An idiomatic expression is an expression that has the curious pretense that it does not, strictly speaking, have any meaning. The meaning of an idiom cannot be derived from what the words in it say. In other words, the literal meaning is different from how it is commonly used. For example, if you find programming a computer easy, you might say that it is easy. Someone who has never heard this idiom has no idea what programming has to do with baking. The literal meaning is nonsense, but those of us who are familiar with the idiom understand its idiomatic meaning.
There are thousands of idioms in the English language, ranging from cliches like “you can’t judge a book by its cover” to turns of phrase like “kick the bag.” But there are just as many idioms from other countries and languages that are delightful enough that you might want to find a way to incorporate them into your everyday language.
10. Almost every language has its own version of the phrase, "It's all Greek to me."
If you don't understand something, you can use the idiom "it's all Greek to me" to get the point across. The implication here is that whatever you're referring to may be written in another language because you just don't understand it. This makes sense to English speakers because many of them don't actually speak Greek.
So what if you're Greek? The idiom definitely loses something in translation. Or what about speaking a language that's notoriously harder to master, like Mandarin? You might argue that Greek is easier to understand, and so the idiom would have the opposite meaning.
Turns out, in almost every language has its own version of this idiom, and while some stick to the Greek one, many don't. If you speak Cantonese, you'd say "it's all chicken guts" or ghost font, while in Mandarin you'd refer to alien or celestial languages. In one Dutch version Greek is replaced by Chinese. Finnish can use Hebrew. Someone speaking Korean might say, "They talk like dogs."
9. "Wei Jie died from stares" is a Chinese idiom about celebrities and fans.
China has all sorts of funny and unusual idioms that lose a bit of meaning when translated into English, but sometimes that's to be expected. One of their more unusual, yet oddly appropriate for the modern world, sayings is: "Wei Jie died from stares."
Wei Jie is said to have been a historical figure from China who worked as a court official in the 3rd or 4th century. He must also have been stunningly handsome. In fact, he was so handsome that everyone was constantly looking at him, and even when he came to a new city, people couldn't take their eyes off him. According to legend, he was ill, and people blocked the street to watch, until finally he just didn't die under their watchful gaze. Thus, Wei Jie died from the gaze.
Today, the saying is similar to "death by sight," and the meaning refers to something that is greatly admired or has many adoring fans, perhaps fitting for the social media age.
8. In China, you can blow smoke out of seven holes
We have several popular idioms that can mean or describe anger in English, from “seeing red” to “biting someone’s head.” The Chinese language offers a surprisingly unique idiom, “ qi qiao sheng yan ", which literally translates as " smoke eruption through seven holes ".
You can see where this saying comes from to some extent, at least in terms of imagery. There has been a long tradition in cartoons of depicting an evil character by showing him with sweat around his collar or even steam coming out of his ears. So someone is blowing smoke, it seems, in a stadium.
In English, the literal language also sounds a bit risky, but all seven holes in question can be found on the head - two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and one mouth.
7. The song Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys comes from Poland.
This unique phrase has actually crossed the cultural barrier and entered the English language, including in various forms. The saying “ not my circus, not my monkeys " is a colorful way of saying it's not your problem. Canadian show Letterkenny also used the "not my pig, not my farm" variation in one or two episodes.
The original version seems to have come from Poland, not traditionally known for its monkeys. The original wording was: " I'm not a pig, I'm not a tree "Put that into Google Translate and there's no confusion, it literally means "not my circus, not my monkeys."
6. In Iceland, "I took him to the bakery" means to dominate
There are some fun ways to express power and dominance verbally. One popular and short way used in the modern world is to simply say that you own something. In fact, you can break this down into one word, “owner,” and still convey the idiomatic meaning in context.
If you were in Iceland, you might say, I'm not a baker " This translates to "I took him to the bakery." In Icelandic, this idiom is often used in a sports context. So if you fight an opponent in a game and win, you don't just beat him, you take him to the bakery.
Someone tried to determine the origin of the phrase on the Internet back in 2010 and was able to trace it back to 1982 dictionary of slang in Iceland. It has been suggested that the word "bake" was related to creating or causing, such as causing trouble or damage, but this is just a guess.
5. In Sweden, "pooping in the blue cupboard" means doing something wrong.
We said at the beginning that the literal meaning of an idiom is not the same as the idiomatic meaning, and you probably can't guess what the meaning of a term is based on the literal meaning. Sweden took this to heart with the idiom " poop in the blue closet ".
The phrase itself literally means, well… you can figure out what it means. But the figurative meaning is that you screwed up . You went too far, you made a fool of yourself, you got into trouble; something like that. The point is that you did something wrong. And in that context, of course, pooping in the blue cupboard feels like you screwed up.
4. "The Last Coke in the Desert" from Spanish-speaking countries
If someone ever calls you the last Coke in the desert, they are not paying you a compliment. The saying seems to be common in many Spanish-speaking countries, and you can find references to it in Cuba , V Venezuela And Mexico .
The saying means that you are a bit overconfident or conceited, which you might assume could be the attitude of the last Coke in the desert, since everyone would probably want that. The best way to use it in casual conversation is to poke fun at an arrogant person by saying, “You really think you’re the last Coke in the desert, don’t you?” or something along those lines.
3. "Horse-horse-tiger-tiger" has an interesting history
Most idioms may not make sense in context, but they usually have some discernible meaning. Not so with the Chinese idiom "horse, horse, tiger, tiger." You can't get much out of two repeated words.
This statement actually means something like "it is what it is" or "so-so" and it acts as a warning against carelessness as it refers to the fact that who was stupid . This is definitely not the meaning you would get from the words as presented.
There is a story behind this idiom, and it is that once upon a time the artist painted a tiger, when someone asked him to draw a horse instead. So he put the horse's body on the tiger's head. Later, one of his sons saw it and asked what it was, and the artist said it was a tiger. But when his youngest son asked, he said it was a horse.
One day the eldest son went out and came across a horse, but thinking it was a tiger, he killed it, and so the artist had to pay the horse's owner for the loss. Meanwhile the youngest son came across a tiger and thought it was a horse, so he tried to ride it and died. Oops.
Since then, horse horse tiger tiger refers to someone who is careless or something that was so-so or, you know, not very good.
2. "May the cat eat you and may the devil eat the cat" is an Irish Gaelic curse.
"The cat's got your tongue" and "look what the cat's got" are some popular cat-related idioms you might come across in the English language, but the whole world loves cats, so it's no surprise that there are other cat jokes out there. One of the oldest and most colorful comes from Irish Gaelic , and this total damnation .
If you have a grudge against someone and want to insult them, you can say, "Go-i-te-cat, this is go-n-ite-diabhal-cat," which translates as "let the cat eat you, and let the devil eat the cat."
The gist of the saying is that you have to fuck and then fuck again, but it's a little more colorful than that.
1. Jack's infamous typewritten pages in The Shining have been replaced by other translations internationally.
« Shine" Stephen King — is one of his most popular works, thanks in large part to Stanley Kubrick's adaptation. And one of the most memorable scenes in the film is when Shelley Duvall's Wendy checks on the work her husband Jack, played by Jack Nicholson, is doing while the family is sequestered in the Overlook Hotel. Jack, a writer, has been typing a novel, only on every printed page the phrase "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is repeated over and over again. It's then that she fully realizes that Jack has, in fact, gone mad.
Kubrick was known as an extremely meticulous director. He made actors do things dozens and dozens of times to get it right. He made Nicholson chop through a bathroom door with an axe at least 60 times When it came to the printed page, he knew the film would be shown to a non-English speaking audience, meaning people wouldn't understand what was written on the page. To save audiences around the world from having to read subtitles, Kubrick shot the scene multiple times with different papers printed in different languages.
Italian version read: "Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca," which means "the morning has gold in its mouth." The Germans got "was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen," which means "never put off until tomorrow what you can do today."
The reference to Jack is lost, but each line, as well as other phrases in French and Spanish, were bizarre enough that knowing that Jack Nicholson was maniacally typing them over and over would probably have alienated audiences in other countries.
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