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Off topic: It's all Greek/Dutch/Chinese to me - which one? Thread poster: Veronica Lupascu
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Jack Doughty 
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:12
Russian to English
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In memoriam | Variant on "It's all Greek..." | May 15, 2010 |
You could say of incomprehensible computer manuals and help files:
"It's all geek to me!"
[Edited at 2010-05-15 16:02 GMT]
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| Ich verstehe nur Chinesisch | May 15, 2010 |
for
I don't have a clue
is quite common in Germany.
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Mirella Soffio wrote:
"Per me è arabo"
Mirella
in Italy "Turkish" is also used. A friend of mine went to a grocer and he could not speak Italian well. The grocer was angry and said "Do you speak Turkish?". My friend was very happy and said "Yes". Of course the grocer was much more angry this time. He thought my friend was pulling his leg. According to Herodotus and DNA tests, Etruscans, namely the father of Italians were from Turkey.
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In Finnish we say: "it's total Hebrew to me" (Se on täyttä hepreaa minulle).
I was surprised to read earlier in the topic that they use the same thing in French, too.
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In Spanish we also say "me suena a chino" 
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| Polish language too? | Mar 14, 2012 |
Jack Doughty wrote:
You could say of incomprehensible computer manuals and help files:
"It's all geek to me!"
[Edited at 2010-05-15 16:02 GMT]
I think I found a new one: It's "reverse Polish" to me... Apparently a computing term which also refers to something incomprehensible.
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| German again | Mar 16, 2012 |
efreitag wrote:
Interesting topic!
In German, it's either "Das kommt mir spanisch vor!" ("Sounds like Spanish to me!"), or "Das sind böhmische Dörfer!" ("That's all Bohemian villages to me!")
[Bearbeitet am 2010-05-14 14:31 GMT]
That is very common.
But we also sometimes say: Das ist chinesisch für mich. (That is Chinese to me.)
PS: If someone already mentioned it, sorry for the redundant entry.
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| What Chinese people say | Sep 12, 2014 |
David Russi wrote: I don't know whether it is accurate or not, since it is clearly Chinese to me, but according to this site the Chinese say something on the order of "It's like heavenly script". http://www.omniglot.com/language/idioms/incomprehensible.php I guess they know what hard to decypher really means... [Edited at 2010-05-14 22:12 GMT]
Here comes information from a native Chinese
There is not such a standardized expression in Chinese as China is a quite diverse country. I will list some common ones here tho
1. The one mentioned by David actually indicates to written language which is too technical or very difficult to understand. 天书 literally means "books from the heaven/above/celestial world". As Chinese people believe those books will appear as all blank pages to mortals. (无字天书 - wordless celestial books).
2. For spoken language, people will say "what the bird language the mad man is speaking" (鸟语). So no.1 is "bird language".
3. Ghostly language (鬼话) e.g. What ghostly language are you speaking?
4. Martian/Alien language. They are more used in an Internet context but also commonly used in daily life.
Sorry I did a thorough search in my brain but just cannot got a real language actually being used by some other people on the earth
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| Chinese for Hebrew speakers | Sep 14, 2014 |
That's Chinese to me...
זה סינית בשבילי
Very interesting topic!
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Ben Gaia
New Zealand
Local time: 08:12
French to English
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| Jibberjabber | Jun 10, 2022 |
[quote]Tom Tyson wrote:
is a pejorative term used in German to denote overly-technical jargon. I politely translated it as gobbeldygook recently.
So, the next question is: what other onamatopoeic or made up words are there to describe language that's incomprehensible?
"what's that jibberjabber," used in Oz/Nz, perceived sound of Pacifica and Austronesian languages I guess. Considered condescending by those who don't use the term.
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expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 21:12
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
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| Also in Portuguese | Jun 11, 2022 |
We say "não perceber patavina" (not to understand a thing), in addition to "isso para mim é grego" (it's all Greek to me) and/or "isso para mim é chinês" (it's all Chinese to me).
The word "patavina" comes from "Patavium", or the region of Padua where, at the time of the Roman Empire, a dialect was spoken that was very difficult for Latin speakers to understand.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Used by the excellent Suzanne Breen, Political Editor of the Belfast Telegraph, to comment on an interview she had just listened to with the Minister for Northern Ireland: "the Secretary of State is talking gibberish".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibberish#Etymology
[Edited at 2022-06-12 11:07 GMT]
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LIZ LI
China
Local time: 04:12
French to Chinese
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| From a Chinese perspective | Jun 13, 2022 |
The older generation may refer to “chicken's intestines" (鸡肠), which are actually ALL languages using Roman alphabet (Only applicable from where I live, bilingual in Mandarin & Cantonese);
whilst the younger generation would use the term "quadratic element"(二次元) from Manga (particularly Japanese Manga).
[Edited at 2022-06-13 01:52 GMT]
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let's not start the necroposting again...
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