What are some (non-English) idioms, and what do they mean (both literally and in context)? Odd ones, your favorite ones - any and all are welcome. :)

For example, in English I might call someone a “good egg,” meaning they’re a nice person. Or, if it’s raining heavily, I might say “it’s raining cats and dogs.”

  • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
    25·
    8 months ago

    In most languages, “get well soon” is expressed as good wishes. In Russian, they use the imperative form, so it is like an order or a command. It’s буд здоров(а), which is literally “be healthy” as a command. They also use it as “bless you” after sneezing. (For those whoe can’t read Cyrillic, in Latin it’s approximately said like “bud zdarov(a)”. The -a suffix is the female version, without it is male.)

    In French, the expression “du coup” (it means something like “therefore” or “so” or “thus”) can be used in place of like 10 other expressions.

    • Ainsi
    • Donc
    • Alors
    • Tout à coup
    • Soudainement
    • En conclusion
    • Si je comprends bien
    • De ce fait
    • Ce qui fait que
    • En conséquence
    • Consequémment

    Is all being replaced by “du coup”.

    In German, capitalisation matters. In contrast with many other languages, nouns must be capitalised, or it changes the meaning. For example:

    • Helft den Armen vögeln
    • Helft den armen Vögeln

    Notice how only the capitalisation changed. The first sentence means “help the poor to fuck” while the second sentence means “help those poor birds”.