront of you, eg. Looking for your phone while speaking with someone, that person could say it.
In Danish we have “Goddag mand økseskaft”
We have that in Norway as well. Just replace or remove that d in mand.
Another one I like is “ikke kunne se skoven for bare træer”
Same about that one
Thank you Norway for showing the trans gender community your support in removing the d from the man
“Goddag yxskaft” in Swedish, so no man involved here
Goddag mand økseskaft
The Danish language has collapsed into meaningless, guttural sounds.
It’s almost the same as English.
Do you want to order 1000 liters of milk?
Kamelåså?
“Can’t see the forest through the trees” is also an English idiom meaning the same thing
Some personal favorites I have used or heard used lately :
“Der er ingen ko på isen” - “there is no cow on the ice” meaning that nothing is wrong after all
“Lave dobbeltkonfekt” - “making double confection” meaning making more work for yourself for no reason
“Gøre ham en bjørnetjeneste” - “doing him a bear’s favor” - a well intended deed that makes things worse in the long run
This is English, but Canada specific as far as I know.
“Fucking the dog” - means to slack off, particularly at work.
“I fucked the dog all day at work today” basically means I got nothing done.
It is distinct from “screw the pooch” which means to fuck something up badly.
This is amazing!
Spanish: me cago en la leche. I shit in the milk. Like… fuck, damn! Being annoyed at something.
Mandarin Chinese:
I thought of a couple involving animals.
沉鱼落雁 (chén yú luò yàn) - literally “sinking fish and grounding geese” - describes a beautiful woman.
虎头蛇尾 (hǔ tóu shé wěi) - literally “having the head of a tiger and the tail of a snake” - meaning: 1. having a strong start and a weak finish. 2. describing someone who is treacherous and doesn’t do what they say they will.
Lots of idioms in Chinese are “chengyu” consisting of four characters.
Chinese has so many good ones.
Please forgive the lack of tones, it’s been a long long time.
Ren shan, Ren hai: a mountain and sea of people - a remarkable amount of people by Chinese standards.
Ma Ma, Hu Hu: horse horse, tiger tiger - a mixed bag, or something that’s ok.
In Indonesian, there’s an idiom “guru kencing berdiri, murid kencing berlari” which literally translates to teacher pee standing, students pee running. Meaning that students/followers learn not only good examples but the bad as well, and will one day be better at it than their predecessors.
In Swedish there is
“Now the boiled pork is fried”, meaning sometging has gone too far
" be on the cinnamon", to be drunk
“Put the legs on your back”, to run
“You are out biking”, you are missing the point
“Pay[back] for old cheese”, to get revenge
" bear-favour", is a favour that gives bad results
“Now you’ll see other buns”, things will get rough
" there are no children being made here", nothing is happening/its boring/lets go
“Satan and his aunt”, all kinds of people/everyone
“Good day, axe-handle”, something like saying “yeah, you dumbfuck” after getting a nonsense repley from someone
“In only the brass”, to be naked
“Show where the cupboard will stand”, to firmly make a decision
“You cupboard”, miss the point, being stupid
" shit in the blue cupboard", to make a mistake
If you are ever visiting Öland, and stop by Solliden, our King’s summer retreat, you can go into a café and they have the toilets in a room you enter through a blue cupboard.
So yes, I have shat in the blue cupboard at the Kings summer retreat
I thought “be on the cinnamon” was going to be my favorite, but the list just kept getting better. I think you ended on the best.
björntjänst bear-favor: From a French fable (L’Ours et l’Amateur des jardins by Jean de La Fontaine) in which a tame bear wants to do his master a favor by hitting the fly who sat down on the master’s forehead, but hits the fly so hard that the master too is killed.
Interesting
Bärendienst in German.
Some Norwegian politicians have completely ruined this expression, and now use it to mean “a really big favor”.
It’s almost as annoying as when Americans say they “could care less” when they mean the opposite.
" there are no children being made here", nothing is happening/its boring/lets go
My sides went into orbit. How else would someone entertain themself, when this expression was coined? TV is a recent invention, after all…
Interestingly, English has the same exact expression (“get your thumb out of your ass”).
" bear-favour", is a favour that gives bad results
Almost the same in German, “Bärendienst” means a bear’s service, means a bad service or one which did much more damage than help, usually unintentionally
Ikea is starting to make more sense with all this cupboard talk
Forgot: “Fastnat med skägget i brevlådan” Literal meaning being: “Stuck with your beard in the mailbox” which is basically saying you’ve fucked up and are getting caught in the act
If someone “got a pig”, it means he got lucky in German. Often in a rather desperate or unexpected position. "Der hat mal so richtig Schwein gehabt“ -> “he really got pig there” could for example be used if someone narrowly escaped an accident, if you managed to get exactly the minimum passing score in an exam, etc.
Apparently the expression comes from the middle ages, where the second place in a lucky draw was often a literal piglet. So you maybe didn’t get the main prize, but at least you got pig.
Got pig, without the „a“. I have never heard „ein Schwein haben“, unless it is meant literally.
My favorite in Macedonian: My dick hurts. Teanslation: I don’t gove a fuck. Also, the opposite is true, like if someone says “My dick doesn’t hurt at all about so and so”, it also means the same thing: I don’t give a fuck. Go figure 🤷 😂.
This makes me think about the French “je m’en bats les couilles” (litt. “I beat my balls with it”). Some girls say it too, others say they beat their ovaries instead.
lol, I had a weird mental picture about a girl beating her ovaries 🤣.
We do “my dick sweats”, for the same thing, which I now realize sounds super gross.
This is hilarious 😂 Is it something those of us without dicks would also say? (In English, I might still tell someone to “suck my dick,” despite not having one.)
Yeah, girls say it around here too sometimes 😂, but some also tend to replace the dick oart with pussy, so girls would say “my pussy hurts” or “my pussy doesn’t hurt all” 😂.
In English, over time, “I could care less” has come to have the exact same meaning as “I couldn’t care less.”
Some people get wrapped around an axle (i.e. irrationally angry) about it, but i just mentally fill in some context myself: “I could care less… i suppose… if i really tried… but that’s not going to happen.”
There’s no governing body for English. If you communicate the meaning and social cues that you intended, then it’s “right.” Of course, communicating social cues is sometimes where you can get in trouble using newer linguistic constructions.
Not quite an idiom but term of endearment: petit chou in French is little cabbage but is often used for young kids…
This is a great one to see first “in the wild” while studying French. The trip from “this can’t possibly be what they’re saying” to “that was exactly what they were saying” is a wild one.
But it’s about the pastry, not the disgusting vegetable. Yikes.
Calling someone “Mon Chou” is like calling them “sweetheart”.
Wait really?? That makes so much more sense 🤣
I’m dying now because that’s literally what I thought when my extended family says it.
Sorry. Which pastry is that?
ETA: I found it: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/choux-pastry/
Hey cabbage is not disgusting!
