Thread by @AdamCSharp

A thread of my favourite Hungarian phrases, starting with this one…

In Hungary, instead of saying “my bosses gave me too much work to do” you can use the poetic phrase bekergettek tátott szájjal a faszerdőbe. It means “they chased me into the dick-forest with a wide-open mouth”

In Hungarian, instead of telling someone you don’t care, you can instead say kutyát se érdekli. It means “even the dog is uninterested”

In Hungary, instead of telling someone you don’t think they are very intelligent, you could say agyilag zokni. It means something along the lines of “mentally, you are a sock”

There’s a Hungarian slang expression for when you get someone else to carry out something risky or difficult on your behalf – más faszával verni a csalánt. It means “beating the nettles with someone else’s dick”

Hungarians don’t ask little children why they are crying. They instead say miért itatod az egereket? It means “why are you giving drinks to the mice?”

In Hungary, instead of telling someone you don’t find them attractive, you could instead say “if you went down a mine, the coal would come up by itself”

In Hungary, if someone is talking a load of nonsense, instead of saying “you’re pulling my leg,” you could say “that’s a fairy tale with whipped cream”

A Hungarian expression for commenting on the quality of someone’s singing is erotikus a hangod, bassza a fülem. It means “your voice is erotic, it fucks my ears”

* Thanks to @tomzorz_ for teaching me that one (and the next few)

If you were hosting an event in Hungary, instead of greeting the audience with “it’s good to see you all,” you would instead say összefújta a szemetet a szél. It means “the wind blew the trash together”

In Hungary, you wouldn’t tell someone to go away, but instead suggest they “go shit a wheelbarrow’s worth of tiny hedgehogs”

* And if the person asks why the hedgehogs are tiny, you respond with “more fit into the wheelbarrow that way”

A Hungarian way of saying “that’s karma” is visszanyalt a fagyi. It means “the ice cream licked back”

A Hungarian equivalent to “a bad workman blames his tools” is ha egy kacsa nem tud úszni nem a víz a hülye. It means “if the duck can't swim, it's not the water that's stupid”

An old Hungarian version of “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” is fogadd be a tótot, kitúr a házadból. It means “let in the Slovak and he’ll chase you out of your house”

In Hungary, you don’t politely ask someone to be quiet, but instead say “if you don’t shut up, I’ll climb into your mouth and shit myself”

In Hungary, you don’t say “if you enjoyed this thread, please follow me for more great content,” but instead say “if you do not do what is right, may you drown in a pool of diarrhea and dicks”

* I may have made that up. But to be safe you should probably follow me anyway.

I feel bad that I may have given the impression that Hungarian is somewhat blunt, vulgar even, so I’d like to again share this moving letter from a retired man (translated from the original Hungarian) that shows the true eloquence and poetry of the language…

A few bonus Hungarian slang words and their literal translations…

Szomszédol = going over to the neighbours’ for a chat (literally “neighbouring”)

Másnaposság = a hangover (literally “next-day-ishness”)

Nethuszár = a keyboard warrior (literally “internet hussar”)

In Hungarian, the word for a wolverine (the animal) is either rozsomák or torkosborz (which means “gluttonous badger”). This was perhaps deemed not fearsome enough for the Marvel character, so in the films Wolverine is instead called Farkas (the Hungarian word for a wolf)

One last Hungarian language tweet in honour of #HungarianRevolutionDay…

In Hungary, the Macauley Culkin film Home Alone is called Reszkessetek, betörők! It means “Tremble, Burglars!”

And the title of Breaking Bad is Totál szívás, which means “Total Suckage”