In Spain if someone explain something with very hard terms or its something unknown by the speaker or not the language we say (not wanna be offensive but it is like that): Sonar a chino (sound like Chinese)
While if we want them to repeat or explain clearer we use: ¿En cristiano? (In Christian?)
It could be interesting how each culture expreess this idiomatically
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‘Si,ma adesso ripetilo in Italiano’
Ok, but now repeat it in Italian
OP, you will love this; the equivalent in Serbian is: “za mene su to Španska sela” / “for me those are [that sounds like] Spanish villages” 😀
I have no idea why; the only remotely rational thing I heard is that a lot of volunteers from Serbia went to fight for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil war and the ones that came back spoke of Spanish villages and no one understood the references.
An older version…’Parla in stampatello’…. speak in upper case/capital letters.
I haven’t heard that for a while!
We do use ‘cristiano’ here in Sicily,but not in the same way.. it’s used informally to just mean a person.
You could say “Das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer” (to me that’s Bohemian villages) or “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” (I only understand train station).
Funnily enough we have “Das kommt mir Spanisch for” (That seems Spanish to me) which isn’t really used in the same situations as the other two though. More like if you don’t know why something is but it seems weird. Like idk, for example if you come home and notice your door is wide open and you don’t know why.
“Ich versteh nur Bahnhof” which is (I only understand trainstation) literally translated, is probably the most “general” one, but id say this is mostly region dependant and there are many local dialects that have their own version of this
In the UK (or England at the very least) we say “it’s all greek to me”
When you’re explaining something to someone and they don’t get it or they’re not listening to what you’re saying and you wanna point out how irritated you are with them you can say “Czy ja mówię po chińsku?” Which means “am I speaking Chinese?”
>While if we want them to repeat or explain clearer we use: ¿En cristiano? (In Christian?)
Must be a hangover from the Moorish occupation?
In Greek, we have something similar from the Ottoman occupation, but it has a different meaning.
Greeks will sometimes refer to each other as “my Christian” *kinda* similar to the “repurposing” of the n-word between African-Americans. “Christian” is not a slur, obviously. But it’s used in a somewhat similar way, usually out of frustration. “Do you not understand me, my [fellow] Christian?” or “What the fuck is wrong with you, my [fellow] Christian??”
You’ll call that thing “a Spanish village” (špansko selo) for you.
In Italy we also use ‘Per me è arabo’.. it’s Arabic to me.
Not to a person like in the example though.Its more if you are talking about something you don’t understand, like an instruction manual for example.
In Czechia we would say ‘to je pro mě španělská vesnice’ ‘it’s a spanish village fot me’
Ahah, in French we Say for someone who speaks bad English for instance, “to speak like a spanish cow”. No Idea what the poor animal did to us, nor the spaniards
Not sure how widespread it is but I’ve heard people use “Parla come mangi” (“Speak in the same way you eat” – that is, simply and straightforwardly).
In Dutch there are several things you can say, including “Dat is allemaal Chinees voor me, nu nog eens in het Nederlands?” which is the exact same thing OOP used “That’s all Chinese to me, how about in Dutch?”.
However, there’s a very old one which I absolutely love and it’s one of my favorite words; “Het is allemaal Koeterwaals voor me”, which is from the German Kauderwelsch (probably referring to the Romansh language spoken in the Canton of Chur, Switzerland).
In the Basque Country we say that someone is speaking zapo-erdara ([monkfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophius) language) or ahuntz-erdara (nanny goat language).
Spanish and French speakers for example speak in zapo-erdara.
When you’re Romanian and *you* don’t understand the other person, you can claim “they speak foreign languages”: “vorbește limbi străine”.
When *they* don’t get it, you can ask them – what’s up, “ești turc?” Which means exactly what it looks like: “are you Turk?”
“to je meni španska vas..”
“this is a spanish village to me..”
In Denmark we say “Det er volapyk!”, which means “that’s volapük” – a little known 140 year old constructed language.
Russian has a similar idiom “китайская грамота” (“kitayskaya gramota”) which literally means “Chinese letter”. It’s not that common in everyday communication, but I’d say it is quite well-known. Although there is a word meaning “letter”, we can say it about the way someone speaks, for example “спор двух учёных был для меня китайской грамотой” which literally means “the argument between two scientists was a Chinese letter to me”.
In Poland we say something similar to Spanish, “to dla mnie chińszczyzna”/“It’s Chinese to me”.
In Finland we say something is “all Hebrew (to me)”.
And if we want something to be explained clearer we might say “Could I have the same in Finnish?”.
There are at least three variants in Sweden
“Det här [låter / ser ut] som ren [grekiska/kinesiska/hebreiska] för mig.”
“This [sounds / looks] like pure [Greek/Chinese/Hebrew] to me.”
We have a similar saying, “isso pra mim é chinês” , that’s Chinese to me.
We say “Isso para mim é chinês”. To me its chinese.
So yeah same as in Spain
In Lithuanian we say “paukščių kalba” – “bird language”.
When we want someone to speak more understandably or in layman’s terms, we say “Speak in Lithuanian” or “Speak in human language” (kalbėk žmonių kalba).
Εν κινεζικα (It’s chinese)
One I use but I am not sure how known it is – I think we use it more for written stuff
Εν τουρτζίσιμα(its “turkish-like” – can’t really translate the word it’s sort of an adjective but it’s not ‘turkish’, I only use it for this)
cant count how many times my mom would angrily say “devo estar a falar chinês / estou a falar chinês?” (i must be speaking chinese/ am i speaking chinese?) when me or my dad wouldnt do what she asked. we also say “agora em português” (now in portuguese) when someone explains something in hard terms or just babbles too much and the message isnt clear
In Catalan we say “parlar clar i català” which means “(to) speak clearly and Catalan”.
Note that this rhymes in Catalan since final -Rs are not pronounced (in most dialects)
Actually every once in a while they post a map about this https://images.app.goo.gl/RtdXQnRdJ9UpmFJW9.
My favourite are train station and volapuk
In Poland we often use „kazanie w obcym języku” – “sermon in foreign language”.
Also when something is confusing it’s called „Czeski film” „Czech film”.
Germany:
Das kommt mir spanisch vor. = This seems Spanish to me.
(for when you doubt something.)
when you don’t understand anything at all it’s:
ich verstehe nur Bahnhof. = I understand only train station.
My guess is that because you can never understand announcements through the speakers on train stations?