Interesting foreign phrases.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Bereta_Eder
in english they say "it's raining cats and dogs"
what an absurd statement when they can say what we say: the logical: vrechei kareklopodara (it's raining chair legs)

The equivalent in French is "il fait un temps de chien" litteraly "it's a dog's weather", meaning it's not nice out.
For the raining part, we have "il pleut des cordes" litteraly, "its raining ropes", meaning it's raining a lot.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Spiffor
In French you say "Ca lui a coûté la peau des fesses" for the same, i.e. "it costed him the skinn of his butt"

forgot about that one....
I actually use that one pretty often...
You can also use "par la peau des fesses" ("by the skin of his butt") to mean "barely".... As in "that guy tried to hit me, but missed me my the skin of my butt".

[germanos]

In Dutch it's a rib. (there must be some link to Adam's rib, but I'm not sure how)

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Bereta_Eder
in english they say "it's raining cats and dogs"
what an absurd statement when they can say what we say: the logical: vrechei kareklopodara (it's raining chair legs)

Nah, we danes as usual expresses it better : "regner skomardrenge" ~ "raining shoemakerboys"

[Bereta_Eder]

that has got to be the most "far out"

[BlackCat]

Talking about butts - here we say "arbejde røven ud af bukserne" ~ "working the a** out of the trousers" meaning working hard to accomplish something.

[germanos]

sitting in a coffeeshop makes one 'stoned als een garnaal' (stoned as a shrimp). Apestoned is another possibility. (Yes, like an ape)


Water naar de zee dragen
carrying water to the sea for a futile effort.
Strangely enough we're below sealevel and couldn't stop 'carrying' the water out

'apartheid' is another famous dutch word that aparently cannot be translated (although segregation comes close enough)

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by germanos

Water naar de zee dragen
carrying water to the sea for a futile effort.
Strangely enough we're below sealevel and couldn't stop 'carrying' the water out

Well, we "sælger sand i sahara" ~ "selling sand in sahara" - I guess that there isn't that big a market there

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spiffor
In French you say "Ca lui a coûté la peau des fesses" for the same, i.e. "it costed him the skinn of his butt"

I'd say "an arm and a leg" is more severe

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Nah, we danes as usual expresses it better : "regner skomardrenge" ~ "raining shoemakerboys"

In Catonese we say lok gout si (pouring dog crap)

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Greetings are either more or less formal than "hello." More formal is time-of-day specific (good morning, good evening, etc.). Less formal is a gesture -- generally a nod of the head or raised eyebrows. But there's no generic.

We don't have a "hello" in Chinese either. The closest is ni hou, "How are you?" Another similar one is "Have you had your meal?"

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


We don't have a "hello" in Chinese either. The closest is ni hou, "How are you?" Another similar one is "Have you had your meal?"

Tagolog uses "How are you" instead of "hello" as well -- but that's borrowed, too ("kumusta," from the Spanish "como esta?")

[molly bloom]

Some British English phrases for the bemusement of non-English speakers:

'all his geese are swans'

'all is grist that comes to his mill'

'to kill the goose that lays the golden egg'

'to knock into a cocked hat'

' (never in) a month of Sundays'

'to put a person's nose out of joint'

'to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear'

'in Queer Street'

'robbing Peter to pay Paul'

' to be unable to say boo! to a goose'

'to send to Coventry'

'at sixes and sevens'

'to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar'

'to steal someone's thunder'

Exhibiting our love of our European neighbours:

'to take French leave'

'engaging in Spanish practices'

'a Dutch auction'

'a Dutch uncle'

'Dutch courage'

'to go Dutch'

'castles in Spain'

'it's all Greek to me'

'jerry-built' although seeming on the face of it to perhaps refer to the Germans (jerry=Germans) seems to derive from the same root as 'jury', as in 'jury-rigged'.

[alva]

Another fun one is that the french say 15 days when they mean 14.

15 jours = two weeks.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by alva
Another fun one is that the french say 15 days when they mean 14.

15 jours = two weeks.

I can't think of any pejorative English phrases with the word 'Belgian' in.

Clearly this indicates great British love for Belgium.