Because English is so heavily idiomatic, I sometimes consult an Esperanto phrase book while doing practice translations from English into Esperanto. I primarily rely upon English Phrases and Expressions in Esperanto by Felix Woolf for this purpose. Over the past few years there have been more and more free Esperanto dictionaries build by contributors, such as the ESPDIC. Is there anything like the ESPDIC but for phrases and idioms?

~Jeff

Peter Benson's CEED (Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary) has very good coverage of English idiomatic usage, much better than any other dictionary I've found. Two things to note though, 1 - it's not free, and 2 - the dictionary contains quite a few errors and strange words that aren't really in use. Still, in combination with other resources it's a very useful dictionary to have at your disposal.

One of the problems with idiomatic expressions lies in their national or ethnic limits. Do English speakers outside of the US use these: John Hancock, stop on a dime, it's like bobbing for apples, to nickle and dime someone (maybe they say to five-pence and pence someone - haha), trick or treat, one nation under god, the Stars and Stripes (maybe the cross and x's? or the bars and leaf - for Canadians???) play 'possum, wampam, she's my squaw, Jimmy crack corn (and I don't care), Jim Crow laws, blue laws, "Rocky Mountain high" (this has a VERY new meaning, hehe), etc. The idea that I am tryinig to communicate is that when we use Esperanto, we should adopt an International Culture without mustard and relish and no cherry on top. I(Or would you like fries with that?)

robbkvasnak:One of the problems with idiomatic expressions lies in their national or ethnic limits. Do English speakers outside of the US use these: John Hancock, stop on a dime, it's like bobbing for apples, to nickle and dime someone (maybe they say to five-pence and pence someone - haha), trick or treat, one nation under god, the Stars and Stripes (maybe the cross and x's? or the bars and leaf - for Canadians???) play 'possum, wampam, she's my squaw, Jimmy crack corn (and I don't care), Jim Crow laws, blue laws, "Rocky Mountain high" (this has a VERY new meaning, hehe), etc. The idea that I am tryinig to communicate is that when we use Esperanto, we should adopt an International Culture without mustard and relish and no cherry on top. I(Or would you like fries with that?)

I haven't even heard some of those, and I live in the US. I must be too "northern".

On the subject of phrase books I am inclined to believe they may not be the most important things to study, for the reasons mentioned above. Is this phrase book a translation from idiomatic English to non-idiomatic Esperanto? If that is the case I can see it used to push you in the right direction when you can't reason a non-idiomatic equivalent on your own. I've certainly have had those times where I couldn't say what I wanted to because I was thinking entirely in such expressions.

I have encountered the matter of idioms in more than one international auxiliary language. (For example, there is one non-E-o mailing list which I subscribe to in which a frequent participant largely relexifies his native English, and if I were not a native English speaker myself I might be puzzled by some of his expressions.) I suggest that when one speaks or writes in Esperanto, one pause and consider whether one's phrases "make sense" to a native speaker of another language. It is all too easy to assume that one's own native phraseology is universal, when it may be nothing of the kind. Stop and think, people , and use simple terms.

Robbkvasnak, you're right to suggest it's generally a bad idea to translate an idiom exactly from English to Esperanto. But it's often not that simple. English is so idiomatic that sometimes, as a native English speaker, I'm not always aware that I'm employing an idiom or figure of speech to communicate. Sometimes that is only obvious when I ask myself "okay, how would I say that in Esperanto?"

So, while the figure of speech "…to give someone the third degree" (a Freemasonry initiation rite reference—maybe?) is not best translated literally as …doni al iu la tria grado, a good phrase book might suggest pridemandi meaning "to interrogate" in order to convey the general sense of that idiom in Esperanto.

But then again, cultures that lack a native notion of an afterlife in the Abrahamic sense will probably have enough exposure to Western ideas to understand if I say some endeavor went …iris al rekte al diablo that is, "…straight to the devil" I'm referring to an unfortunate misadventure. Likewise in the West, most people know (or think they know) what a mantra is.

Language translators translate meanings, not words. But, every culture has a vast body of assumed knowledge that every other member of the culture is to differing degrees expected to know. Therein lies the rub of translating quite a lot of things.

Whilst it is true that Esperanto avoids idiom and is largely a literal language, this doesn't entirely mean that you can't use colourful speech, or lively metaphor or simile.

For example, we say in English 'When pigs might fly', and I believe the French say something like when hens have teeth. It can be reasonably assumed regardless of culture that adults (and they are the ones who speak Esperanto) know that pigs don't have wings and hens don't have teeth. So an expression like this in context might be expected to be understood.

What you can't say is that a particular phrase is the equivalent in Esperanto of such an idiom in a national language.

To allow Esperanto to accumulate over time a whole battery of well worn fixed phrases of a more or less idiomatic nature, would undermine its purpose.

It is often overlooked that a major contributor to the ease acquisition of Esperanto is precisely this quality of not being cluttered with fixed phrases, which have to be learnt (at least passively, if not actively) in order to master the language.

But the traditional phrase book of any language normally will have translations that do not venture into this field of colourful speech.

I had an English-Esperanto phrase book once (publish by Dover if I remember rightly) and it had things like 'Can you recommend a cheap hotel' or 'I have a pain in my stomach here' - which present no problem for translation into Esperanto.

I assume that Esperanto already has it's fair share of idiomatic language, that isn't really the problem, the problem is, like others have mentioned, when you take idiomatic language from one language and try to translate it to another you typically get something that doesn't make any sense in the L2 language. That's a real problem because most people don't realize how much idiomatic language is typically used and that that idiomatic language wouldn't make sense in the L2 language for historical, cultural, and/or grammatical reasons.

My advice to learners of any language would be that whenever you are trying to translate something from your language L1 to the target language L2 that you first translate it to a more literal version in the L1 then translate the literal version to L2 or you might be able to find an idiomatic equivalent in the L2 (a phrase or expression that would be used in similar context with similar connotations and nuance, though that's a tall order).

Idiomatic phrases and expressions off the top of my head (that last part was one example)

Hold that thought, off the top of my head, scare to death, time flies, a dime a dezen, all ears, break a leg, shoot the breeze, hit the road, call it a day, bite the bullet, when pigs fly, get to the point, etc...

the most common idiomatic language is phrases like "time flies" not expressions like "it's raining cats and dogs", the first is particularly dangerous in translation because it almost never stands alone so the translation will have to be a phrase that is also used in similar context. I doubt any of those would make sense translated directly to any other language, with minor expcetions for coincidences and ones that may have been adopted by other languages over time.

Anyway, the safest bet is to simply look at the literal meaning of the thing and ask a well-spoken native how they would typically communicate that thought in their language and in similar context.

sudanglo:Whilst it is true that Esperanto avoids idiom and is largely a literal language, this doesn't entirely mean that you can't use colourful speech, or lively metaphor or simile.

For example, we say in English 'When pigs might fly', and I believe the French say something like when hens have teeth. It can be reasonably assumed regardless of culture that adults (and they are the ones who speak Esperanto) know that pigs don't have wings and hens don't have teeth. So an expression like this in context might be expected to be understood.

What you can't say is that a particular phrase is the equivalent in Esperanto of such an idiom in a national language.

To allow Esperanto to accumulate over time a whole battery of well worn fixed phrases of a more or less idiomatic nature, would undermine its purpose.

It is often overlooked that a major contributor to the ease acquisition of Esperanto is precisely this quality of not being cluttered with fixed phrases, which have to be learnt (at least passively, if not actively) in order to master the language.

But the traditional phrase book of any language normally will have translations that do not venture into this field of colourful speech.

I had an English-Esperanto phrase book once (publish by Dover if I remember rightly) and it had things like 'Can you recommend a cheap hotel' or 'I have a pain in my stomach here' - which present no problem for translation into Esperanto.

One of my favorite things is when I see a phrase like the "when pigs fly" or "a snowball's chance in hell" which has been translated to Esperanto from some other language. I suppose it is very important to distinguish these not-truly idiomatic phrases from those that are. As long as you know the words, you get the meaning of the phrase.

I believe there was even a thread in one of the Esperanto forums where people put down these phrases (and I believe also common sayings) translated from their first language. It was interesting to see some very similar ones from other languages to those in English.

In German there is an interesting book called "Geflügelte Worte" with explanations of common idioms and expressions. But as someone else here already mentioned, some of them are regionalisms that even other L1 speakers may not fully understand, especially out of context. I love to watch the Britcoms on TV but many times the real humor is beyond me because I don't understand the references and the idioms. Especially "Keeping up Appearances" is baffling to me but I still watch it occasionally.