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When I was working at a hotel in France they would sometimes come up to me and say: "Je veux battes de ping-pong" or something then they would flick a V at me. I thought they were having a stealth insult at me, like, ah, you fucking roastbeef, I'd like two of this and two of that...

from hippos & dromos

Escalope salad.

to lay down the little lead = to die
not something for the cat = not very easy
to not make a murderer’s hiding place out of your heart = to speak frankly

I can only imagine the incredible idioms those languages must contain.

The Temple Explodes the Chicken Cube, use chicken's primitive Sichuan edition takes its essential component. In this tunnel original, the dice chicken typically is mixed with pre-prepared thick gravy. The iron saucepan is experienced and then chiles and the Sichuan dry pepper is the flash fries in oil the increase fragrantly to come the oil. Then the chicken is mixes fries in oil and the vegetable, with peanut together, increase. The shaoxing wine with enhances the flavor in the thick gravy. Fresh, moist, the unroasted peanut or cashew nuts after commonly used replace their front to roast the edition. In such situation, the peanut or the cashew first throws down into the hot oil in the iron saucepan base, then is fried in oil until golden yellow brown in front of other ingredients increases.

In Sichuan, or works as preparation tunnel, only Sichuan style chilis for example Is used. Smaller, the thinner Sichuanese variety and is perhaps used. The plate most important component is the Sichuan dry pepper few. This is for tunnel these dry pepper its specially numb flavor. To Or the warm numb flavor, is a typical element which Sichuan cooks. The Sichuan dry pepper, with red chilis together, is key component.

Incidentally, I remember one rude thing from Chinese.
"Da Fei Ji"= to catch a plane, lit. to hit flying machine= to masturbate.
I think it's a tonal thing: with a few tones away, it can mean= "hit fly dick".
Also, there is an internet based protest against the Chinese government called "Grass Mud Horse". Basically, if you say grass mud horse with one tone removed, it means "Fuck your mum."
So when the Chinese government takes down a naughty website or censors a blog, they put up a picture of an alpaca- the grass mud horse- as a nice way of saying "fuck your mum."
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who designed the Olympic stadium in Beijing, posted a nude photo of himself with an alpaca over his junk. Basically saying, "I fuck your mom, Chinese government."
Many people think that's what led to his arrest.
That's only the tip of the iceberg. Full info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_mud_horse
Enjoy!

which are new band names ^__^

The japanese word for landscape, 'sansui', literally translates as 'mountains-waters'.

in Oxfam, completely made of the cross-translation of French and English Idioms, and illustrated with these Belgian comic characters Blake and Mortimer. I'll dig it out when I get home and contribute more but it has things like 'Name of a Pipe!' (oh my god) and 'I am in nice sheets' (I'm in a fix!)

I heard this the other day - where we would say 'touching cloth' or 'turtleheading' for being extremely desperate for a shit, the French say 'J'ai un taupe au guichet' which translates as:

'There's a mole at the checkout'

:)

Translation: There's a crowd at the balcony
Meaning: She's got big boobs

This webpage has led me to conclude that Finnish is the language of kings/queens.

http://naurunappula.com/932919/sananlaskuja-englanniksi.jpg

"Swallowing frogs" - Do not say anything;
"Make a storm in a teacup" - Making a buzz with little reason;
"You're going to walk around the large pool" - Do not bother me;
"Get this for the better" - die;
"Walk with monkeys in the head" - have some suspicious;
"Get the horse from the rain" - have to give up of something for any kind of impediment;
"Going to the wire" - is very angry;
"Put the beards on the water" - Prevention
...

Asameshi mae: "Before the morning meal" = really easy (i.e. you could do it before breakfast)

Gomasuri: "Grinding sesame seeds" = grovelling. Often used in the workplace. If the groveller is within earshot, you don't need to say the word, but you can just roll your right fist around in your left hand, thus imitating someone grinding sesame seeds in a mortar & pestle

Madogiwa zoku: "Window people" = employees who are senior but have failed to distinguish themselves. Managers, directors etc get their own offices. Junior workers are relegated to open plan workspaces. Older workers who have been in the company for years but haven't attained any particular status are stuck in the open-plan area with the junior workers, but given a desk by the window in backhanded acknowledgement of their years of service. The madogiwa zuko are seen as a bit pathetic

Kurisumasu keki: "Christmas cake" = a woman who's over 25, not yet married and not likely to be (i.e. nobody's interested in Christmas cake after December 25th)

Neko ni koban: "A gold coin in front of a cat" = Pearls before swine

Uma no hone: "Skeleton of a horse" = A stranger about whom nobody knows anything; dodgy character

Hippari dako: "An octopus being pulled in all directions" = a popular person

Katami ga semai: "Narrowing the shoulders" = feeling inferior or outclassed

Happo bijin: "Beautiful in eight directions" = trying to please everyone (at the expense of one's integrity)

French - i believe if you want to stress an adjective (like say "that's well cool" or "that's hella sweet") you can use the word 'vachement' as in "c'est vachement cool". Vache means cow, so you're saying "it is cowly cool" or "it is cool like a cow".

Dutch - the Dutch have an expression, to say that you will do a task that noone else wants to do, that translates as "I will wash that pig".

This is a great thread.

but I was talking a Chinese student the other day and he was trying to describe the programme Desperate Housewives. He didn't know the name so he directly translated it from Chinese to 'old women who are hopeless'.

the french phrase for stag night is "enterrement du vie garçon", literally the 'burial/funeral of the boy's life'.

Awkward moment when my colleague told me he went to Porto for a weekend for a stag do and I told him twice that I was sorry for his loss before I realised...

"Kering mint gólyafos a leveg?ben" - which basically means to wander about doing nothing - translates directly as "circling like stork shit in the air".

in Portugal when someone sneezes instead of 'bless you' they say 'senti' which means 'little saint.' Then sometimes the person who sneezes says in Portuguese - 'Oh I'm no saint'. I think that's very cool.

http://phewsha.tumblr.com/tagged/untranslatable

moderkaka, or more commonly moderkakan - which translates literally as THE MOTHER COOKIE

turns out to be EVEN MORE SINISTER than we gaijin thought: the ‘sticky nail’ doesn’t usually mean a foreigner or a Japanese punk-rocker. The ‘sticky nail’ traditionally means a regular-looking Japanese, pursuing the same normal goals as his co-workers, but DOING IT BETTER. Jesus!

http://www.hellodamage.com/top/2011/07/23/japan-book-review-8-straitjacket-society-by-masao-miyamoto-m-d/

I was remembering this the other day and laughing to myself.