Curtains and owls: German idioms that refer to foreign nations
How Germans describe a luxurious life style — and the idiom they use for serving time in prison.
Live the life of Riley
The German idiom "Leben wie Gott in Frankreich" literally means "to live like God in France" — to lead a life in the lap of luxury, or to lead the life of Riley (a phrase that is probably of US-Irish origin, but no one knows who Riley is). The German idiom likely refers to the great privileges the clergy enjoyed in France in the late 18th century.
... And I'm the Queen of England
In English, a sarcastic response to an improbable, unrealistic statement would be, I'm the Queen of England. Other popular rejoinders include, I'm the Pope or I'm the Queen of Sheba, or I'm a monkey's uncle. The colloquial German idiom goes to an entirely different continent: "Ich bin der Kaiser von China" — I'm the Emperor of China.
That is very odd
The German idiom "das kommt mir spanisch vor" literally translates as: "That seems Spanish to me." It goes back to the 16th century: Charles V, who was King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, was also crowned King in Germany in 1520, and Holy Roman Emperor a decade later. He brought from Spain customs and a language that felt odd to the Germans — it all seemed "Spanish" to them.
Serving time
Steel from Sweden was once considered to be particularly high-quality and sturdy. It was used, for instance, to manufacture prison window bars. Jail time became known as "hinter schwedischen Gardinen," or behind Swedish curtains.
Pointless action
To "carry owls to Athens" (in German: "Eulen nach Athen tragen") is believed to be an expression that is over 2,400 years old. In ancient Greece, an owl was minted on the city's silver coins, as it is on the €1-coin today. Owls were seen everywhere in Athens, so as in the British idiom "carrying coals to Newcastle," it means doing something pointless.
All Greek to me
What is Greek to English language speakers, takes on the form of villages in German. "Das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer" (to me, those are Bohemian villages) has nothing to do with architecture, but the fact that Germans could not understand or read the names of the villages in Bohemia, a region in the neighboring Czech Republic. The term refers to something alien and incomprehensible.