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163

Multilingual folks: what are some odd idioms in your language(s)? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by alquicksilver@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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."

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[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Swede here.

Phrase : "Nu har du skitit i det blå skåpet"

Translation : "Now you have taken a shit in the blue cupboard"

Meaning : "You really fucked up now".

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In Norwegian we say either "you shit on your leg", "you shit on the shovel" or "you shit on the drawbar (of a horse-drawn carriage)" for the same thing.

And if you're "out bicycling" you're making a mistake, like if you're doing a crossword and you realize that some of the previous words definitely weren't right, or you're doing math and you realize that you definitely made a calculation error earlier because nothing makes sense.

If someone says you're "all out on the field" ("helt på jordet") it means they think what you just said was completely wrong.

The Norwegian equivalent of "a hard act to follow" is "like (ski) jumping after Wirkola", a ski jumper who was definitely way better than both you and everyone else.

And if there are owls in the moss ("ugler i mosen") something is pretty fishy.

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago

Cool. We also use "Out bicycling" and "Owls in the bog" the exact same way in Sweden.