It could also just be English if you only speak English.
Burying the cunt of a mouse
I really like the german “Geburtstagskind”. It refers to a Person whose birthday is today but literally translates to “birthday child”. However you use it for any age. If its your grandfathers 80st birthday he still is the birthday child this day. Usually people just use the word without thinking about it , but i really like the idea that everyone can get childish again on their birthday. :)
- Flat out like a lizard drinking
- We’re not here to fuck spiders
- As dry as a dead dingo’s donger
- Forty cents short of a shout
- A few kangaroos loose in the top paddock
Two that are related to falling
猿も木から落ちる [Even] monkeys fall out of trees [too]. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you’ll always get it right.
七転び八起き Fall down 7 times, get up 8. Pretty self-explanatory
“Lukee kuin piru Raamattua” (Finnish).
Literally “to read like the Devil reads the Bible”.
Meaning to examine something in bad faith. Never heard it used it in context of the Bible or anything religious, but eg. when interpreting law or contract, looking for the details that could be twisted for your purpose, rather than what the text attempts to convey.Here’s one in Egyptian Arabic: “He who gets burnt by soup will blow on yoghurt”, meaning that someone who gets hurt once will bexome careful not to repeat the experience.
I really like this! Getting burnt so bad that you’d blow on something cold like ice out of fear.
In colloquial English, you can say that someone is an idiot with the construction “you absolute [noun]” or “you complete [noun]” or similar.
It doesn’t actually matter what the noun is, but it works better the more obscure or specific the thing is. For example “you absolute saucepan”, “you complete hose pipe”, or my personal favourite “you absolute strawberry plant”.
One of my favorite youtubers Octavius King demonstrates this really well by using “complete and utter desk” as a derogatory term for the worst offenders to intellect.
In Khmer, there’s a phrase “មិនដឹងខ្យល់” which literally translates to “Doesn’t know wind” as in they’re so dumb they don’t even know what wind is.
I guess it’s kind of like calling someone an air head but from a different angle.
“Das geht mir am Arsch vorbei.”
German for I don’t give a damn about that.
Literally: it passes by my ass.
You can also lift it up to a SFW level by saying “Das geht mir hinten vorbei.” (It passes behind me), or strengthen it with “Das geht mir weit hinten vorbei.” (It passes far behind me).
Or, if you wanna sound intellectual: „Das tangiert mich peripher.“
On ne peut pas avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre (We can’t have the butter and the butter’s money)
This one would be the French equivalent of “You can’t eat cake and have it”
Tomber dans les pommes (Falling in apples)
This is an expression to describe fainting
Tailler une pipe (Carving a pipe)
Give a blowjob
Esperanto
krokodili- verb, literally something like “to crocodile”
It means when an Esperanto-speaker speaks in a language other than Esperanto while amongst other Esperanto-speakers.
No one’s quite sure why that’s the term for it, most likely because crocodiles have a big mouth.
When I learned that, it suddenly made a lot of sense why Duolingo taught me the word for “crocodile” so early.
“Jeg bryr meg katta”
literally “I care like a cat”, meaning “I don’t care in the slightest and talking more about it is an insult to my time”.
It’s fallen mostly out of use, but I’m hanging on.
That’s such a cool phrase though
are you perchance Norwegian? jeg lærer norsk (faren min er norsk, det er teknisk sett andrespråket mitt men jeg bruker det ikke mye. nå jeg lærer mer)
hvis du er dansk, jeg beklager at forveksler de to, men hvis du er norsk, det er hyggelig å se folk som snakker språket
glem det, dansk bruker “mig”. jeg glemte
Haha, ikke noe problem. Godt observert!
Hehe. Selv om vi nordmenn er litt brutale i språket og ofte tolkes som uhøflige, så betyr «ikke bry deg» noe sånt som «mind your own business». «Glem det» (never mind) fungerer kanskje bedre.
tusen takk! jeg har hørt „nieważne” i polsk også, som betyr “det er ikke viktig”, og jeg tror at det er «неважно» med samme betydning
Muntlig ville jeg nok brukt det. «(det er) ikke så viktig, kom på at ….»
fra min forståelse, du kan si det når du sa noe, personen hørte det ikke.
«Co?» (Hva/Hæ?) «Nieważne» (Det er ikke viktig, glem det)
此地无银三百两—literally “this location does not hide 15kg of silver”. imagine a sign saying that with an arrow pointing downwards
What does that mean?
At a guess, to call attention to something by trying to hide it
Sounds much like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
An example as if I was talking to you: “I’ll wack you like an octopus” which technically already describes the action, however traditionally in my country after catching octopus in order to properly kill them and soften them up, fishermen basically smack/wacked them on the ground maniacally.
And I think it’s become such a popular figure of speech because that mental image is hilarious and I love using it.
What language is that in, English? :)
Greek
“Butt fuck Egypt (BFE),” when referring to being in the middle of nowhere or the far edges of a parking area. For example, Sally complained to her friend in the food court, “I had to park all the way in BFE. I’m dreading the walk back to the car.”
Nice. In German we have “am Arsch der Welt”, lit. translating to “at the arse of the world” to refer to the middle of nowhere
That’s actually quite an interestingly accurate one, considering that something like 95% of Egyptians live near the Nile River, and anywhere that is NOT near the Nile is desert wasteland.
Other accurate analogies would be anywhere in Canada that is NOT near its’ southern border, or nearly anywhere/everywhere in inland Australia, they call it the Outback for a reason.
Bruh where is this?
New England, at least. BFE is half the state of Maine, but also the furthest spots in the Hannaford parking lot.
Growing up in the Midwest, I’ve heard BFE countless times.
We use “bum fuck nowhere” in Michigan, at least in my experience.
