Good mate of mine uses "Face like a robber's dog".
Someone who's not real bright is "not a full quid" or "only 45 cents in the dollar". They might have "a few roos loose in the top paddock" or be "a few tiles short of a roof"
Only just got to this thread.
Mr Stillwater - a friend of mine uses that expression, too. Most of the time I'd just say that he/she has a "dodgy boat" - from the Cockney "Boat Race" = Face. Most Brits (at least in the South East) will understand it.
My Italian friends were telling me about the set of expressions they have for being fed up - mostly to do with the state of one's balls "Ho latte ai corleone" - I've got milk on the balls (is that right, real Italian speakers?).
In German that would be "Ich habe die Nase voll" - I've got a noseful (usually of something/someone).
English equivalents apart from "fed up" would be "I've had it up to here" (indicating eye level with hands).
I'm often struck by the similarity in expressions: "To kill two birds with one stone" in English is "Zwei Fliege mit einem Schoss shiessen" in German - to shoot two flies with one shot.
"To fall between two stools" is only different in German by replacing "fall" with "sit".
Pete
I've noticed personally that your German is excellent!
So I just want to correct one typo: it's 'Schuss' and not 'Schoss'.
"To kill two birds with one stone" - the better German equivalent would perhaps be "Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen" (' to kill two flies with a flatter').
"I don't fasten a bear to you" ('Ich will Dir keinen Baeren aufbinden') isn't so easy to understand as it is the English equivalent that I 'didn't pull your leg'. (Funny, howver, that we say in German as well excactly the same "jemanden ein Bein stellen", too.)
Two things:
A Spanish friend of mine likes to say when he is interupted
"Who gave you a candle?"
In Spain, members of a procession all carry candles, if you aren't given a candle, you're not part of the group. So it's like saying:
Who invited you?
Walter: Clear something up.
When John Kennedy said "Ich bein ein Berliner."
and the crowds cheered.
Were they cheering because of his claim that he was one of them,
or were they laughing because he has just said " I am a jelly doughnut."
Joe
Well, 'berliner' certainly is a 'jelly doughnut' - but only in some parts of Germany (in Berlin it's called a 'Pfannkuchen', elsewhere 'Krapfen').
However, the inhabitants of Berlin are called in correct German 'Berliner' everywhere.
So I honestly doubt that anybody laughed (first hearing it) about Kennedy's words.
Thanks.... that clears it up for me. J
One sandwich short of a picnic.- stupid
Had it up to "here"- disgusted
Has ants in his pants, or antsy- agitated, can't sit still
dicombobbulated- confused.
She has a "great personality"- Remark made to a person going on a blind date when the girl is a "dog" (ugly)
"Blind Date"- A date where one person "fixes up" (arranges) two people who don't know each other to go out together.
Has a bee in her bonnet- angry or upset about something.
Matar dois cohelhos com uma tacada só.
"Kill two rabbits with one throw"
My favorite cultural misunderstanding story is that an American deodorant company (I think it was Secret?) was trying to market its product in Japan. A TV commercial that aired in the States showed a happy cartoon octopus applying deodorant under each of its many arms. The same commercial was translated and put on Japanese TV. Unfortunately, in Japan an octopus doesn't have eight arms...it has eight legs.
Yahoo! has a problem in Finland- the word means 'bimbo' there.
In Spanish speaking countries we don't kill rabbits, but birds:
"Matar dos pájaros de un tiro".
In an ongoing discussion someone mentioned Japan's General Tojo.
That reminded me of a couple of great idioms in Modenese dialect (Northern Italy).
togo, which can be translated as "cool", "neat"
and
lofi, which can be translated as "nasty", "not nice".
The idiom dates back to 1905, time of the Russian-Japanese war.
The key battle was won by Admiral Togo Heihashiro (togo), and lost by Admiral Josif Matulevich (lofi).
Indonesian:
Tutup lampu - close the light (turn off the light)
Anjin - Wind (cold; as in sickness)
I became quite famous for using Slovak idioms in English, startling my friends with a word to word translation that, as a rule, makes absolutely no sense to them. The favorite is the 'happy goat'. Whenever I would get overly excited about anything, my mom always used to say: remember what happened to the happy goat, she could not contain herself, didn't know what to do out of sheer happiness, so she decided to put on iceskates and go dancing on ice. she broke her neck and died!
ehm, anyway, that is not an idiom, but where else would i post this, right? needless to say some of my friends call me a happy goat as a term of endearment...
startling? try boggling.... <grin>
s/he who digs a whole for another, will himself fall into it!!!!
oh! Funny, I was just reading something similar.....
Dagmar
I think, the equivalent for your German proverb/Slowakian saying is:
Caught in your own trap.
Right, but it's more of a warning ;-)
