The more I study and teach languages, the more I realize how rich, beautiful and strange they are. I believe most people would agree that the idioms, the most peculiar things, reflect our way of thinking, the way we perceive the world around us. Of course, sometimes we can find something in common. For example, "to kill two birds with one stone" (to achieve two things by doing a single action) would find its "twin" in Chinese - 一石二鸟 which literally means the same, or in Russian - "to kill two rabbits with one blow" (убить двух зайцев одним ударом).
However, some phases confuse people greatly! Can you guess what the Russian idiom in the title means? A cancer. Whistles. On a mountain. It simply means "never". A cancer would never ever in its life whistle (!) on any mountain.
In Chinese I love this expression: 七上八下. Seven up eight down? It means feeling distressed, unbalanced, "at sixes and sevens", like something was supposed to go one way but it turned to be another one.
Can you find anything odd about the idioms of your own language? I'd like to know more about the languages I don't speak. Yet;)
I, too, like this Russian saying (though I usually translate рак as lobster — not sure if it is correct but it sounds better to me for some reason). Have you read the story "Когда рак свистнул. Рождественский ужас" by Тэффи? :)
I once came across an interesting proverb in Belarusian, "Была ў сабакі хата, ды ад дажджу згарэла" (~"Had a dog (his own)* house, but it burnt down because of the rain"). In my case it was an answer to my "He told me he had a car", and it meant "He doesn't have one, he was lying" :) As far as I understand, there's also a shortened version, "Была ў сабакі хата" which means "Yeah, of course" said as sarcastically as possible.
*Interestingly, сабака is a masculine noun in Belarusian.
It seems to be referring to a person born under the zodiac sign of Cancer or the crab.
Symbol 69 on its side.
Believed not to be a negative type of person/personality.
"When a Cancer whistles on a mountain"
"When pigs fly"
This theme is common in many cultures for saying it will never happen.
"A cancer will never whistle on a mountain" if the zodiac astrological believes are true.
This is how I interpret the saying.
قلب 6 9
"Matar dos pájaros de un tiro"(to kill two birds with one shot), I guess poor birds have been through some serious troubles in many countries :D
Spanish is full of these expressions, so is Italian, they have proven to be very effective to pass on information between generations during periods where writing was not common and something reserved only to highly educated individuals. I'll share some examples of "refranes" as they're called in Spanish, if you're interested, there's a book(Spanish) that compiles a great number of them, "El refranero Español" is the name.
Consejos vendo y para mi no tengo. -I sell advices, but for me I dont have any- For those who love to criticize but dont apply any of their advices to themselves.
Contra el feo vicio de pedir, existe la noble virtud de no dar. -Against the ugly habit of asking for/beg/demand, exists the noble virtue of not giving- Pretty straight forward, lol.
