5 Foreign Sayings That Just Don't Translate

UK-based writer/illustrator Ella Frances Sanders brings the world's more unique idioms and adages to life with playful images in The Illustrated Book of Sayings.

BY Shaunacy Ferro

Sep 24, 2016

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In Romanian, to pull someone out of their watermelons—Îl scoți din pepeni—is to drive them crazy.

Tá mé ar muin na muice: This Irish saying means that you're feeling good or living large. To be "on the pig's back" means to be well off or in luck.

The Serbian phrase nosom para oblake—or "he's ripping clouds with his nose"—means a person is conceited. Much like looking down your nose at someone.

In Portuguese, "to feed a donkey sponge cake"—alimentar um burro a pão de ló—means treating someone better than they deserve. A donkey, after all, cannot appreciate how great sponge cake really is.

In Spanish, being someone's other half, or soul mate, is more delicious than in English. Spanish speakers say "you are my orange half": Tu eres mi media naranja.

Sanders is also the author of Lost in Translation, a book illustrating untranslatable words that we covered back in 2014. The Illustrated Book of Sayings is available for $15.