In English we say "It's all Greek to me" as a way of saying something is incomprehensible. The chart gives the equivalent versions for various languages - if you're Greek, it's all Arabic or Chinese to you.
See the Language Log link at the bottom of the post for a more in-depth explanation.
Maybe the Germans don't have this kind of problem?!
Actually, if you go to the original page where I got this, one of the commenters there is Korean, and he says that there simply is no expression like this in Korean.
Every language (that I know of) has an equivalent idiom. If memory serves, Germans have a few. The one I remember best is "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof", which means something like "I can't see the station" - (they marry this phrase to a condescendingly slow headshake whenever I try to speak German).
They also have one that goes something like "It's all double Dutch to me" but I can't remember that specific series of guttural utterances.
Fun activity: If you are ever hanging out with a Chaman get them to try and say the word "Dwarf".
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12 comments:
In case you're wondering...
In English we say "It's all Greek to me" as a way of saying something is incomprehensible. The chart gives the equivalent versions for various languages - if you're Greek, it's all Arabic or Chinese to you.
See the Language Log link at the bottom of the post for a more in-depth explanation.
ha.
Interesting how for Hindi speakers it's all just...Hindi to them.
That explains a lot, come to think of it.
Where's German?
Maybe the Germans don't have this kind of problem?!
Actually, if you go to the original page where I got this, one of the commenters there is Korean, and he says that there simply is no expression like this in Korean.
This is awesome.
Every language (that I know of) has an equivalent idiom. If memory serves, Germans have a few. The one I remember best is "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof", which means something like "I can't see the station" - (they marry this phrase to a condescendingly slow headshake whenever I try to speak German).
They also have one that goes something like "It's all double Dutch to me" but I can't remember that specific series of guttural utterances.
Fun activity: If you are ever hanging out with a Chaman get them to try and say the word "Dwarf".
word verification: fuckwordverification
There is some discussion of the various German idioms at the original post.
Words aren t real
Au contraire! Words are the only things that are real.
Real is a word.
if only heavenly script were more legible...
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