Hi, it's me again! As most of you might know, I'm bilingual: I can speak both Dutch and English. It is interesting to me that quite some idioms are the same in each language, but there are also quite some that are different. Here are some Dutch idioms translated literally to English; I might not always form grammatically correct sentences, in order to keep the word order similar enough between languages. English: He killed two birds with one stone. Dutch: Hij sloeg twee vliegen in een klap. Dutch, literally translated: He hit two flies in one hit. English: To make a mountain out of a molehill. Dutch: Van een mug een olifant maken. Dutch, literally translated: Out of a mosquito an elephant make. English: Rule of thumb. Dutch: Vuistregel. Dutch, literally translated: Fistrule. English: I'm fed up with this. Dutch: Ik heb hier m'n buik vol van. Dutch, literally translated: I've got my belly full of this. Most are more or less the same, but still a bit different! Do any of you know other examples? Perhaps in other languages?
I don't know the proper Englisch ones, but here only the bad translations from Dutch: A dead walking street finding the dog in the cookiepan you can write that down on your belly make that the cat wise I kick myselve an exident they have got it really pressure I do always get my sin I want to thank you from the bottom of my hard, and also from my wife's bottom he is staring himselve blind I hope I do still nkow some more...
Random (semi relevant) thing: In the movie theater recently there was a commercial in which they took the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air song and ran it through multiple google translate options before translating back to English and they record the results. It's worth a look (though i don't have the link on me atm so some google required).
"I do always get my sin" is a bad and incorrect translation of "I always get what I want." Yeah, I saw Frozen songs done like that before, they're pretty popular on YouTube.
I am shooting myself in the foot... i stabbed my foot with a pencil the point broke in my foot had to dig it out with a needle X-X 1 am moment ever
Don't have a full grasp on any of these languages except English (Serbian is the worst one), but here we go "Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei." English: Everything must end. German: Everything has an end, but the sausage has two. "Stochere nicht im Bienenstock." English: Let sleeping dogs lie. German: Don't poke the beehive. "A ddwg ŵy a ddwg fwy." English: A leopard never changes his spots. Welsh: One who steals an egg will steal more. "Gall pechod mawr ddyfod trwy ddrws bychan." English: Big errors come from small ones. Welsh: Great sin enters through small doors. "Kada na vrbi rodi grožđe." English: Never. Serbian: When a weeping willow tree bears its grapes. "Pao s Marsa." English: Has no clue. Serbian: Fell down from Mars. Aaaand because I have a love of pasulj... "Prosto k'o pasul." English: Piece of cake. Serbian: As simple as beans.
I just said "Gave him a cookie of his own dough", which made me remember this thread. I looked it up, and remembered the saying does exist in English: it's "Gave him a taste of his own medicine".
