Short answer: idioms that don't translate are phrases whose meaning is not built from the meanings of their words, so a word-for-word version in another language comes out wrong or empty. "Kick the bucket" means "die," but nothing about kicking or buckets says so. When people try anyway, research on second-language learners shows a consistent pattern: they lean on the literal words, guess a plausible but wrong meaning, and often keep the wrong meaning even after being corrected. The fix is not a better dictionary. It is knowing which phrases are opaque and swapping them out when your reader may not share them.
Why idioms that don't translate break word-for-word
Most language works by adding up parts. "Red car" means a car that is red. Linguists call this compositionality, and Wikipedia's article on idioms describes the principle plainly: the meaning of a whole should be built from the meanings of its parts. Idioms break that rule. The same article notes that the idiomatic reading of "Fred kicked the bucket" is "stored as a single lexical item," meaning speakers learn it as one unit, the way they learn a single word.
That is exactly why translation fails. A translator who works phrase by phrase has nothing to work with. Wikipedia gives the other-language versions of "kick the bucket" to show it: Polish says kopnąć w kalendarz ("kick the calendar"), French says casser sa pipe ("break one's pipe"), and Italian says tirare le cuoia ("pull the leathers"). All four mean the same thing. None of them shares an image with the others. Translate any one of them literally into another language and the listener hears nonsense about a calendar, a pipe or some leather.
Not every idiom is that opaque. Wikipedia points out that phrases such as "lay one's cards on the table" and "spill the beans" involve only a slight stretch of meaning, so a reader can often work them out. The hardest idioms are the ones where the picture has no visible link to the meaning, and those are the ones that do not survive translation. If you want the English history behind the bucket itself, our page on where "kick the bucket" comes from traces the beam theory and its sources.
What happens when you try: the research on learners
The most useful recent summary of this problem was written by Frank Boers, a professor of applied linguistics at Western University in Canada. In his December 2025 article for The Conversation, which we read on October 2, 2026, he pulls together several studies and his own work. Four findings stand out.
- Idioms cost real comprehension. Boers cites research at the University of Birmingham showing that "international students for whom English is an additional language often misunderstand lecture content because they misinterpret their lecturers' metaphorical phrases, including figurative idioms."
- Context does not reliably rescue them. He reports that "English idioms can remain elusive to second-language learners even if the expressions are intentionally embedded in transparent contexts." In other words, a helpful sentence around the idiom is not always enough.
- Learners read the words literally. "Research suggests that second-language learners do tend to use literal meanings as they try to make sense of idioms." Native speakers skip the literal picture; learners cannot, because the literal picture is all they have.
- Wrong guesses stick. In Boers's own study with international students at Western University, students "incorrectly interpreted idioms and struggled to recall the actual meanings later on after being corrected." He notes that these were students with high scores on standardized English proficiency tests.
That last point matters most. A learner who guesses wrong is not just confused for a moment. The plausible wrong meaning they built from the literal words can crowd out the real one.
The literal trap: three idioms that fool careful readers
Boers is candid that this happened to him while learning English. His examples show the mechanism clearly: each wrong guess is a reasonable reading of the words.
| Idiom | Plausible literal guess | Actual meaning | Where the image comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jump the gun | An act of bravery, like disarming someone | Act too soon | A runner leaving before the starting pistol |
| Follow suit | Take orders from someone in authority, a person in a suit | Do the same thing as someone else | Card games, where you play the same suit |
| Go out on a limb | Something to do with an arm or leg | Take a serious risk | A tree branch that may not hold you |
The first two guesses are Boers's own, as he describes them; the third is the misreading he says learners make with "limb." The racing image behind "jump the gun" has independent support. The Phrase Finder's entry on "jump the gun", read on October 2, 2026, says the phrase comes from track and field and was preceded by "beat the gun" in the early 20th-century US. Its earliest figurative example is from The Iowa Homestead in November 1921: "Give the pigs a good start; jump the gun, so to speak, and get them on a grain ration before weaning time."
Notice what the table shows. The meaning is recoverable if you know the source domain, a race or a card table. It is not recoverable from the words alone. That is the gap a translator, or a learner, falls into.
The culture problem: idioms built on games you never played
Boers makes a second point that goes beyond vocabulary. The domains idioms come from "are not necessarily shared across cultures." English borrows heavily from sports, and his examples are telling:
- Win hands down comes from horse racing, according to Boers.
- Par for the course comes from golf.
- Pull your weight comes from rowing.
- Cover your bases comes from baseball.
A reader who grew up without golf or baseball has no image to start from, even before translation enters the picture. This is why some idioms do not translate even between varieties of English. Boers mentions "carrying on like a pork chop," an Australian expression he suggests could puzzle a Canadian English speaker. The language is the same. The shared experience is not.
It runs both ways: idioms from other languages that resist English
English speakers meet the same wall going the other direction. Three well-documented examples, with their meanings as given on Wiktionary, which we read on October 2, 2026:
- German nur Bahnhof verstehen, literally "to understand only train station," means to understand nothing at all. Wiktionary says it likely began as World War I soldiers' slang, citing Duden, and notes that other explanations exist, so the origin is not settled.
- French les carottes sont cuites, literally "the carrots are cooked," describes a hopeless situation. Wiktionary gives English equivalents such as "the goose is cooked" and "the game is up," and traces it to an 18th-century expression about dying.
- Swedish and Danish ingen ko på isen, literally "no cow on the ice," means there is no cause for concern. Wiktionary says both are short forms of a longer saying: there is no cow on the ice as long as its rear end is on land.
Each one is vivid and each one is useless to an English speaker without an explanation. The French example also shows the best-case outcome: English already has an idiom, "the goose is cooked," that does the same job with a different picture. Finding that match is what a good translation of an idiom usually looks like. Weather idioms work the same way: English rains cats and dogs, a phrase nobody has convincingly explained, and other languages rain something else entirely.
Some idioms do cross borders
It would be wrong to say idioms never translate. Some travel well, and the reasons are interesting.
Wikipedia's idiom article, citing the linguist Elisabeth Piirainen, reports that "to get on one's nerves" carries the same figurative meaning across 57 European languages. "Crocodile tears," meaning insincere sorrow, appears in languages as different as Arabic, Swahili, Persian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Mongolian. Arabic has fi nafs al-markeb, "in the same boat," and Japanese has isseki ni chō, "one stone, two birds," which mirrors "kill two birds with one stone."
Why these and not others? The article lists competing explanations. One is calque: a phrase is copied word for word from a widely used language into others, so the idiom spreads as a translation. Others point to shared ancestry or to metaphors that come naturally to most humans. The references do not settle which explanation covers which idiom, and we will not pretend they do. The practical lesson is narrower: an idiom that happens to exist in your reader's language will be understood; one that does not, will not, and you usually cannot tell which is which from inside your own language.
For more on how phrase histories like these are pieced together, see our explainer on how a phrase origin is traced.
Your options when an idiom has no match
There is no single rule. The choices below run roughly from closest to the original to furthest from it:
- Find an equivalent idiom in the other language with the same meaning and a similar tone, as with les carottes sont cuites and "the goose is cooked."
- Use a similar idiom with a slightly different image, accepting a small shift in flavor.
- Paraphrase the meaning in plain words: "it's hopeless," "he acted too soon."
- Drop it when the idiom was decoration and the sentence works without it.
The one choice missing from that list is the word-for-word version, because it fails in one of two ways: it means nothing, or worse, it means something else.
If you write for an international audience
Boers's closing advice is aimed at native speakers, not learners: "Be aware that expressions you consider perfectly transparent because you grew up with them may be puzzling to others." That is good guidance for anyone writing an email, a lecture or a support article that non-native readers will see.
A few practical habits follow from the research above:
- Spot the opaque ones. If the words do not hint at the meaning ("kick the bucket," "jump the gun," "follow suit"), assume some readers will guess.
- Watch for sports and games. Baseball, cricket, golf and card-game idioms are the least likely to travel.
- Prefer the plain verb. "Act too soon" beats "jump the gun" for a mixed audience, and costs nothing.
- Gloss it if you keep it. If the idiom adds tone you want, add a short plain-language clause after it.
- Remember regional English. An idiom can fail between Australia and Canada as easily as between English and Japanese.
Register matters too. Most of these idioms are neutral to casual in tone. They are fine in conversation and informal writing among people who share them, and risky in formal writing for strangers. Our guide to commonly misused idioms covers a related problem: phrases that native speakers themselves get wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't idioms translate word for word?
Because their meaning is not built from their words. Speakers store an idiom like "kick the bucket" as a single unit meaning "die." A literal translation carries over the words, which were never doing the work, and loses the meaning.
What do language learners do when they meet an unfamiliar idiom?
According to research summarized by applied linguist Frank Boers, they tend to rely on the literal meanings of the words, guess a plausible meaning, and sometimes keep that wrong meaning even after being corrected.
Are there idioms that do translate between languages?
Yes. Wikipedia's article on idioms, citing the linguist Elisabeth Piirainen, reports that "to get on one's nerves" has the same figurative meaning in 57 European languages, and "crocodile tears" appears in many languages worldwide.
How should you handle an idiom with no equivalent?
Look for an idiom in the other language with the same meaning first. If none exists, paraphrase the meaning in plain words. A literal translation is the one option to avoid.
Can idioms fail between two kinds of English?
Yes. Idioms built on local sports, foods or customs can puzzle speakers of another variety. Boers gives the Australian "carrying on like a pork chop" as an example that could confuse a Canadian.
