This is a very funny German idiom that sure doesn’t have an equivalent in any other language, or does it? Ich habe schon Pferde vor der Apotheke kotzen sehen which literally translates as “I have seen horses vomit in front of the pharmacy/drugstore”. I guess this is the moment at which you should ask what this crazy saying is supposed to mean :-).
What’s interesting about this idiom is the fact that it is quite popular in German but there doesn’t seem to be a decent explanation of its meaning in English or Russian. Кстати, если перевести эту пословицу на русский, то получается "я видел как лошади рвали перед аптекой…
Come to think of it again, it’s probably not an idiom but rather a proverb.
Yes, those idioms are similar but as far as I can see they all start with “when” describing an unlikely event in the distant future while the German one uses the present perfect.
Really funny lol and in Russian I didn’t find I tried the word horse, read every proverb with this word and after with word drugstore and found nothing similar I think its because in Russia drugstores appeared later than in Germany )) First drugstores appeared in the XI century in Germany, but in Russia only at the end of XVI. So our horses hadnd enough time to walk and stand near and Russian people enough time for joking)). Because in the XVII century their attention was attracted by cars.
Fortunately, I have not seen any horse vomit in front of any pharmacy in any country I have been to so far :-). By the way, can anyone please explain why the German words “kotzen” and “Katzen” sound so very similar while they mean completely different things :-)?