30 People Share Their Favorite Non-English Phrases And Their Literal Meanings

omg that's fantastic

I'm borrowing this one..

"Bacon" is not really correct. "Speck" is the fatty part of bacon, therefore you can also refer to you belly fat as "Speck" instead of "Fett" (fat). Literal translation: grief fat

I'm saying "what an odd place to find a lobster" irl from now on

The real quote actually is "great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ"

Cats!!! I’d be happy at this party.

imagine the tardis rejecting itself out its own doors

May I add: "Mit dem ist nicht gut Kirschen essen", literally "With this guy you cannot easily eat cherries", means that you will encouter a crumpy person.

It should be written "wurst" instead of "Wurst". The noun Wurst means Sausage but the adjective wurst means it doesn't matter. (In German all nouns start with an uppercase letter.)

Germanversion: Milchmädchenrechnung; lit. "milk maid's calculation". It's based on a small folk tale of a milk maid thinking about what she'll buy with the money she'll get for the milk, and what she'll buy for the money when selling THAT etc - and then she spills the milk.

There are a lot of funny descriptions for remote or unattractive places in germany. Such as "Da liegt der Hund begraben" (This is where the dog has been buried) or "Da willst du nicht tot überm Zaun hängen" (You don't want to hang dead over the fence)

In Dutch they are called ‘zwembandje’: inflatable ring

This would be the catholic bavarian version of the protestant prussian 'grief fat' LOL love' em hedonist catholics

If my hips were gold I'd be a millionaire

I like hip gold a lot better !!

I'm German and I could imagine it may come from past times when it was really a sign of wealth if you had a fuller figure.

I find the term "love handles" even better

So LoveHandel from Phineas and Ferb secretly meant something else?

The deceased, of corpse.

you can also says: pousser du vieux avec du neuf (pushing old stuff with new stuff) :-)

That thought makes me extremely uncomfortable...

I took it to mean "dancing with one's own sister" or even a nun.

Being Mexican I heard this a lot as a child. Trying to explain this to my non-Spanish speaking friends was really funny.

I usually say "Febo asoma", which would translate to something like "morning has broken" or something (febo is another name for the sun).

That just dailed up to eleven O_o

That might be problematic to say these days, but I love it. Very succinct and rather self-explanatory.

*glaub

...well then. I actually read that.

brutal. I love it!

That is a brillant description of taking a nap. :D

I'm just going to say "your goats have run to the mountain!"

It's translation is more like: 'The truth is finally revealed'

Occupe-toi* :)

Perkele, the legendary Finnish way of drinking! https://youtu.be/NAl9OyGYxOg

German "alles in Butter" means "everything is alright". Back in the days, fragile things were transported in butter (as in, you poured molten butter over it and then transported the whole hardened block).

Endearment terms in French are pretty weird when you think about it. \1 mon petit chou /chouchou = my little cabbage /cabbage-cabbage (for both genders) 2\ ma puce = my flee (parents to their daughter or boyfriend to their girlfriend) \3 * mon lapin = my rabbit (I mostly hear older people call their grandchild like this) >> That's for the most common ones!

:D This made me laugh.

LMAO

Random German rhyme with similar sentiment: "Hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette", literal translation: "had (done), had (done), bike chain". Meaning there's no sense to ponder on what might have been if had you acted a different way.

A certain children's rhyme that I almost forgot contains "Tomaten auf den Augen und Bohnen in den Ohren" (tomatoes on the eyes and beans in the ears, meaning blind and deaf)

But a cat is _supposed_ to eat rats! What about the cat goes the harsh after knocking 900 glasses off of shelves?

Same in German! Well, almost. Germans "talk" around "the" hot porridge (um den heißen Brei herumreden)

Same in Portuguese: Dedos dos pés = toes (feet fingers).

Very similar thing in Hungarian, we use "ennivaló" which means it is meant to be eaten, for cute things like puppies or babies

Masca*

A lot of CREAM in their TACOS.

Hear, hear!

Makes perfect sense!

Brazilian portuguese: "Vá para o diabo que te carregue". Literal: Go to the devil willing to carry you.

"Nicht mein Bier/not my beer" is more used like "I'm not interested". Not my problem equals "Nicht meine Baustelle/Not my construction site"

I remember have a lot of chanclazos in my time.

My favorite foreign expression is the German "Tu ein Affenzahn darauf", which means "hurry up" but is literally "Put a monkey's tooth on it". I love it because it makes ZERO SENSE.