cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/19798927
Sure, the whole world is on fire right now, but there are also little things to be upset about. ☝😉
What a great origin. I Googled it, and it now means “to add your opinion”.
- Seinen Senf dazugeben
Literal translation: To add your mustard to it.
Actual meaning: To give your opinion on something./To give your two cents.
Where there are sausages, there also must be mustard. If you want to ask someone for their opinion and sound like a fluent speaker when doing it, you better invite them to add their mustard.
https://www.mondly.com/blog/german-idioms/
In the process, I found some other great German proverbs with hilarious literal translations.
Literal translation: To talk around the hot porridge.
Literal translation: To ask for an extra sausage.
Literal translation: I believe I spider. (Edit: I believe I spin, see comment).
Literal translation: To have tomatoes on one’s eyes.
Literal translation: I can only understand ‘train station.’.
Literal translation: You’re walking on my cookie.
Literal translation: The bear dances there.
Literal translation: Everything has an end. Only the sausage has two.
But, I guess that’s always the case with idioms. Their literal translation/meaning is useless. Regardless, I find German ones particularly titular
Yeah sorry, forgot to mention the actual meaning :) But I can add some more:
- My dear Mister singing club
- shit at the wall
- one has seen horses puke Maybe I’ll remember some more with good English “translations”.
Something else I just remember is a discussion between Erasmus students (Erasmus is a student exchange program in Europe, so you study for a semester in another country, ergo that group was quiet diverse) about how you call very strong rain: German: is raining cow shit (although that might be local, because those phrases often differ quiet much between German dialects) British: is raining cats and dogs Greek: is raining the legs of Zeus I don’t remember the others… But anyway… what is the deal with English speakers and cats??? A lot of languages have a proverb like “many paths lead to Rome”… But in English apparently it is “there are many ways to skin a cat”… dafuq?
](https://feddit.nl/pictrs/image/a4e9867e-4954-49a3-bf1f-e7b659dceca7.jpeg){kind=link}
As a German they are all technically correct, but one of them isn’t a proper translation.
I believe I spider.
“Ich glaube ich spinne.” isn’t in regards to spiders, the last word is a verb. “spinnen” means “to spin”, originally coming from spinning yarn, which then became spinning a thought :)