And now German animal expressions! Part 3: Birds

Here's the antepenultimate (2 before last...had to look that one up :) ) installment of German animal expressions, featuring birds. The cat photos are in no way meant to threaten their feathery existence.. :)

-- but just be aware...the cats are always watching you!

1. Let us begin with some rooster expressions

• der Hahn im Korb sein

(to be the rooster in the basket)
= to be the only man at a women's gathering

2. and now a bit wetter...

• der Wasserhahn

(the water rooster)
= the faucet on a sink

3. and windier...

• der Wetterhahn

(the weather rooster)
= the weathervane (which is often a metal rooster...)

the weathervane for this box house

4. And now for some hens

• ein Huhn mit jemandem rupfen

(to pluck a hen with someone)
= to discuss an issue/problem with someone; you often refer to having a hen to pluck with someone :)

... like how you always poke me when I'm sleeping?

5. Do hens have religion? Not that I know of...

• Hühnergötter

(hen gods)
= stones with natural holes in them...would you have guessed that? These stones can often be found on the Baltic or North Sea, but also in other places. They were thought to bring good luck + protect against a Slavic poltergeist, Kikimora, who, among other things was thought to steal the hens or stop them from laying eggs. (At least that's the German explanation. The English/druidic tradition has other explanations as well.)

"Worship me --" or else? ;)

6. Two general bird expressions -- this first one is not particularly polite...

• einen Vogel haben

(to have a bird)
= to be crazy/insane...as I said, not particularly polite. (If that is actually medically the case, then okay + we don't need to joke about bird posession + if it isn't medically the case then even less so! I guess that's my inner teacher coming out...)

7. this second one is...well... *blush* much nicer :)

• vögeln

(to bird)
= um...to be lovey-"dovey"...in bed :) (with your husband or wife :-* )....................

Cuddles afterward are just the thing :)

^^^ Funny story about this one: When we first moved to Germany I was at the Waldorf teacher seminar + I was talking about the Vogelhaus or Vogelhäuschen (bird house (the -chen ending means little + often cute) that was oustide. Vögel is the plural form of the word Vogel + so I called it the Vögelhäuschen. My fellow students laughed + explained that I had essentially just called it a little house for doing the above...Ummm....yup. Isn't learning a foreign language fun?)

In the middle you can kind of see one of the bird houses at the teacher seminar

"Bird houses? Oh, you mean lunchboxes!"

8. And now for a light-hearted final expression:

• das Gänseblümchen (-- there's that diminutive ending again!)

(little geese flower)
=or daisy!
(Think Mushu talking about the Huns 'popping out of the snow like daisies!' :) )

I think the pink-tipped petal undersides are lovely!