When someone has died , people not only say sarcastically in Germany that they have bitten the dust ( Ins Gras beissen) , but also that they have given up the spoon.( Sie haben den Löffel abgegeben.)

4:13 Beat about the bush. In German, we would say: "um den heißen Brei herumreden", literally: talk around the hot mash

In former times the people used flowers to send "secret" notes like "I like oder love you" "throogh" flowers because each flower had a second meaning.

"Senf dazugeben" does have a negative connation unlike the 2cents equivalent. You can use it self-deprecatingly though, when others have already voiced their opinions, like "If I may also add my mustard, ..." "Wenn ich auch noch meinen Senf dazu geben darf"

We don’t speak through flowers normally, but we quickly notice when someone else does 😂

Ryan: "I love the German idioms...." My brain: "I love the German idiots...."

Talking through the flowers is still being honest about it. Instead of lying like "Oh no, you totally look great" for example.

When you have to clear your throat, you can extend that idiom. "Frosch im Hals, der keine Miete zahlt." (="Frog in the throat that pays no rent.") And when somebody died, he looks at the radish from below (sich die Radieschen von unten ansehen).

Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei. Everything has an end only sausages has two.

better translation than "many cooks spoil the broth" would most likely be "many cooks RUIN the broth" and it actually ain't even "the broth" but more like "the puree" the slight mistranslation comes from the fact that "verderben" can be used in different contexts in german e.g. "Der Apfel ist verdorben" - "The apple is spoiled" or "Du hast mir die Stimmung verdorben" - "You ruined my mood" so you can look at "verderben" as "turning something bad".. the food has turned bad, the mood has turned bad

"Durch die Blume sagen" is used since the 16th century (the educated used also the Latin "sub rosa"- roughly "with a rose"). It is assumed to originate with the "language of flowers" then in fashion, where every (type of) flower had a hidden meaning, in Victorian England also known as floriography. The idiom could however also be interpreted as giving a bouquet together with the critics. There is also "verblümt" (made oblique by "flowers" or false compliments) and "unverblümt" (blunt without flowers). Allegedly "add your mustard" came from the time as most spices were rather expensive, some innkeepers used to add mustard to every dish. But it can also be used to relate self-ironically to oneself: Da muss ich auch noch meinen Senf dazu geben - Here I have to add also my mustard. Some missing idioms: Bratkartoffelverhältnis - a fried potatoes relationship (if one partner only lives with the other because of the food or sometimes because she or he owns the apartment). Butter bei die Fische! - Butter at the fish! - come to the point!

That many cooks spoil the broth I personally observed during my (basic) design studies due to an interdisciplinary project in the area of product development. The project was intended to give students from different areas practical experience of the decision-making and work processes that take place when developing a product. Students from the fields of business, management and administration formed the top decision-making teams, then the engineers and designers formed the second level etc. So, according to my experience, product development mainly consists of disputes between team leaders over competence, which isn't very conducive to the development of a product. That times I thought to myself that if this chaos actually looks like reality, it's for sure kinda surprising that there are such many products on the shelves of supermarkets, etc.

side note: the french say they have a cat in there thorat instead of a frog

"Ins Gras beissen" "biting the gras" comes from warfare, when fatally injured, dying soldiers were lying on the battlefield and biting the gras or the soil in serious pain.

Would've been awesome if the guy biting the grass would "come back to life" only to give her a spoon, close an umbrella, or hold a radish over himself and look at it. ("den Löffel abgeben" (to give up your spoon), "den Schirm zumachen" (to close the umbrella*), and "die Radieschen von unten ansehen" (to watch the radishes from below) are other colourful ways to die. *I have never heard a German person say that, but it is common in Swiss-German

Jetzt haben wir den Salat - Ryan reagiert auf deutsche Idiome! 😁

7:00 : Frage: Was ist Vakuum? Antwort: Ich hab es im Kopf, aber ich komme gerade nicht darauf... 😂 Q: What is Vacuum? A: I have it in my head, but I can't think of it right now...

The flower thing probably comes from the idea of handing someone a bouquet of flowers when you bring them unpleasant news.

5:58 There's a Star Trek episode in which the starship Enterprise encounters a civilization that speaks only in idioms. They figure it out just in time while misunderstandings become diplomatic blunders resulting in war. Nice plot

I love how you pronouncing things in German. It sounds so cute^^

7:32 That's a scarf.

The Dutch have the mustard one too. "Mosterd na de maaltijd": Mustard after the meal. A very short idiom meaning the same is "Spuit 11": the eleventh hose of a firetruck finally starts working when the fire is already out

The Bautzner Senf - mittelscharf (Bautzner mustard - medium hot), which was shown in the video is the best!

The saying is not "Viele Köche verderben den Brei.", but "Zu viele Köche verderben den Brei." Also "broth" is "Brühe", not "Brei". So the real translation of the real saying is "Too many cooks spoil the mash/pulp." That's why I don't like Easy German, they're almost always slightly off, but close enough that it seems nitpicky to correct them.

I was totally confused when I found out that something also "gives up the ghost" in English, I thought it was a German only thing "den Geist aufgeben".

"verderben" can mean "to spoil", and when used with food it usually means the kind of spoiled that happens if you store food too long or the wrong way. But it can also mean that something is corrupted, or in the case of the cooks, just ruined. Meaning the many cooks managed to cook something disgusting instead of what should be a very simple dish

You cant compare apples with pears! - "Du kannst nicht Äpfel mit Birnen vergleichen!" We say that, when somebody tries to compare things, which arent comparable, because it makes no sense! i hope i explained it right

German and English idioms are often very similar - at least you can guess what they mean. Try this with French idioms. Good luck!

This was a very informative video. I liked you also served your idioms, not only try to say and understand ours. Please more of this.

We love our Mustard haha ;D popular ones you can get everywhere are Löwensenf and Bautzner. For "sweet" Mustard its Händlmaier, which you eat with Bavarian Weisswurst, not much else So ich habe meinen Senf dazu gegeben.

There some questions we have to answer "through the flowers" otherwise we bite the grass ... e.g. when your wife asks you if she's getting fat 😂

in germany it is not 911. it is 112

I was missing "Die Radieschen von unten betrachten" (to eye the radishes from below) which probably is translated best with "pushing up daisies". Would have been a good addition to the grass biting one.

How can anyone confuse a scarf for a hood?

I wonder of the speaking through the flowers idiom may have originated from the old Roman idea of the rose being the flower of secrecy? After all, in English we also say a thing is sub rosa (under the roses) if it's a secret. Btw, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" is a common English idiom too.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth” is an age-old idiom in English, too. The broth is spoiled because every cook has his or her own idea of what should be put in the pot and how much and if they all add whatever they want, without regard for what others have put in the pot already, the soup will be ruined.

Here is another Idiom: Da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer (There lies the rabbit in the pepper) It means there is a situation where you cannot escape from. You can also translate it "There is the problem".

@Ryan Wass 4:30 You've git the idiom "to mince matters". It means the same as "etwas durch die Blume sagen". Could be that it just exists in British English, though.

"Den Senf dazu geben" is an old idiom with the roots in the medievil times. Mustard and other spices were very expensive. The Rich people during this time uses the expensive spices on all kind of food just to show how rich they are. no matter if the food tastes good or not.

They have to put the pharses/idioms in "" cause the "heißt" is not connected to the idiom, it onyl means: "it means".

"Through the flowers" might not be the best translation better: "by the flowers". Because that idiom means saying something unpleasant indirectly to not hurt/ offend the person too much or to just hint at something. Since ancient times, different flowers can have different meanings attached to them, when they´re given to someone, so you say what´s up by the flowers you give them...

"In's Gras beißen" is far from the only idiom to say that someone died. We also have "Den Löffel abgeben" (to give away the spoon), "Sich die Radieschen von unten angucken" (to observe the radishes form below) and a few more

With idioms and proverbs your own always seem a little less cool than foreign ones, since you usually just learn them without thinking about the backstory. But even so, I feel like English has some real gems that outshine their German counterparts. "Barking up the wrong tree" is one of my favorites. When it comes to proverbs "A kettle watched never boils" really stuck with me.

We have the same saying in the u k about the cook as in Germany

"To say something through the flowers" originates from the fact that, in the past, each flower symbolized something in particular (e.g. red roses for love, etc.) and a lot could be said by simply giving a person a bunch of flowers. It simply means that the persons don't say things bluntly. "Beating around the bush" would be "um den heissen Brei reden" (to talk around the hot porridge) in German. In French, when somebody has died and is buried, they say "they eat dandelion by the roots" (manger les pissenlits par la racine). But they also have "to bite the dust" (mordre la poussière) instead of "to bite into the grass" (ins Gras beissen; "to bite the grass" would be "das Gras beissen").

Da wird der Hund in der Pfanne verrückt..this one get a dog crazy in the Pan.. Da steppt der Bär im Kettenhemd! There is the Bear tap dancing in chain shirt😅

Durch die Blume sagen is close to what you would call sugarcoating…

7:47 the more literal traslation would be "it lies on my tongue"

Adding mustard is considered 'not necessary'.I.e. 'seinen Senf dazu geben' is not called for and has a very negative connotation.

If you want to learn german idioms with deeper sense look at Goethes Faust😊 for example "dies also ist des Pudels Kern" ~ "So this is the core of the poodle" means finally the truth is revealing. There are more in this book and other literature...

Spoil the broth/ porridge: When several cooks believe they dish has not yet been salted and everybody salts it, it may get inedible. The same may happen with other kinds of seasonings or some ingredients. That might be regarded as "spoiling".

8:25 I know that guy on the left hand side. Like personally. The world is so small sometimes...

Funny, the like counter just turned to 911 when I used the button. 😊 By the way, in Germany (and far as I know in whole Europe) the emergency call is 112.

Saying it to the flowers, has its origion in a literal flower language. The colour and the kind of flower you shows tells an opinion of yours to a situation, not very common today. In older time people used it more often.

Broth is Brühe which is like a soup. Brei = porrige

It's not that crazy that a lot of them are the same in the u.s. Many Germans came to the u.s. and brought it with them

I always find it funny how cultures try to connect themselves to even older cultures. - How the Romans mythically thought of themselves as the offspring of the Trojans (- they couldn’t be the Greek, but they wanted to be in that story, so they identified with the Trojans). There are more Egyptian Obelisks in Rome than in Egypt (- a dozen or so: London, Paris and New York also have gotten themselves one). Constantinople wanted to be the 2nd Rome, Moscow wanted to be 3rd Rome. - The whole US Capital (and Capitol) is styled Roman (- if you found a Republic, you obviously want to model it after the original Republic (it’s a Latin word after all: res publica = public matter). Germany doesn’t have really old culture: well, we do have some Roman sites / ruins: villas, bath houses, the Limes. But Germans themselves of course were “Barbarians” to Rome. And many traditional tribal areas “only” go back to the Völkerwanderung (tribal migration: fleeing from Hordes of the Asian Steppe / the Huns in the 5th and 6th centuries before settling down). - A lot of Bavarian “Tradition” was made up in the 19th century (Oktoberfest etc). - Yes, there were the Franks - going back to Karl der Große / Charlemagne in 800 ; but he got claimed by France. Then there are Saxons and Suebes (Swabia) and Allemans. - A common German language only really goes back to the first Bible translation that spread (Martin Luther 1530 or so). Germany unified in 1871 as a Nation. Ok - the HRE existed for a thousand years from 800 to 1806 (- destroyed by Napoleon), but that means most of the picturesque towns and cities are “only” 800 to 1000 years old. (If you don’t count Roman settlements like Trier and Cologne and Regensburg etc,) - But that’s less than e.g. the Byzantine Empire, which took more than 1000 years to fall, and was itself just an off-shoot of Rome, that already existed for another thousand years before. - Not to mention Egypt again, that existed more or less for 3500 years+… And then there is India: whose age one can only really appreciate by their oldest religious texts, as the sites of their cities and temples were hardly ever abandoned and just rebuild on top of each other. - When the typical “rise and fall” only applies to subdivisions, but never to the thing as a whole.

Not spoil she mean " ruin "the Cake

'Too many cooks spoil the broth' is an old proverb and one that has lasted unchanged for centuries. Recent research appears to confirm the truth it conveys. Evidence against 'too many cooks spoil the broth'. In 1907 the English statistician Sir Francis Galton observed a contest in which villagers attempted to guess the weight of an ox. He found that the more people who made a guess the nearer the average guess came to the correct answer. His work, which he entitled 'The Wisdom of Crowds', was later taken up in various fields to aim to provide more accurate forecasts by using more people.

0:25 Well, to be fair, American history might not date that far back, but your culture totally kinda is a "conglomerate" of a lot of mostly European cultures, with your very own based on that on top of it. You guys have bits of every European country and I always find it interesting to see where American habits originate from. I can perfectly see why you're interested in specific things, since you did only adapt a fraction of all those cultures each, but would like to know more about at least one of those. 1:16 Yeah, pretty much the same meaning there. 5:46 LOL that's so hilarious. He could also give someone a spoon ("Den Löffel abgeben"). I guess the perfect roleplay for that would be him giving away a spoon, kicking a bucket, chewing on the grass and then looking at some radish from below. 8:11 Yeah, nailed it. 9:10 It's tasty, as long as there isn't dogshit on it, probably... XD

Instead of saying: Call 911, we say call 112 over here. 😉

Durch = BY MEANS OF, not only "through"

1:40 funny i just know "too many cooks oversalt the soup" 2:08 yeah ... oversalted soup would be something thats not edible .. ;D but as far as i can tell with my little english i would say it translate not to "spoil" and instead more like "mess up" 3:45 dont even think about it .. i dont even believe that anyone outside of germany would get that .. :D 4:15 to be honest the explanation is wrong ..? i dont say "it suits you" to say in a friendly way "this looks bad" ... like while eating "well it taste pretty bad ... would say its a 7 out of 10" thats not how it works ... its just lying ... always hated "durch die blume" in germany ... just say what you think .. or shut your mouth how about that .. 4:40 filtering words is pretty common in germany ... in my opinion its even funny how most people outside of germany think that germans are "direct" when talking ... nearly no one is .. atleast as far i experienced it ... and im 30 now living my whole life here xD 9:00 in germany it depends on your area ... i know people using "adding your mustard" not in a bad way ... to be honest its most of the time just about themself .. funny if i think about it but for a lot of people "adding my mustard" is fine and just a friendly hint or something ... "adding your mustard" is like they want to say "shut the f.. up" 9:29 while we are biting the grass again ... in the next step he "look at the radishes from below" ;D 9:42 that one with the radishes is also sort of "deeper" ... xDD but something is telling me you didnt mean that kind of deep 🤔

Die Radischen von unten anschauen. To look at the radish from down underneath.

5:44 911??? In Germany it's 112.

also equal in america, a idiom with deeper sense: Man soll ein Buch nicht nach seinem Einband beurteien - Don´t judge a book on its cover

I learned German in school (among other languages) but I had never heard some of these expressions. I'll admit, though that my German is bad. I learned to read and write it but I never speak with anyone in German, I never read anything in German, never watch movies in German...

Sitzen Duschen habe ich diese Metapher nicht geholt mit dir habe ich mir gelernt

"Talking through the flowers" is basically "saying bad things the nice way"...and "Yes" Germans usually don´t do that - to anybody BUT they do that to beloved ones, I would even say "exclusively to beloved ones"....for instance "calling a shitty looking haircut" = "a brave haircut" or "a shitty tasting meal" = "that meal has an interesting taste" or "a totally shitty idea" = "thinking a little tiny bit too far out of the box" but however the counterpart on the receiving end always knows in that instance that actually what was meant is "that this was/is shit"

You are filming in front of a green screen right?

The "German"people were very educated in the old days ( too bad a certain Austrian corporal threw a monkeywrench in it) but overall they were very astute with literature and knowledge in general.

"Es liegt mir auf der Zunge" means literally " It lies on my tongue."

Have you ordered sausage? No? So why do you add your mustard?

Brei is not broth, but porridge.

Never heard of "to say something trough the flower" 😮

"ins" Gras beißen, without the apostrophe. Geez. I hate, when people do this (talking about the ', but also dying, oc :D)

Viele Köche verderben die Köchin.

We harry potter fans say "ich habe einen trevor im hals"

I know an american guy, who has to add his mustard to any video about Germany 😝 See? It's not always meant negative. So please keep on flooding us with your mustard! ... ok, this took a wrong turn somewhere ... xD

brei != broth

If every cook adds Salt and spices,they will Ruin the meal🤷

i thought germans dont do that :D best meme :D

Your Country was founded before Germany was founded… But yes we had several countries within similar borders than today- and they were made up before your Country existed…

(Not so) fun fact: If you literally bite into the gras there is a chance that you literally die from some tapeworm infection.

wer zu allem seinen senf dazu gibt, ist selber ein würstchen :D

Careful Ryan. The girls from "Easy German" don't understand their own language and idioms and are very bad with translating. e.g. "Durch die Blume" you have to translate to "by the flowers". Nobody is looking through flowers (how could that even make any sense) but giving them to someone as a gift.

Probably no longer politically correct, but we also used to say "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians" in the same vein as #1. "seinen Senf dazugeben" has indeed a negative connotation -- commentary that often is next to useless, definitely unsolicited, and unwelcome. 🙂(Love your attempts at pronouncing German, btw!)

Brei is porridge, not broth.

For a German you look like Pewdipie to me (appearance) is this only me because I am European and see the connections?

"you always gotta add your mustard"=please shut up, this is non of your business. This is definitely not "said through the flower" which would rather be like "thanks for you opinion" with a fake smile.

Your pronunciation is good when you speak German!

S=ß

first

Please remove the German translation! KZfaq has a problem with this sometimes! Because it is not translated! Thank you!

this reminds me of theatercafe at the dsj. frau willand. she would love these sketches.