Foreign Phrases

We have collected a number of interesting foreign phrases and foreign idioms on this site because we find the idea especially refreshing.

This is primarily a website for English idioms and expressions, not foreign phrases. However, we see a special connection.

This particular random collection of idioms and expressions from a number of languages and cultures shows how universal some ideas are, and how people of the world have more things in common than we tend to realize!

But we have also collected more foreign expressions and phrases, and tabulated them by language or culture. Here they are:

Arabic
Armenian
Chinese
French
Japanese
Persian (Farsi)
Russian
Spanish
Swahili
Turkish

And more will be added as we expand our website.

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Now back to our random collection.

It is interesting to see how various cultures, with different languages and with thousands of miles between them, have developed similar sayings about the same subjects, sometimes even using the exact same words!

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For examples, this is about people who take care of other people’s problems but neglect their own family:

The carpenter’s door is loose. Arabic.
The cobbler’s children go barefoot. English.

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And here are a few more that don’t need any explanation:

Out of sight, out of mind. English.
Out of the eye, out of the heart. Dutch.
Absence makes the heart forget. Parts of Africa.
He who leaves the eye will leave the heart. Persian.
Eyes that don’t see each other, forget about each other. Greek.

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A person once bitten by a snake will be scared by an old rope. Parts of Africa.
One who’s been bitten by a snake is afraid of a black-and-white rope. Persian.

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Half-filled pots splash more. Indian.
Noisy is the can that contains nothing. Filipino.
Hollow barrels sound the loudest. Dutch, Slovak.
Empty vessels make the most noise. Danish, English.

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You can see more of these "similar" expressions in our random collection. And even more will be added as we continue to expand our site.

By the way, do you know some expressions and idioms, foreign OR English, that you think we should add to our website? Please let us know.

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