Our Favourite MFL Idioms

Posted on 26 September 2018

In celebration of European Day of Languages on September 26th, we’ve gathered together a few of our favourite idioms in multiple European languages. Some may be familiar to you – for example, several languages have their own version of ’it’s raining cats and dogs’. In French it rains ropes (il pleut des cordes_), in Greek it rains chair legs (βρέχει καρεκλοπόδαρα_) and in Czech it rains wheelbarrows (Padají trakaře)!

Why not ask your class to find their own favourite target language idioms, and add them all to a list? We’ll get you started:

Spanish: ser pan comido
Literally: ‘to be bread eaten’
English equivalent/meaning: to be a piece of cake, really easy to do.

Spanish: más perdido que un pulpo en un garaje
Literally: ‘more lost than an octopus in a garage’
English equivalent/meaning: to be totally and completely lost.

Spanish: aquí hay gato encerrado
Literally: ‘there is a locked up cat here’
English equivalent/meaning: that something fishy is going on.

French: arriver comme un cheveu sur la soupe
Literally: ‘to arrive like a hair in a soup’
English equivalent/meaning: to arrive at the worst, most awkward moment.

French: Coûter les yeux de la tête
Literally: ‘to cost the eyes in your head’
English equivalent/meaning: to cost an arm and a leg, to be very expensive.

French: Tomber dans les pommes
Literally: ‘to fall into the apples’
English equivalent/meaning: to faint, pass out.

German: um den heißen Brei herumreden
Literally: ‘to talk around the hot porridge’
English equivalent/meaning: to beat around the bush, to avoid saying what you really mean to say

German: Tomaten auf den Augen haben
Literally: ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’
English equivalent/meaning: to be unaware of what is happening, to be oblivious.

German: Wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen
Literally: ‘where fox and rabbit say goodnight to each other’
English equivalent/meaning: in the middle of nowhere.

Greek: κάνει την πάπια
Literally: ‘doing the duck’
English equivalent/meaning: pretending not to be aware of something they know, often to avoid blame.

Greek: σαν ταύρος σε υαλοπωλείο
Literally: ‘like a bull in a china shop’
English equivalent/meaning: Unlike in English where this idiom suggests clumsiness, in Greek the meaning is more towards ‘outraged to the point of smashing nearby objects’.

Polish: Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy
Literally: ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’
English equivalent/meaning: not my problem.

Icelandic: Ég tók hann í bakaríið
Literally: ‘I took him to the bakery’
English equivalent/meaning: I told him off.

Swedish: Det är ingen ko på isen
Literally: ‘there is no cow on the ice’
English equivalent/meaning: there is no need to worry.

Dutch: Iets voor een appel en een ei kopen
Literally: ‘buying something for an apple and an egg’
English equivalent/meaning: buying something very cheaply.

Portuguese: Sorriso amarelo
Literally: ‘yellow smile’
English equivalent/meaning: an insincere smile.

Romanian: a freca menta
Literally: ‘to rub mint’
English equivalent/meaning: to do nothing, to waste time.

Italian: Affogare in un bicchier d’acqua
Literally: ‘to drown in a glass of water’
English equivalent/meaning: to make a mountain out of a molehill, to turn little problems into huge disasters.