technically my first language is english, but i also grew up speaking portuguese and spanish.
although people say i speak portuguese better, i see the advantage that i can communicate with most of the americas. (except for those who don’t speak either language or canadians who only know French)
Comparing idioms is fun. “Great minds think alike” has an equivalent which is literally translated as “Idiots have similar thoughts”. Kinda reflective of the cultures too: self congratulating vs self deprecating.
I love this comparison, In what language do they use the second saying?
Potentially Germany, where I grew up we said “Two idiots - one thought”. We have quite a lot if regional variety in these things.
My personal experience is that I just translate one idiom from one language / culture to the other without realising and still expect ppl. to know what I mean.
That often works in my experience, and can lead to funny moments
Hands down my favorite part of interacting with multilingual/multicultural people.
My boss is Romanian, I’m american, we live in Norway, and speak English with one another at work (Norwegian to customers).
She uses the phrase “running around like a headless chicken” often and I’ll never tell her that I heard the longer “running around like a chicken with their head cut off” version of this, especially in the south, as a kid. I like hers more.