Ich Bin Nicht Ein Kraut

Gesine, a.k.a Xena Warrior Princess, has been teaching me German idioms. I find this way funner than learning "where is the bathroom?".

The first one she taught me was "Herr schaft zeiten!"

This is a mild expletive that you say under your breath with exasperation. The literal translation is something like "on the master's time". You say it when you have to do something you don't want to do. Gesine said imagine you are the servant and the mistress of the house wakes you up in 2:00 am because she feels like eating some eggs.

The next one is "Hier geht’s zu wie beim Hornberger Schiesen!"

This one is when things are confusing and you don't know what's going on. The literal translation is something like "here it's going on like at the Hornberger shooting". Apparently there was a historic battle at Hornberger and it degenerated into a free for all and nobody knew who they were supposed to be shooting at.

The next one I just learned today. "Krutzi turken!"

Again, a mild expletive in the same genre as "darn it!" The literal meaning is something like "Cross yourself, the Turks are coming!"

I'm not very good at pronouncing them yet. You have to roll your Rs very hard and many of the Zs have a very hard T sound like you're spitting through your teeth.

Gesine is from Bavaria and she was telling me how her dialect is very different from High German. The examples of High German she showed me sound very familiar, like so many words in English are from German. The Bavarian was very unfamiliar.