Imagine you’re sitting in a café in Tokyo when your Japanese friend suddenly tells you they’re going to “turn over the palm of their hand.” Or you’re wandering through the streets of Reykjavik and someone suggests you “lay your head in water” before making a big decision. Confusing? Absolutely. Fascinating? Even more so.
These are idioms — and they’re one of the most delightfully weird corners of any language. Every culture has them, every language is packed with them, and once you start noticing them, you simply can’t stop. Whether you’re a seasoned language learner or just language-curious, idioms are your secret window into how people around the world actually think.
What Exactly Is an Idiom?
An idiom is a phrase or expression whose meaning can’t be figured out just by looking at the individual words. The words themselves might paint one picture, but the real meaning is something else entirely.
Take the English expression “break a leg.” If you heard that for the first time without any context, you might be genuinely alarmed. But any native English speaker knows it simply means “good luck.” That’s the magic — and the madness — of idioms.
Other classic English idioms include:
- Beat around the bush — to avoid getting to the point
- Bite the bullet — to endure a difficult situation
- It’s raining cats and dogs — it’s raining very heavily
Native speakers use idioms constantly — often without even realizing it. They’re woven so deeply into everyday conversation that they feel as natural as breathing. For language learners, though, they can be a source of total confusion. And that’s exactly why they’re worth studying.
Where Do Idioms Actually Come From?
Here’s the thing that makes idioms even more interesting: most of them started out as completely literal expressions. Over time, the original meaning faded from popular memory, but the phrase stuck around and took on a new figurative life.
Consider the English idiom “to cost an arm and a leg,” meaning something is extremely expensive. Its roots trace back to 18th-century portrait painting, when artists would charge more depending on how many limbs they were required to paint. Wealthy but budget-conscious clients would sometimes commission portraits that conveniently excluded arms or legs to keep costs down. The phrase survived long after portrait-sitting fees became irrelevant.
And it doesn’t stop at English. Even within the same language, idioms can shift dramatically depending on the country. In England, someone who’s acting erratically might be described as having “bats in the belfry” — a reference to bats flying chaotically through the top of a church tower. In Australia, that same idea gets a local twist: “He’s got a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.” Same meaning, completely different cultural flavor.
Why Idioms Differ From Culture to Culture
Idioms don’t exist in a vacuum. They grow out of a culture’s environment, history, food, climate, and daily life. That’s why an idiom that makes perfect sense in one country can sound completely absurd in another.
In Cuba, for example, you might hear: “¡Se formó tremendo arroz con mango!” — which literally translates to “This turned into a serious bowl of rice with mango.” The expression means something has become a chaotic mess. It makes intuitive sense in the Caribbean, where mango is a staple fruit and an unexpected addition to rice would be genuinely disruptive.
Try using that same expression in Stockholm, though, and it falls flat. Mango doesn’t grow in Sweden, so the imagery simply doesn’t resonate. Instead, Swedish speakers might say: “Skita i det blåa skåpet” — roughly, to relieve yourself in a blue cabinet. The “blue cabinet” is thought to refer to a piece of prestigious furniture, since Prussian blue paint was extraordinarily expensive in Sweden during the 1800s. The expression means to do something completely pointless or to make a mess of things.
Both idioms convey the same general idea, yet each one is a tiny capsule of its own cultural world. That’s what makes idioms such a powerful tool for understanding a language on a deeper level — they reveal how people in a given place make sense of their surroundings.
20 Hilarious Idioms From Languages Around the World
Ready to see just how creative — and wonderfully strange — human languages can be? Here are 20 idioms from 20 different languages, along with their literal translations and the closest English equivalents. Keep in mind that not every idiom has a perfect match across languages; sometimes the best we can do is get close to the feeling.
1. German
Idiom: Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund.
Literally: The morning hour has gold in its mouth.
English equivalent: The early bird gets the worm.
2. French
Idiom: Coûter les yeux de la tête.
Literally: To cost the eyes of the head.
English equivalent: To cost an arm and a leg.
3. Brazilian Portuguese
Idiom: Estou cagando e andando.
Literally: I’m doing my business and walking at the same time.
English equivalent: I couldn’t care less.
4. Spanish
Idiom: Tomar el pelo.
Literally: To grab someone’s hair.
English equivalent: To pull someone’s leg.
5. Japanese
Idiom: 手のひらを返す (Te no hira wo kaesu).
Literally: To turn over the palm of your hand.
English equivalent: To give someone the cold shoulder.
6. Swedish
Idiom: Skägget i brevlådan.
Literally: Caught with your beard in a mailbox.
English equivalent: To be caught with your pants down.
7. Arabic
Idiom: التكرار يعلّم الحمار (At-Tikraar yu’allem al-Himaar).
Literally: Repetition teaches the donkey.
English equivalent: Practice makes perfect.
8. Czech
Idiom: Jedním uchem tam, druhým ven.
Literally: In one ear, out the other.
English equivalent: Like water off a duck’s back.
9. Farsi (Persian)
Idiom: Gooreto gom kon!
Literally: Go lose your grave!
English equivalent: Get out of here!
10. Lithuanian
Idiom: Lyja kirviais.
Literally: It’s raining axes.
English equivalent: It’s raining cats and dogs.
11. Tagalog
Idiom: Binyagan na yan!
Literally: Baptize it already!
English equivalent: Just use it already — get it over with!
12. Dutch
Idiom: Over koetjes en kalfjes praten.
Literally: To talk about little cows and little calves.
English equivalent: To make small talk.
13. Polish
Idiom: Mieć muchy w nosie.
Literally: To have flies up one’s nose.
English equivalent: To have one’s knickers in a twist.
14. Vietnamese
Idiom: Mèo khen mèo dài đuôi.
Literally: The cat praises the cat’s own long tail.
English equivalent: Every cook praises their own broth. (Self-promotion!)
15. Italian
Idiom: Ogni morte di papa.
Literally: Every death of a pope.
English equivalent: Once in a blue moon.
16. Haitian Creole
Idiom: Gate san.
Literally: Rotten blood.
English equivalent: To make someone’s blood boil.
17. Norwegian
Idiom: Å snakke rett fra leveren.
Literally: To speak directly from the liver.
English equivalent: To speak bluntly, without sugar-coating.
18. Mandarin Chinese
Idiom: 抛砖引玉 (pāo zhuān yǐn yù).
Literally: To throw a brick in order to attract jade.
English equivalent: To put forward a rough idea to inspire something better.
19. Icelandic
Idiom: Að leggja höfuðið í bleyti.
Literally: To lay your head in water.
English equivalent: To sleep on it.
20. Swedish (Bonus!)
Idiom: Skita i det blåa skåpet.
Literally: To relieve yourself in the blue cabinet.
English equivalent: To do something completely pointless or make a mess of things.
Why Learning Idioms Makes You a Better Language Learner
Textbooks will teach you grammar rules and vocabulary lists, but idioms will teach you how people actually speak. When you understand the idioms of a language, you start to understand its humor, its values, and its history — all at once.
Think about what the Italian idiom “every death of a pope” tells you about Italian culture. The papacy is woven into Italian life and history so deeply that papal deaths became a natural benchmark for rare events. Or consider the Arabic expression “repetition teaches the donkey” — a straightforward, no-nonsense take on the value of persistent practice, wrapped in the kind of dry humor that makes it instantly memorable.
Idioms also help you connect with native speakers in a way that perfect grammar alone simply can’t. Drop a well-timed idiom into a conversation and you’ll likely be met with a surprised smile — the kind that says, “You really get us.”
How to Start Learning Idioms in a New Language
The good news is that you don’t need to memorize hundreds of idioms to start benefiting from them. Here are a few practical ways to get started:
- Listen actively: Watch films, TV shows, or YouTube videos in your target language and pay attention to phrases that don’t translate word-for-word.
- Read local content: Newspapers, social media posts, and blogs written by native speakers are goldmines for everyday idioms.
- Ask native speakers: People love explaining their own language’s quirks. Asking about idioms is a fantastic conversation starter.
- Learn the origin: Understanding where an idiom comes from makes it far easier to remember. Context is everything.
- Use them in context: Don’t just memorize — try slipping an idiom into your next conversation or writing exercise and see how it feels.
Language Is a Living, Breathing Thing
Every idiom on this list is a tiny story — a glimpse into the lives, landscapes, and humor of the people who use it. From axes falling from the Lithuanian sky to Norwegian hearts speaking through the liver, these expressions remind us that language is never just about words. It’s about the world those words grew up in.
So the next time you’re learning a new language, don’t skip straight to the grammar drills. Spend some time with the idioms. Let them make you laugh, puzzle over them, look up their origins. You might just find that they’re the most human part of any language — and the most memorable.
Happy learning, and may your language journey never cost you the eyes of your head.
