You’re So Funny, Did You Swallow a Clown? And Other Great Expressions in German

I have a secret to tell the world. Be prepared, though, this is a big one. People who speak German can be funny! I know, I know, this came as a complete shock to me, too. German speakers are usually stereotyped as being so straight-forward, serious, blunt and literal. My witty sarcasm is often under-appreciated when I speak German.

I discovered this last week when we were having a family dinner at my in-laws’ place. Of course, my father-in-law Theo made some joke that was of the obligatory-cheesy-Dad-jokes genre and I smiled encouragingly, one because it’s the polite thing to do for a bad joke and two because I didn’t even get the joke. Anywho, Florian and his sister Andrea of course fulfilled their obligatory children part by groaning and mocking  poor Theo. When they all burst into giggles and Florian and Andrea high-fived, I couldn’t bare to miss out on the joke anymore and asked them to translate. What came next had me literally spitting out my food and laughing for the next 3 days. Hast du einen Clown verschluckt? They had asked their dad if he had swallowed a clown today because he was just so funny. hahaha ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS?!

Sidenote: Why don’t we have that saying in English?? I’m going to start using it voraciously and I’m hoping it will catch on across the world. I want to make that a thing.

Once I discovered that the German language had some jokes, I wanted to learn more! We spent the rest of dinner talking about different German sayings and here are some of my favorites for you to enjoy:

German Saying: Eine Frau hat viel Holz vor der Hütte
English Translation: The woman has a lot of wood in front of the cottage
The Actual Meaning: A woman has really big boobies!

German Saying: Wirf nicht deine Flinte ins Korn
English Translation: Don’t throw your gun into the corn
The Actual Meaning: Don’t give up!

German Saying: Da stehen mir die Haare zu Berge
English Translation: There stands my hair to the mountains
The Actual Meaning: Used when you are shocked by something that is ridiculous/insane (in a negative way)

German Saying: Du sollst nicht die Katze im Sack kaufen
English Translation: You shouldn’t buy the cat in the bag
The Actual Meaning: You should have information and look and try it out before you buy something

On a semi-related note, I laughed at a poster hanging in my German language classroom and thought this may be my only chance to share it. There’s a class learning English that uses our classroom and I had to laugh because I always complain about how hard it is to learn German, but there are some phrases in English phrases which must also be weird to learn!