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I Don’t Understand” Around the World | Glossart Languages
Discover how different cultures say “I don’t understand” through curious expressions about other languages with Glossart Languages.
Evangelia Perifanou
10/27/20262 min read
When Confusion Speaks Another Language: Expressions Around the World
Have you ever listened to an explanation and felt completely lost? Perhaps someone was describing a computer problem or explaining a grammar rule that suddenly seemed impossible.
In English, you might say, “It’s all Greek to me!” But what happens if you actually speak Greek?
Across languages, people have different ways of expressing the same feeling. Quite often, they borrow the name of another language to do it.
In Brazil, you might be “speaking Greek”
In Brazilian Portuguese, the expression “falar grego” describes speaking in a way that someone cannot understand. You might hear:
“Você está falando grego!”
“You’re speaking Greek!”
The conversation could be entirely in Portuguese. It is the explanation, vocabulary or subject that feels unfamiliar. Greek becomes a metaphor for being lost in the conversation. www.aulete.com.br
English speakers also turn to Greek
English has a very similar expression:
“It’s all Greek to me!”
Someone might use it while reading a confusing instruction manual or looking at mathematical formulas. The message is simple: “I can see the words or symbols, but I don’t understand what they mean.”
In Greece, the reference changes to Chinese
For Greek speakers, Greek is naturally an unlikely choice! Instead, a familiar expression is:
“Αυτά μου φαίνονται κινέζικα!”
“These seem like Chinese to me!”
The language changes, but the feeling stays the same: something seems completely incomprehensible.
Spanish and French share the Chinese connection
In Spain, you can say:
“Me suena a chino.”
“It sounds like Chinese to me.”
In French, a similar expression is:
“C’est du chinois.”
“It’s Chinese.”
Both expressions can describe an explanation, a text or a subject that the speaker cannot follow. They work much like the English expression about Greek. These are established expressions, although speakers have many other ways to express confusion too.
In Italy, it can be Arabic
Italian offers another variation:
“Per me è arabo.”
“To me, it’s Arabic.”
You can also hear “Parlo arabo?”, literally “Am I speaking Arabic?”, when someone feels that the other person is failing to understand them.
The first expresses confusion; the second can express impatience, depending on the tone. Treccani records both expressions under the figurative meaning of arabo as incomprehensible language.
In German, you might only understand “train station”
One German expression takes a different direction:
“Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.”
“I only understand ‘train station.’”
It means that the speaker cannot make sense of what they are hearing or reading. A railway station, rather than another language, becomes part of the image of total confusion.
What these expressions teach us about learning languages
These phrases remind us that understanding individual words does not always mean understanding the message. You might know the German words for “understand” and “station” and still miss the meaning of the expression.
They also invite us to think about familiarity. A language that represents confusion in one expression is the language of everyday life for millions of people. These sayings are cultural habits, rather than reliable measures of how difficult a language is.
At Glossart Languages, exploring expressions like these is part of discovering how people communicate beyond the textbook. Learning a language means discovering its humour, its everyday references and the meanings hiding between familiar words.
What do people say in your language when they don’t understand something?
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