Multilingual folks: what are some odd idioms in your language(s)?
Multilingual folks: what are some odd idioms in your language(s)?
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."
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
Edit: forgot a good one:
"Get your thumb out of your ass", to stop doing nothing and start doing something
Fun question! There's an abundance in Vietnamese. Usually used by parents and/or old folk (I can hear it now...)
Mèo khen mèo dài đuôi — Literal translation "cat praises cat's long tail." A way of expressing narcissism.
Uống nước nhớ nguồn — Literal translation is "drink water, remember roots." So you'd pause, reflect, and remember where you came from.
Gieo gió gặt bão— Literal translation is "sow winds, weather storms." A way of saying "you reap what you sow."
Có công mài sắt có ngày nên kim — Literal translation "Perseverance grinds iron some day into needles." Used like "practice makes perfect."
Trời có mắt — Literal translation "Heaven has eyes." Usually used when someone's wronged, but don't worry - heaven is watching.
Gần mực thì đen, gần đèn thì sáng — Literal translation "near the ink it blackens, near the lamp it lights." You're influenced by those you're around.
Nuôi ong tay áo — Literal translation "raise bees in shirtsleeve." As in "to nurture a snake in one's bosom," kindness will be met by betrayal.
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 altre 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..?
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".
Icelandic is full of fun idioms:
"He's totally outside driving" = he's very incorrect about something, possibly crazy
"It's hard to grab his horns" = He's very headstrong and stubborn
"A wave rarely comes alone" = If something bad happens, usually a lot of bad things happen at once
"He hasn't peed into the salty sea" = he's young an inexperienced
"He has unclean flour in the corner of the bag" = he's untrustworthy
"I totally come from the mountains" = I'm out of the loop, unaware of recent developmentsSpanish, but only from my region:
"You are worth dick": You are worth nothing
"You are not worth dick": You are worth nothing
So basically to be worth dick and not be worth dick is the same.
We also have some variation like
"You are [not] worth three trip strips of cock": same meaning.
A bonus, not related to genitalia:
"Go get your hair brushed by a donkey": Stop pestering / go fuck yourself.
ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada): ಶಂಖದಿಂದ ಬಂದ್ರೇನೇ ತೀರ್ಥ - shankadinda bandrene teertha.
Literally: it's holy water only if it comes from a conch.
Meaning: people are only going to take things seriously if a specific person says it.
Example scenario: you tell a friend that a cab to go somewhere costs X amount, but they don't believe you and check with a different friend and then accept that it's going to cost them X.
You'd then say this idiom to tease them since you gave them the same water (information) but it wasn't holy water since you weren't a conch (someone they trust/have faith in).
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.
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.
In Hebrew there is "para, para" which translates to "cow, cow" and it means "one at a time"
There is also "matzoz meh-ha-etzba" which translates to "sucked from the finger" and it means bullshit basically.
"Nishbar li ha-zain" which is "my penis broke" and it means "I'm done with this" in an angry and out of petience way.
In Arabic "Government of Donkeys" is often used to deride especially incompetent governments, and no I don't believe it's meant to translate to "Ass" instead of "Donkey", Ass came to english by way of Rome and Arabic is on the Yunan side of the Greece Yunan linguistic split.
Although if you wanted to zhuzh it up for proper conveyance in english "Confederacy of Asses" gets the point across a lot less clunkily
Irish: Ar muidne muiche.
Literally "on the pigs back" and means "doing great" for example in response to "how are you?"
Slovak: "Boha ti jebem" literally translates into "I fuck your god". Unsurprisingly, it's a curse you tell someone who pisses you off.
The Slovak Prime Minister also likes to say "Do psej matere", which literally means "Into the dog's mom". The English equivalent would be along the lines of "For fuck's sake".
Picking a few amusing ones from Portuguese and Italian that I use often.
- [PT] um polaco de cada colônia (a Pole from each colony): assortment of random items or people that might look related but aren't.
- [PT] o que o cu tem a ver com as calças? (what does the arse/arsehole have to do with the pants?): how is this shit even related [to something else implicit by context]?
- [PT] vir com o milho enquanto alguém já comeu a polenta (to bring the maize while someone already ate the polenta) - to think about something after someone else already handled it
- [IT] dire pane al pane e vino al vino (say "bread" for the bread and "wine" for the wine) - let's speak clearly, OK? No [eu/dys]phemism, let's call things by what they are.
- [IT] scoprire l'acqua calda (to discover hot water) - it's a bit like English "to reinvent the wheel": everybody already knew it, but you just realised it.
- [IT] l'ospite è come il pesce / [PT] a visita é como o peixe (guest is like fish) - don't overdo your stay; guests and fish, both stink on the third day.
- [IT] non avere peli sulla lingua / [PT] não ter pelos na língua (to not have hair on the tongue) - someone who speaks openly, not holding back
There's also a funny Latin insult that I tend to jokingly use translated fairly often, "funge putride" (you rotten mushroom). I like it because it's really light, not something to really insult someone.
"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.
One of my favorite Koreanisms, is the one where when you're drinking and you cheer "먹어 죽자!" Which literally translates to "eat die". Essentially, it means let's drink until we're dead. Good times.
German:
tie a bear on so. / so.'s back - to fool so.
make so. believe a X is an U - to fool so.
being blue - being drunk
the devil is a squirrel - devil is in the details
--
My favourite is hard to translate.
'verschlimmbessern' - to want to fix something but making it worse in doing so.
Imbadprove maybe
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 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 Brazil we have "É de cair o cu da bunda" "Makes the butthole fall out of the ass", which indicates something impressive/unexplainable.
And "Que que tem o cu com as calças?" "What does the ass have to do with the pants?". Which asks for the relation of two completely different things. It is generally used as doubting there's a relationship at all.
In Dutch "that hits (fits) like pliers on a pig", meaning that it's completely absurd.
"Blood crawl where it can't go", means that if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way.
"For an apple and an egg" means it's very cheap. But "little apple little egg" means it's very easy.
But my alltime favourite is "poepje", which is a term of endearment that little means "little shit"
Dutch has a few that some say are insane-sounding but for me make a lot of sense as a native English speaker:
- Bekijk een gegeven paard niet in de bek "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
- Ik geef een vinger en je neemt een vuist "I give an inch and you take a mile"
- De geest is uit de fles "the genie's out the bottle"
- De ene zijn dood is de andere zijn brood (literally "one's death is the other's bread" but I can't think of an English equivalent)
- Bier en wijn is fijn; wijn en bier is verkeerd "beer and wine is fine; wine and beer is queer" although that's quite a literal saying
- Een kruim is toch brood (literally "a crumb is still bread")
Croatian "Ovce i novce" - literally sheep and the money. Same meaning as have your cake and eat it. "Kašika mu u med pala" - spoon fell into honey, meaning he got lucky "Tako ti je grah pao" - this is the way beans fell, meaning it is what it is "Izvukao si deblji kraj" - you got the fatter end, opposite meaning from you got the shorter end. It's kind of a weird one, as it is also sometimes used to mean the same as the shorter end. "Da ti dupe puta vidi" - so your behind can see the trip. Meaning to travel for no special reason, usually used when a reason is given, but is probably just an excuse to travel
"The bamboo is moaning" It's raining really hard.
My Egyptian ass be like: My time has come. Let's see...
Turn the pot on its mouth, the girl turns out like her mother (no idea why it's like this, literally no purpose other than that it rhymes). Used when a girl is like her mother, basically what it says on the cover. The guy version is "This cub from that lion", which can't be used for girls because lioness is an insult for some reason (kinda like bitch but stronger).
The winds come with what ships don't want: Not everything happens as we want it to.
Going around and spinning: To try to trick someone or dodge a subject by making the conversation go in circles and not touch an important point. Speaking of spinning,
To spin around oneself: To be in trouble and really busy/not know what to do.
To pretend to be from Banha (a place in Egypt): To pretend you have nothing to do with what's going on.
A black (sometimes blue or white) day or night: An unpleasant time/experience. Used as both a statement and a threat (like "your day will be black today" after your parents catch you doing something you're not supposed to).
Have them for lunch before they have you for dinner: Attack before you're attacked.
The monkey would've benefited himself: When you ask someone for something they would've done for themselves if they could.
Kahka with sugar: Zero (on exams). Kahk is an Egyptian biscuit-like sweet eaten on Eid, and it's circular like a zero.
A pot with a hole is emptied on the one that lifts it: If you do something dumb you suffer the consequences.
Edit:
To get spanked: To fail.
To slam (your ass): To make up something (probably incorrect) in the moment. Comes from the idea of slamming your ass onto an exam paper and leaving whatever comes up as the answer.
I started listing some in Japanese, but realized this site does a better job than I could: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/japanese-idioms/ I've heard a fair number of those in person, some frequently.
Finnish ones (some sayings here too):
- "Ski into a spruce!" -> Get lost!
- "So the forest answers as one calls into it" -> what comes around goes around
- "If you reach for the spruce you'll fall into the juniper" -> don't bite more than you can chew
- "to be like hit on the head with a piece of wood" -> to be baffled
- "it went into the forest" -> something failed
- "to have own cow in the ditch" -> to have their own hidden agenda behind a request or actions
- "to throw the spoon into the corner" -> to die
Having pigs in the forest - to be hiding something.
The tax man would go from farm to farm back in the old days and count the number of pigs. The farmers would be taxed accordingly. Naturally, when you heard the tax man was coming, you'd send some pigs into the forest so that you'd be taxed less. Norwegian. :)
Something can go "like chopped shit" - smoothly, I guess.
Thinking suitcase (being a gutter mind).
Painting Satan on the wall (making mountains out of mole hills).
X on the ceiling (well done/good for you) - no idea, don't ask.
Whittling splinters (splitting hairs) I guess is fairly obvious.
One can also be "snowed down" (an idiot), an onion sausage (idiot), way out in the field (clueless, lost, idiot).
Something is "completely Texas" when it's chaotic, uncontrolled, unregulated or just generally nuts.
A Northerner might describe something that only barely worked/made it on time as "by [one] cunt hair".