Saturday, December 10, 2005

It's all Sanskrit to me

I am sure just about everyone in the world is familiar with the phrase "it's all Greek to me" (which my father embarrasingly and predictably used the first time he met my husband). But did ya ever wonder what the Greek's say?

At my last Greek lesson, my mother-in-law said "it's all Chinese to me".

So there you go.

8 comments:

teacher dude said...

In British English we say, "it's double Dutch". I never heard the phrase, "it's all Greek to me" till I came here.

Αλλα, μερικες φορες οντως ειναι Κινεζικα!!

kate said...

Here in Spain they say "hablando en chino" as well...

Though I must say, college-bound high school students (who aren't taking the science branch of courses) are expected to study Greek. That's pretty impressive, I'd say. (English is mandatory for everyone...)

Cynthia Rae said...

I couldn't help myself...I said that very phrase when we were reading our Greek menues!

I wonder what the Italians say....

Cyn

christina said...

In German they say 'Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof!'

Alice said...

Germans also say: "Das kommt mir Spanisch vor" (it's all Spanish to me!) ;)

melusina said...

This is interesting! It is fun to hear what other countries say!

Spanish kids must work hard to keep up all the languages! Greek students (well, at least all the ones in my husband's family) seem to study at least one language extra, if not two.

kate said...

I think the Spanish kids have to study Classic Greek, not Modern Greek. So they aren't trying to learn to speak it or anything. And it might only be one year. But still. They definitely have to take Latin, too.

Anonymous said...

In Quebec, we say: "C'est du vrai chinois!" This is really chinese!
A lot of difference in languages I noticed! The one I soon learned and made me roll was:" I have a frog in my throat!" First of all, the french-quebecois are surnamed grenouilles (frogs), and they will say:" J'ai un chat dans la gorge!: I have a cat in my throat!"
Is it funny or what!
connyrn/marie