The Proverbial Tongue: a dictionary of proverbs

 The Little Dictionary of Proverbs

As you probably know, proverbs don't exactly translate literally between languages (or, at times, between cultures even if they share the same language!). "It's raining cats and dogs" would sound really weird if translated literally to other languages that don't use that imagery to describe heavy rain. This little dictionary, Pequeno Dicionário de Provérbios (The Little Dictionary of Proverbs), by Helena Silva and José Luís Quintão, published in the early 80's, is written in German, French, English and Portuguese (European), and aims to offer equivalents to proverbs in each one of these languages.

I find it fascinating to learn about the different ways each language/culture sees, interprets the world, and then how they express themselves. I think it would be interesting to explore the different ways the same proverb is said in each of these languages. I would also love to hear from anyone whose language isn't in the book and how they say it! 

So, I figured that I could go down the list of English proverbs and, once a week, post something about the translation of each proverb into these (and hopefully other) languages.