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.”
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.
My favorite in Macedonian: My dick hurts. Translation: I don’t give 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 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.
Yeah, I think the negation part in Macedonian was added later on, in newer generations because it sounded more “cool” I guess. But the phrase has been around for a very long time, probably like 70, 80 years, maybe even longer.
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.
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 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 german we have the phrase “etwas aus den Fingern saugen”, which also translates to “to suck something from the finger” and also basically means it’s bs. Thanks for sharing!
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
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).
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.
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”.
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