Funny Foreign Phrases

RiderOnTheStorm · 05-08-2018 11:03PM #1

Read somewhere that Croatians say you are â€œthrowing cream into their eyes" when someone is obviously lying to you.

Do you know any foreign phrases that just dont translate into meaningful English?

J. Smith · 05-08-2018 11:09PM

Du hast einen Vogel! = You have a bird!

Meaning: You're crazy!!

Vita nova · 05-08-2018 11:13PM

I like the old Arab curse; "may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits".

Duckworth_Luas · 05-08-2018 11:14PM

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Read somewhere that Croatians say you are “throwing cream into their eyes" when someone is obviously lying to you.

Do you know any foreign phrases that just dont translate into meaningful English?

Are you “throwing cream into my eyes?

Oink · 05-08-2018 11:20PM

When sausages are talking, smoked meat stays up on the hook.
Meaning: feck off this is a private conversation.

biko · 05-08-2018 11:37PM

Ah, la vache! = Holy cow!

Shenshen · 05-08-2018 11:57PM

Se noyer dans une verre d'eau. It translates as drowning in a glass of water, and is a Fench expression for someone who will be defeated by the smallest obstacle in life. For a drama queen, too.

06-08-2018 12:07AM

May the hair on your upper lip grow up and get entangled with the hair from your nostrils growing down.
Albeit from "The Golden Girls" and therefore not genuine Italian, but I liked that one anyway.

However a genuine one (and similar to the Croat phrase mentioned above) is the Russian saying "Don't hang chips from my ears" meaning don't tell me lies.

pickarooney · 06-08-2018 10:12AM

"Don't push granny in the nettles" (Fr.) - don't exaggerate

Marcusm · 06-08-2018 10:45AM

Enculer Des mouches - flyfücking as a euphemism for pedantry.

pickarooney · 06-08-2018 11:14AM

In Dutch they shag ants instead.

Shenshen · 06-08-2018 12:19PM

It's sausage to me - German expression for "I don't care"

06-08-2018 01:00PM

Likewise in Greece, "there's trouble in the Gypsy village" also means I don't care.

Tzardine · 06-08-2018 01:01PM

Not a phrase as such, but in Spain, a swiss roll is called a gypsy's arm. Always gives me a chuckle.

Qrt · 06-08-2018 01:02PM

"Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof" from German, i.e. Life ain't easy. I'm sure the phrase "throw the baby out with the bathwater" stems from German originally too.

soups05 · 06-08-2018 01:03PM

Ulster says No

pmsl

Canard · 06-08-2018 02:07PM

pickarooney wrote: »

"Don't push granny in the nettles" (Fr.) - don't exaggerate

I assume a French person explained that to you, same happened to me and they misuse the term exaggerate a bit. They don't say it if it's like, an overestimation or embellishing details, this phrase is actually used when someone is being mean / kicking someone when they're down, which makes it funnier and even more apt. :pac:

Another one I like in French is "Tu as des bruns dans les yeux ?", can't find any examples online but they use it in the north to mean "Are you blind?", literally meaning "Do you have **** in your eyes"

In Spanish a relatively normal way to say the middle of nowhere is "en el quinto pino" (in the fifth pine tree), but a variation is "en el quinto coño" in the fifth c*nt. Spanish speakers are very expressive in that way!!

Another very idiomatic one for something like "Gway / I don't believe you / don't take the piss" is "No me jodas", literally "don't fúck me".

Went to look up one I know of in Finnish and found an entire list of hilarious Finnish ones here. I might start using some of them in English...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 06-08-2018 03:03PM

Ohrwurm/Earworm - Song that you can't get out of your head.

German, but I think used in other countries as well. Had never heard it before I moved abroad.

jcorr · 06-08-2018 04:41PM

Not really a phrase but in Malaysia (well among Malaysian Chinese mostly) they use the word "la" or "lah" at the end of every sentence. It kind of gives more emphasis to the sentence.

I worked with a guy when I was down there and he used la a couple of times in each sentence lol.

Poochie05 · 06-08-2018 05:57PM

In Italy they touch iron instead of wood for luck.
Lived in Italy and my housemates and I had great fun swapping sayings.
Funniest was my Italian housemate going around telling people 'Io conosco le mie cipolle' (I know my onions) to many a WTF

indioblack · 06-08-2018 07:27PM

"Good moaning".

Shenshen · 06-08-2018 11:04PM

If the mountain won't come to the prophet, the prophet will have to go to the mountain.

German as well, no idea about it's origins, but it's a saying meaning if it's too hard or impossible to do something a certain way, another way of doing it may be easier and more successful.

biko · 07-08-2018 11:43AM

if the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill

Francis Bacon 1625

pickarooney · 07-08-2018 11:51AM

jcorr wrote: »

Not really a phrase but in Malaysia (well among Malaysian Chinese mostly) they use the word "la" or "lah" at the end of every sentence. It kind of gives more emphasis to the sentence.

I worked with a guy when I was down there and he used la a couple of times in each sentence lol.

Malaysia, Singapore and Carlow. Not sure what the connection is.

Grayson · 07-08-2018 12:03PM

There's a polish one I like. "Not my monkeys, not my circus"
i.e. It's not my fecking problem.

Are Am Eye · 07-08-2018 12:06PM

Shenshen wrote: »

If the mountain won't come to the prophet, the prophet will have to go to the mountain.

German as well, no idea about it's origins, but it's a saying meaning if it's too hard or impossible to do something a certain way, another way of doing it may be easier and more successful.

Not German in origin - it actually comes from Francis Bacon's Essays (1625) where he recounts the story of Muhammad

"Mahomet cald the Hill to come to him. And when the Hill stood still, he was neuer a whit abashed, but said; If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet wil go to the hil."

Grayson · 07-08-2018 12:13PM

Are Am Eye wrote: »

Not German in origin - it actually comes from Francis Bacon's Essays (1625) where he recounts the story of Muhammad

"Mahomet cald the Hill to come to him. And when the Hill stood still, he was neuer a whit abashed, but said; If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet wil go to the hil."

I'd never heard that with the prophet. I'd always heard it with Mohammad. So I assumed it was islamic. Turns out I got the reference right but not the origin.

Stone Deaf 4evr · 07-08-2018 12:24PM

l'esprit d'escalier - a french phrase meaning 'the wit of the staircase' - it essentially refers to the witty comeback you think of, as you're leaving the building and the moment has passed.