Hello everyone 🙂 I'm writing a research paper about phraseological units (fixed expressions, idioms, and phrases) in German with the "color" component (for example English idioms: once on a blue moon, have green fingers, out of the blue etc)
I need your help, and I rly want to provide statistics. If you live in Germany and speak German, please share whether you use such idioms or expressions. If so, what are they? And how common are they? Perhaps one of your relatives has a favorite expression with a "color" component.
I would appreciate any information, thank you in advance. This is a very interesting topic for me!
by x3nw3
34 comments
Older People “Ach Du grüne Neune” (oh my god)
“Sein blaues Wunder erleben” (Getting a mighty surprise)
“Das gelbe vom Ei” (The bees knees)
“ich sehe schwarz für…” (I don’t see a/any more chance for…)
“durch die rosarote Brille” (Through rose tinted glasses)
“Eine alleinstehende frau würde sich in einer violetten Sitzgruppe umbringen” (A single woman would kill herself in/on a purple sofa) /s
“alles im grünen Bereich” (literally “everything in the green area”) which means “everything is fine”.
“das blaue vom Himmel versprechen” maybe? It’s when you make unrealistic promises.
„Die sind sich nicht ganz grün“, roughly translated as they are not particularly green toward each other.
It means that two persons don’t like each other very much.
“Grüner Daumen” would be the same in German as your “green fingers”.
“Ins Blaue hinein”… z.B. fahren, means doing something without a plan.
I think both are very common expressions in Germany.
We have the colloquial expression “Blau machen” (to do blue? to make blue?) for skipping school.
Also “Blau sein” (to be blue) is a colloquial term for being drunk.
Slightly shady tactic btw. to use random cat photos as clickbait, but i can’t say it didn’t work.
Dasselbe in grün – The same in green.
2 different things that are more or less the same.
My grandma always said: “Sell chasch grüe aamole und de Haase gää!” – You can paint it green and feed it to the rabbits. Meaning: something is absolutely useless.
Gelb / Grün vor Neid sein. (Being yellow or green because of being envious)
“blau machen” – to skip work/school/etc
“schwarz fahren” – to travel without buying a ticket
“einen grünen Daumen haben” – to have green fingers
Grün hinter den Ohren – new/untrained/inexperienced.
“Rot sehen”: “seeing red” (getting very angry),
“Noch grün hinter den Ohren sein”: “still being green behind the ears”: (still being very young/having little life experience),
“Blau sein”: “being blue” (being drunk, informal),
“Gelb vor Neid sein”: “being yellow from envy” (being very envious),
“Einen grünen Daumen haben”: “having a green thumb” (being skilled/talented with gardening and plants),
There’s many more, but those are the first ones I thought about that I didn’t spot in other comments yet.
“Blau sein” = being drunk
“Grün vor Neid” = green from jealousy
“Rot sehen” = seeing red from anger
“Sich schwarz ärgern” = turning black from anger
“Rot sehen” to get angry/becoming “blind” to everything but ur anger, related to bullfighting
“Es gibt nicht nur Schwarz oder Weiß” “Schwarz-Weiß-Denken” -> theres not only “true” oder “false”; “yes” or “no”/ someone only thinks in extremes -> related to that we have “Graubereich” grey area, a space between two extremes/a clear answer
Edit: Those are things i actually use regulary, i think a lot of the phrases mentioned (like “ins Blaue” “blau machen” “grün vor neid” …) are more outdated and mostly in written language
Edit2: When I have time later I maybe list you the more recent or actual used phrases and the more outdated or written ones in this thread, maybe that also could be your topic for your research
“Ins Schwarze treffen” – being very accurate about something
Schwarzfahren = ride without a ticket
Ins Schwarze treffen = hit something right in the correct spot, like bullseye
Weiße Weste = to be innocent
Gelb vor Neid = to be very envious
Grauer Alltag = drab everyday life
Braune Vergangenheit = referring to Nazi past
Grünes Licht geben = to give someone the go-ahead/green light
Apart from what everyone else already mentioned, another one would be “Schwarzmalerei”, which means to paint something in a bad light.
“Das ist nicht das Gelbe vom Ei” (that is not the yellow part of the egg = something is not good, not useful)
“jemandem das Blaue vom Himmel versprechen” (promise someone the blue from the sky = making false promises, promising too much)
“ins Blaue raten/fahren/…” (guess/drive/… into the blue = into unknown)
“rot sehen” (to see red, same meaning as in English)
I recently heard blauäugig in a documentary. It means naive
“Vom blauen Affen gebissen sein” – archaic, literally ‘to have been bit by a blue monkey’, means being crazy/irrational/nonsensical (my Latin teacher would scold us asking whether we’d been bitten by a blue monkey😅)
Rot sehen (seeing nothing but rage)
Schwarz sehen (seeing a bleak future)
Schwarz malen (painting a bleak picture of the future)
Grün hinter den Ohren sein (being inexperienced in something, sort of being a greenhorn)
Jemanden grün und blau schlagen – Hit someone until they are black and blue.
Similarly, a black eye is a blue eye (blaues Auge) in German.
And, very racist, but I do wonder if anyone knows this saying:
“Grün und blau, Polackenfrau.”
It translates to “green and blue, Polish woman” in a very derogatory way. It can mean both the colors of the clothes and the bruises on the skin.
My grandmother, born on the border to Poland in the 1920s, used to tell me that the old women in her area used to say that when the young women would match green and blue clothes. She never was quite sure what they meant, apart from it obviously being racist.
“Das kommt aus dem Blauen” – lit. “This comes out of the blue”, something unexpected happens.
“Grün hinter den Ohren sein” – lit. “To be green behind the ears”, to be inexperienced or new to something.
Explain the cats in your post
Ach du grüne neune
“Einen gelben holen” or “getting a yellow” means calling in sick to work
“Der ist **grün** hinter den Ohren” – (English idiom: “he is wet behind the ears”) – relatively common
“**schwarz** sehen” – (“to see black” means to be pessimistic about something) – very common
“**rot** sehen” – (“to see red” means to get angry about a certain topic) – very common
“auf **rosa** wolken schweben” – (“floating in pink clouds” means to be very euphoric about something) – relatively common
“jemandem den **schwarzen** Peter zuschieben” – (“to give someone the black Peter” means the same as the English idiom “to pass the buck”) – very common
“**blau**machen” – (“to make blue” – sounds horrible in English but means to skip work or school) – extremely common
“das ist nicht das **gelbe** vom Ei” – (“this is not the yellow of the egg” means it’s not the best) – very common
– “weiß wie die Wand sein” (literally “to be as white as a wall”) – to be very pale, usually from sickness, unease, fear etc., same as being as white as a sheet
– “blauäugig sein” (literally “to be blue-eyed”) – to be very naive
– “blauer Brief” (literally “blue letter”) – a letter your parents get sent when you misbehave in school etc. (not actually blue)
– “roter Faden” (literally “red thread”) – common theme or thread in something
– “grünes Licht geben/bekommen” (literally “to give/get the green light”) – to give/get the go-ahead
I don’t know if that one fits 100%, but I’ll mention it anyway:
– “bekannt sein wie ein bunter Hund” (literally “being as famous as a colourful dog”) – to be known all over, to be the talk of the town
“Nachts sind alle Katzen grau” => “At night all cats are grey”, which means that given certain circumstances some things, people or concepts exposed to these circumstances have the same properties or behave alike. Example: “the guy I met in Amsterdam was so high, but hey ‘all cats are grey at night’.”
Its meaning is often also taken quite literal regarding the time of the day and refers to bad eyesight in badly lit places. Like: “I parked my car somewhere in the neighbourhood last night, but I wouldn’t know where exactly, you know ‘all cats are grey at night’.”
The comments may have better examples than me, though.
Blue moon is also used in German
“Einmal im blauen Mond”
Here are some others I didn’t see in the comments so far (I also didn’t look very thoroughly though)
– Blau und Grün schlagen
(To hit until someones’s ‘blue and green’ from hematones)
– Blau machen – Doing blue
(To skip smt like work)
– Blau sein – To be Blue
(To be drunk)
– Weißer Fleck auf der Karte – White spot on the map
(unexplored territory)
– Der ist mir nicht grün – They’re not green to me
(I don’t like them)
– Nachts sind alle Katzen grau – At night every cat is gray
(Pointing out everything’s the same after all)
– Schwarzes Schaf – Black sheep
(Same as in English)
– (du wirst ein) Blaues Wunder erleben – You’re going to experience a blue miracle
(Consequences will catch up/threat)
– Eine weiße Weste haben – To wear/have a White vest
(To be seen in good light/be a good person)
“Grüne Welle”, eine grüne Welle haben / die grüne Welle surfen – “green wave”, having or surfing the green wave = passing a row of (synchronized) green traffic lights.
Jemandem die gelbe oder rote Karte zeigen (derived from football/soccer) – to give someone a (serious) warning. Yellow / first strike. Red / you’re out.
Similar expressions in EN/GER
being the black sheep / das schwarze Schaf sein
Weißwaschen / to white wash
Grünschnabel (green beak) / greenhorn
jemandem/etwas grünes Licht geben / to green light
I almost had a jumpscared on the first cat picture
Rot sehen = to be furious
Rote Zahlen schreiben = to be in debt, bankruptcy
Nicht das Gelbe vom Ei = not too great
Ach du Grüne Neune! = expression of surprise
Grün hinter den Ohren sein = being a rookie, being young, immature
Grünschnabel = youngster, immature
Grüne Minna = Police
Grüne Zahlen schreiben = successful business
Das Gleiche in Grün = it’s just the same, very similar
Auf einen grünen Zweig kommen = to recover, to improve the situation, to make things better
Sich nicht grün sein = to not get along well, to not trust each other
Alles im grünen Bereich = all good, things are okay
Einen Grünen Daumen haben = to be a good gardener, to know how to handle plants well
blau sein = to be drunk
Sein Blaues Wunder (erleben) = there will be trouble
Blaues Auge = black eye
Blaue Flecken = bruises
Blauer Brief = letter from the teacher to the parents
jemanden etwas einbläuen = to make something very clear to someone (i.e. telling someone not to do something in a stern way, several times)
Das Blaue vom Himmel lügen/erzählen/versprechen = to tell lies, to talk big in order to persuade someone
Rosa Wolken sehen = to have a crush as a young teenage girl
Rosarote Brille = to idealize something
Schwarz sehen = to be pessimistic
Schwarze Zahlen schreiben = to neither lose nor win money
Schwarzfahren = to ride the public transportation without having payed
sich schwarz ärgern = to be very angry because you regret something
Nachts sind alle Katzen grau = Nobody knows what happens at night, what happens at night stays there
Graue Maus = wallflower, prude
Graue Zellen = brains
Graue Theorie = (boring) theoretic knowledge that might not be useful
Nur Graue Wolken sehen = to be depressed
Weiße Mäuse sehen = to be delusional, paranoid
Eine weiße Weste haben = to have a clear conscience,
to be innocent, not guilty
Schwarz auf Weiß! = a written evidence of something
Wow I never thought there would be so many! I would say 90% of all phrases mentioned are very common and everybody knows them
Die schwarze Null – the black zero = break even point especially for businesses
Rote Zahlen schreiben – writing red numbers = to make a loss
Additionally we refer, to some extent, to political parties with their associated colour (die blauen = afd, die roten = spd/leftists)
To add to that, the party associated with the colour green is literally called „the greens“
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