Guten Tag, everyone!

Today I want to teach you a bunch of German sayings and expressions. You can buy postcards in Germany that are literal English translations of popular German idioms. Perhaps you’ve seen or bought one of these already, but in case you haven’t, one of these postcards reads:

‘ONLY THE HARD COME IN THE GARDEN’

This is the literal translation of the German idiom ‘Nur die Harten kommen in den Garten’, which means ‘Only the strongest survive’ or ‘Survival of the fittest’. (Unfortunately I can’t post a photo here due to copyright reasons, but if you type ‘German postcards translated literally’ into a search engine, you’ll see some of these postcards for yourself.)

The thing is, these postcards are only funny if you speak German and English, so I thought I’d show you all what they mean. 🙂 Using the following vocabulary, see if you can match up the correct postcard phrase to the original German! The answers are underneath the table.

VOCABULARY

DER KEKS – cookie

DER HASE – rabbit/bunny

DIE SPINNE – spider

HÖREN – to hear

GLAUBEN – to believe

NUR – only

POSTCARD PHRASE   YOU CAN ME ONCE (Do one/Bite me)     HOW HORNY IS THAT THEN? (How cool is that?)     ONLY THE HARD COME IN THE GARDEN (Only the strongest survive)     NOW I KNOW HOW THE BUNNY RUNS (Now I understand/I get the message)     I BELIEVE I SPIDER (I think I’m going nuts)     HEAR UP WITH THE AROUNDEGGERY (Stop fooling around)     YOU GO ME ANIMALLY ON THE COOKIE (You’re driving me insane)     NOW MAKE BUT ONCE HALFLONG (Now tell me again without exaggerating)

ORIGINAL GERMAN SAYING     DU GEHST MIR TIERISCH AUF DEN KEKS     DU KANNST MICH MAL     WIE GEIL IST DAS DENN?     ICH GLAUBE ICH SPINNE     NUR DIE HARTEN KOMMEN IN DEN GARTEN       JETZT WEIß ICH WIE DER HASE LÄUFT       JETZT MACH ABER MAL HALBLANG       HÖR AUF MIT DER HERUMEIEREI

How did you do? Here are the answers:

 

 

 

 

YOU CAN ME ONCE ———– DU KANNST MICH MAL
(Do one/Bite me)

 

HOW HORNY IS THAT THEN? ———– WIE GEIL IST DAS DENN?
(How cool is that?)

 

ONLY THE HARD COME IN THE GARDEN ————
NUR DIE HARTEN KOMMEN IN DEN GARTEN
(Only the strongest survive)

 

NOW I KNOW HOW THE BUNNY RUNS –—————-
JETZT WEIß ICH WIE DER HASE LÄUFT
(Now I understand/I get the message)

 

I BELIEVE I SPIDER ————- ICH GLAUBE ICH SPINNE
(I think I’m going nuts)

 

HEAR UP WITH THE AROUNDEGGERY ——————-
HÖR AUF MIT DER HERUMEIEREI
(Stop fooling around)

 

YOU GO ME ANIMALLY ON THE COOKIE ————
DU GEHST MIR TIERISCH AUF DEN KEKS
(You’re driving me insane)

 

NOW MAKE BUT ONCE HALFLONG ———————–
JETZT MACH ABER MAL HALBLANG
(Now tell me again but without exaggerating)

 

What do you think of these sayings? Which one is your favourite? Stay tuned for the second part of this post, in which I will teach you the German sayings that are very similar to their English counterparts.

Bis bald,

Constanze