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Idioms

  Tags: Idiom | German
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yantai_scot
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 Message 1 of 31
02 May 2014 at 10:59pm | IP Logged 
Just a query coming out of observing my own daily speech vs my still very basic German.

English is full of idioms. So is Scottish English (I can't claim to speak Scots). Maybe
more so. And Chinese has 成語 chéngyŭ. And French has lots as well. There ends my basic
experience of languages.

At the moment, German doesn't seem to have as many (I may be completely wrong).

Are there any languages that have few or no idioms or is it a universal feature?
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 2 of 31
02 May 2014 at 11:42pm | IP Logged 
How about these?

http://german.about.com/library/blredew_intro.htm
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:German_idioms
http://translationjournal.net/journal/german-glossary.htm
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Hampie
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 Message 3 of 31
02 May 2014 at 11:42pm | IP Logged 
All idioms aren't pretty or poetic. The fact that you in German use the construction "mir ist ..." to say you're bored or
cold, is an idiomatic expression, an idiom. Even our perception of time is a subject to idiomaticy: the past is behind
us, the future is ahead of us. That is just a convention and could as well be the other way around (and in a few
languages, it is).
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luke
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 Message 4 of 31
02 May 2014 at 11:44pm | IP Logged 
I imagine idioms are used more by abstract thinkers and people who like to play with words. Perhaps there are cultures that foster that sort thing.
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Glarus Girl
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 Message 5 of 31
03 May 2014 at 12:18am | IP Logged 
At the night school I go to, we were all given the book 'Baron's German Idioms' which
contains more than 2000 idioms in it.
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Bao
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 Message 6 of 31
03 May 2014 at 1:11am | IP Logged 
Da wird doch der Hund in der Pfanne verrückt.

I mean, what?! Of course German has idioms.

Hampie, I don't perceive that as an idiom. It's just a sentence pattern to say you are experiencing one of a number of physicl states that work with that expression.

OP: If anything, I would assume that your textbooks/teachers or language partners tried to spare you the more colourful expressions until now.
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Medulin
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 Message 7 of 31
03 May 2014 at 1:57am | IP Logged 
I still remember the expression'' die Leitungen brennen durch'' from my high school times. ;)
In Chinese, chengyu(成语)are not typical idioms, they're more like proverb-like sayings.
Expressions more similar to Western idioms are called suyu(俗语).

Edited by Medulin on 03 May 2014 at 2:03am

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Retinend
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 Message 8 of 31
03 May 2014 at 8:58am | IP Logged 
"du hast ins Fettknäpfchen getreten" (you've said something gauche/ stepped into a little
bowl of lard)
"sei nicht so ein Frosch" (don't be such a stick in the mud/ don't be a frog)

Edited by Retinend on 03 May 2014 at 9:01am



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