# It's all Greek to me.



## vmrweb

Hello,
is there some Japanese idiom equivalent to "it's all Greek to me" (german: "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" - which means roughly word-by-word 'I understand only _station'_) that illustrates the fact that you don't understand a word of what is being said in a foreign language? I'd like to say something humorously.
Thanks for any hints!


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## Outsider

See here and here.


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## Ume

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=772079&highlight=japanese#post772079

このスレッドには「ちんぷんかんぷんだ」とあります。日本人なら誰もが知っている表現ですが、ほとんど耳にすることはありません。「さっぱり、わからない」や「全然わからない」などと言うのが無難でしょう。


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## Flaminius

I don't think Japanese has idiomatic expressions with which one exclusively "illustrates the fact that you don't understand a word of what is being said in a foreign language."  In fact, "It's Greek to me" and similar expressions with Spanish villages, Bohemian villages, Hebrew and Chinese are all metaphors for topics as incomprehensible as a foreign language.

ちんぷんかんぷん is casual and lively but not a very humorous expression.  It is just one of many many sound symbolisms in Japanese.

If you want to attempt at humorous effects, perhaps you can say 英語は全然だめです, quivering your hands in front of your chest.    Beware, however, it's on the sarcastic side of humour scale.


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## vmrweb

Ok, then the only solution is to learn as much of Japanese that there will be no need for such a phrase anyway ;-) Thanks for your replies.


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## Flaminius

I was just saying that there is no expression that is limited for stating "the fact that you don't understand a word of what is being said in a foreign language".  ちんぷんかんぷん, whether it is humorous or not, is still good for use.


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## sakurasaku

I never used to think of ちんぷんかんぷん as humorous (I'm a Japanese native speaker), but now that I hear it repeated in this thread, it's starting to sound pretty funny, especially if coming from someone who doesn't speak much Japanese.  Isn't just the sound of the word kind of funny?

I would go with that one, personally.


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## Ajura

> ちんぷんかんぷんだ (chinpunkanpun da)
> ちんぷんかんぷんでちっともわからない (chinpunkanpun de chittomo wakaranai)


http://www.omniglot.com/language/idioms/incomprehensible.php
That is the exact equivalent that i found.


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## yoxito

ちんぷんかんぷん is what came first to my mind, too, but as some people have already indicated, if I hear it from a beginner of the language, or from a Japanese teenager, it should sound kinda funny. (but I also wonder if a teenager of an English speaking country would say "It's all greek to me" in an everyday conversation, could someone tell me??)
なにいってっか全然わかんねー (informal way to say it)


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