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all the odd, colorful, fresh and otherwise delightful ways in which non-native English speakers enrich our beloved tongue.As a purely personal thing, I love translating quirky Spanish expressions literally into English and seeing the reactions of those around me. I confess I do it mostly for a laugh, but at the back of my mind there is, I suspect, a subconscious, stubborn desire to expose British people to more* unconventional ways of using English. Most of the time my "foreignerspeak" gets ignored, and probably put down to a genuine mistake. But sometimes people do get curious and want to find out why I am saying that and what it means, and they take pains to give me the equivalent expression in English. I love that because it gets me talking about words and language with people... Some of my personal favourites: "The shrimp that falls asleep gets carried away by the stream" "You lie more than you speak" "Never say 'This water I shall not drink' nor 'This priest is not my father'" (sorry, Father Steve!  ) "He who stands under great tree gets covered in ants" "If you don't want soup you get three bowls" ...and some more I can't remember...  * The "unconventional" ways of speaking English are myriad here -as elsewhere, I bet-, and depend on many factors such as class, ethnic origin, geographical location etc. I am just contributing my bit to this Babel... 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Marianna, those are great. I think that I discern the meaning of all of them, except the one about the tree and the ants. Could you elaborate, please?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Marianna, those are absolutely wonderful. I do hope you will treat us to more of the same, as they occur to you. There is a great philosphical truth embedded in your soupy aphorism! And the tree and the ants - am I right in interpreting that as a reference to those who stand in the protection or shade of the great and powerful have to put up with all sorts of irritations along with the benefits?
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he who stands under a great tree gets covered in ants
Dear fellow AWADers, I do here admit to having recklessly misconfuzzled you with my "proverb" about the tree and the ants. Mea culpa. The real, traditional proverb will probably make much more sense to everyone, as it says "He who stands under a great tree is sheltered by a great shade". The "ants" version is a funny way of turning this truism upside-down. I can remember another one like that, when instead of saying "Rear crows and they will peck your eyes out" (the rather grim original proverb), we say "Rear crows and you will have lots of them".
About Rhubarb Commando's interpretation of the tree and the ants, in my opinion it is perfectly meaningful and often true. We may have a new, legitimate proverb in our midst!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bobyb, Hear, hear! I agree with everything you posted. I'd like to add a couple of observations: - My experience is Europe was much like yours, except I spent most of my time in Austria where the folks, as in Italy, were pleased that I spoke any semblance of their language at all. - I know many non-native speakers of English who speak it better than many natives. ...maybe we all need to form the vanguard in an army to conquer this attitude and pursuade our country[wo]men to embrace all the odd, colorful, fresh and otherwise delightful ways in which non-native English speakers enrich our beloved tongue.Where do we sign up?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Marianna, Those are great!! Now you've got me trying to remember some Brazilian ones....
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Marianna, your examples of proverbs were delightful. There are many proverbs in other languages which are almost direct translations, and others which express the same sentiment but with a different analogy. Any examples unique to a particular language?
It is an amusing game to reconstruct the ending of proverbs as in
"If at first you don't succeed, sky-diving is not for you". (Not original I hasten to add). Anyone like to contribute some original or really amusing secondhand examples?
A stitch in time - really messes up Einstein's General Relativity theory.
Rod
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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People who live in glass houses .... shouldn't have dogs and kids.
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people who live in glass houses .. should ask Rhuby for the etiquette manual Rod
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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People who live in glass houses should undress in the dark.
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