JetLiposting

Hi littlebelgianwriter! By Old Greek do you refer to the language spoken in Ancient Greek? If so, that's quite impressive. I've "flirted" a bit with Latin, but it hasn't gone well . Anyway, welcome to the forum, and hope you like it here!

Yeah...thanks for the briefing Fred , but this wasn't really the point of this thread . The point of the thread was for people to write the homonyms that they know and love :wacky:. So do that, people.

My favorite French idioms are usually the ones that sound funny both when translated and in French like: Appuyer sur le champignon - to accelerate, to put your foot down (to press on the mushroom); Prendre la mouche - this is the French version of "Get lost!" (to catch the fly);

I've always liked: Have the inside track - which means to have an advantage; Carry the ball - to be in charge of something, to be responsible for something; Get off to a flying start - to have a very successful beginning;

So, what are homonyms? No, they're not that . Just in case you don't already know this, homonyms are words that are both spelled and pronounced the same, but may have different meanings. Here are a few examples: Bat - that cylindrical-shaped piece of wood used to beat up people :devil:, and to play baseball; And that creepy flying mammal that is associated with vampires :vampire:. Fine - of high quality, for instance, when you say: "Damn, that girl has a fine....uhm....dress! :wacky:"; It also means penalty (no, I'm not talking about football ) or financial punishment. Tell me what homonyms you know?

Yes, "Appeler un chat un chat" doesn't actually makes that much sense when translated literally, but that's usually the case with idioms. You get an idea of what it means though, as this idiom has similar versions in other languages, as well (like you said "to call a spade, a spade"). All of that being said, "Appeler un chat un chat" means to say everything as it is or to be direct. As for the English version "to call a spade, a spade", I have to confess that this is the first time I hear about it. Well, I actually read about it, but you get the point .

The palindromes that I like are the ones that are quite common but people don't even notice it, like names: Ana / Anna, Hannah, or some words: level, race car.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely a petrol-head ( that's gear-head for the Americans out there ). I like to bore people to death :wacky: with my knowledge about cars, motorcycles and anything with an engine basically. So, naturally I know some car idioms, or at least car-related idioms, here are a few: "To race through something" - which means to speed up while performing a task, to perform it rapidly. "To take someone for a ride" - meaning to deceive someone. Do you know other car idioms? Please share!

Hi devilishomar, welcome to thew forum! I can relate to what you're saying about reading Arabic but not being able to understand it as I have the same problem with German. I'm good at reading in German, I know how to read the words properly and all, but I don't have a clue about what I'm actually reading :confused:. See you around!

ollie, that's so funny . Another marketing mistake that springs to my mind is in the case of the Romanian SUV Dacia Duster. They've probably thought that it's a cool name for an off-road vehicle but we all know that "duster" is another name for a vacuum cleaner and it also means dusting rag, not cool names for a car . Also the Growler E concept car has a very uninspired name as "growler", in slang, means vagina. :devil:

Yeah, I have to agree with Amalia, Romanian subtitles for English movies are quite bad . The most annoying subtitles that I've seen were usually on shows about cars, it's like they were intentionally trying to mess up. Looking at the bright side, I can always ignore the subs and just listen to what the actors are saying, and sometimes the subtitles get it so wrong that it's actually funny :devil:.

Hi Rosa! I'm also studying French. I was quite good at it a few years ago, but now, as I haven't really used it for some time, I noticed that my French is...well...rusty :confused:. Anyway, welcome to the forum! Au revoir!

Well, my favorite French quote is "Le sens commun est fort rare." from Voltaire which translates to "Common sense is quite rare" and is also known in this form: "Common sense is not so common", it's a bit rude but, probably, that's why I like it .

I think the misconceptions about English apply to languages in general. People usually tend to say a language is hard to learn if they have problems grasping it's basics, but in reality you can learn any language you want if you stick with it.Also, any language is easy to learn but hard to master .

Here are a few Fish idioms that I like: "To drink like a fish" - basically meaning to drink a lot . To be "like a fish out of water" - to be very unconformable, out of place in a specific situation. Like "shooting fish in a barrel" - an extremely easy situation.