Prefabricated components in building are relatively new. In language they have been in use for centuries, in the form of idioms and expressions. German has a wide stock of them and adds more all the time, and because they do not need to be altered to fit a sentence, they are easy to memorise and easy to deploy. Many reach back to older customs and traditions, which is what makes their origins worth knowing. Here are the ones drawn from animals, geography, scripture and the orchard.
German idioms about monkeys and donkeys
A great many German phrases come from the animal kingdom, and primates lend themselves particularly well.
“Das Affentheater” — meaning in English
Literally: the monkey theatre. The monkey (der Affe) causes chaos and upheaval when it mixes with people, and das Affentheater describes preposterous, excessive, tiresome carrying-on. The English song and dance is close.
“Mich laust der Affe” — meaning and origin
Literally: the monkey is delousing me. It describes being thoroughly baffled or dumbfounded. The origin is the fairground: showmen used monkeys to draw a crowd, and the animal would jump onto the shoulder of an off-guard spectator and start grooming them, to their bafflement and everyone else’s amusement.
“Die Eselsbrücke” — meaning and origin
Literally: the donkey’s bridge, compounded from Esel (donkey) and Brücke (bridge). Donkeys will not cross water they cannot see the bottom of, so you build them a bridge to lead them across. In German it is not an insult but simply the word for a memory aid — what English calls a mnemonic.
German idioms from geography and the Bible
“Das sind mir böhmische Dörfer” — meaning and origin
Literally: those are Bohemian villages to me. Said when something is beyond understanding. It comes from the Czech names of Bohemian villages, which sounded alien and impenetrable to German speakers.
“Die ägyptische Finsternis” — meaning and origin
Literally: the Egyptian darkness. It is what Germans call a power cut. The roots are biblical rather than geographical, from Exodus: And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.
“Jemandem die Leviten lesen” — meaning and origin
Literally: to read someone the Levites. In English: to read someone the riot act. Leviticus, the third book of Moses, is full of dos and don’ts, which is exactly the tone of the telling-off in question.
“Von Pontius zu Pilatus gehen” — meaning in English
Literally: to go from Pontius to Pilate. In English: to go from pillar to post. Another with its origin in scripture, and the standard complaint of anyone being passed between departments.
German idioms about apples
It is hardly surprising that a fruit native to Germany finds so much linguistic use.
“Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm” — meaning in English
Literally: the apple does not fall far from the trunk. Said when children turn out to behave like their parents. English has the same image in the apple never falls far from the tree.
“Äpfel mit Birnen vergleichen” — meaning in English
Literally: to compare apples with pears. The German version of comparing apples with oranges — two things alike in appearance but not in substance, and so not usefully set against each other.
“Für einen Apfel und ein Ei” — meaning and origin
Literally: for an apple and an egg. It means dirt cheap. Apples and eggs were found in abundance on any farm and so carried almost no value, which is the whole of the joke. Often shortened in speech to für ’n Appel und ’n Ei.
“In den sauren Apfel beißen” — meaning in English
Literally: to bite into the sour apple. To have to do something unpleasant that will not go away. The English equivalent is to bite the bullet.
More German idioms
Learning German is not something anyone should have to bite the bullet over. There are three further collections on this site: idioms built on clothing, five idioms for working life, and a general collection. If German still sounds like an unintelligible station announcement, it is perhaps time to employ the services of a German tutor. Do get in touch.