I just thought of another idiom that is similar in German, but slightly different: instead of “killing two birds with one stone”, we say “Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen”, “hitting two flies with one swatter”.
Apropos of that is abracadabra: (Yeah, a little far afield, but it IS my thread.)
It is not widely known that the gibberish incantation of stage magicians and children’s party entertainers probably has Hebrew origins.
Scholars who support the Hebrew etymology say that abracadabra is a corruption of the Hebrew, ebrah k’dabri, meaning “I will create as I speak,” i.e., that the act of speech will magically create new realities. If this is indeed the derivation, then it would chime with the kabbalistic notion that the words and letters of the Hebrew alphabet have the power to create.
This idea is expressed in the Talmud’s statement about Bezalel, the master builder of the sanctuary, that “Bezalel knew how to combine the letters through which heaven and earth were created” (Berachot, 55a). Bezalel’s creative ability grew out of his insight into the process by which God created the world through combining words and letters. This, in turn, is related to the midrashic theme that the Torah preceded the world and served as its blueprint: “God looked into the Torah and created the world.”
The vulgar popular use of abracadabra as a magic spell may be a faint echo of these exalted ideas.
On a private Facebook page, a friend has posted the picture of a 1950-ish album, presumably children songs – the little boy is offering the little girl an ordinary banana, notwithstanding that she’s got an armload of them. A bit cringe-worthy by modern standards, and that’s the whole (attempted humorous) point of the post.
A caption for the album says ‘Greif hier, nicht her’. Google Translate turns that into ‘Don’t reach here.’ Right, German ‘her’ means ‘here’, and greifen means ‘reach’ (maybe even grab?) - but then what’s the difference between hier and her, that the second part of the phrase cancels out the first part? And is the caption totally innocent, or is there some whiff of double entendre, even so?
This was on the Korean variety show, Knowing Bros (Ask Me Anything) and the game was to take the last syllable of what the person before you said and make a new phrase. Yuqi’s expression is priceless, made even more so because she’s Chinese.
“Don’t sugarcoat it” is an English equivalent. Chatbots seem pretty good at this type of thing.
Using one gives the following answer.
The expression “don’t sugarcoat it” means to be honest and straightforward, without trying to make something seem better or less severe than it really is. Here are some foreign and English expressions that convey a similar meaning:
French: “ne pas tourner autour du pot” (literally “don’t beat around the bush”).
Spanish: “ir al grano” (literally “go to the grain”).
Italian: “dire le cose come stanno” (literally “say things as they are”).
German: “kein Blatt vor den Mund nehmen” (literally “not to take a leaf in front of the mouth”).
Swedish: “säga som det är” (literally “say it as it is”).
Portuguese: “ir direto ao ponto” (literally “go straight to the point”).
If memory serves, when I first joined SDMB I had started a thread asking about equivalent phrases for “being nickeled and dimed to death” (meaning to be charged small amounts which eventually pile up) in countries that don’t have nickels and dimes as currency terms. I can’t remember if I ever got any definite answers, so I thought I’d ask it here.
I can’t think of a perfect match for that expression in German, but “Kleinvieh macht auch Mist”, literally meaning “Small livestock produces dung, too” conveys a similar meaning.
In French you could say les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières (literally “small brooks make great rivers”), but it’s not specifically money-related and not necessarily negative.
Had to look up the specific words, but the Italian equivalent is " Prendere due piccioni con una fava, which means “to catch two birds with one fava bean”.
One of my Italian coworkers says “Feed two birds with one bean.” so maybe his dialect has a variation. As his English is quite good, I expect he’s able to tranlate properly.
Just read the expression “You can’t get blood from a stone” in another thread and found the German equivalent interesting: “Du kannst einem nackten Mann nicht in die Tasche greifen”, “You can’t reach into the pockets of a naked man”.