# It costs a lot



## sakvaka

Do you have any nice idiomatic phrases to tell that something costs a lot? Let's start with these two languages:

*Finnish*: _Se maksaa maltaita / mansikoita._ lit. "It costs malt / strawberries."

Are strawberries or malt (note, _pl:a tantum_ in Finnish) really that expensive? Well, they may have been in the past.

*Swedish*: _Den kostar skjortan._ lit. "It costs the shirt."

The meaning is probably that you have to sell everything you've got to gather all the money.

Thanks in advance!


----------



## DearPrudence

In French, it has more to do with parts of the body:

*"Ça coûte un bras."* (it costs an arm)
*"Ça coûte les yeux de la tête."* (it costs the eyes of the head)
*"Ça coûte la peau des fesses / du cul (vulgar)"* (it costs the skin of the buttom / arse)

There may be others but none comes to my mind right now.


----------



## elirlandes

In Spanish the following is extremely common -
Cuesta un huevo (it costs an egg [testicle])


----------



## Agró

elirlandes said:


> In Spanish the following is extremely common -
> Cuesta un huevo (it costs an egg [testicle])



Cuesta un huevo *de pato* (_duck_).

Now, that's expensive!!


----------



## catlady60

It costs *an arm and a leg.* 

Now that's not only expensive, it also leaves you with two missing limbs!!!


----------



## XiaoRoel

*Cuesta un ojo de la cara* (eye of the face).
*Cuesta un riñón* (kidney).
*Cuesta un huevo* (literamente egg = testicle) *y la yema* (yolk) *del otro* (of another [egg]).
*Cuesta un sentido* (deep).


----------



## Gavril

More English phrases:
*It costs a bundle.*
*It costs a fortune.*

@XiaoRoel:


XiaoRoel said:


> *Cuesta un sentido* (deep).



What do you mean by "deep"?


----------



## DearPrudence

Ah, one more in French:

"*Ça coûte bonbon*" (it costs candy)
The origin of the expression is not clear.


----------



## ThomasK

You can hear in Dutch: "Het kost stukken van mensen." [Pieces of men] But I think there must be other expressions.


----------



## XiaoRoel

Deep feel, deep upset.


----------



## federicoft

*Italian*:
_costa un occhio della testa_ (lit. 'it costs an eye of the head') or just_ costa un occhio_.


----------



## jazyk

In Portuguese: custa um olho da cara (similiar to the Italian above).


----------



## kepulauan

Icelandic:
_Rándýrt_ (robbing-expensive). Similar to "daylight robbery".


----------



## apmoy70

In Greek:
«Τα μαλλιά της κεφαλής μου»
ta ma'ʎa tis cefa'lis mu
something like "the hair on my head"
e.g. I bought a new car; I paid/it cost me _the hair on my head_ (and that's a lot!!!)

[ʎ] is a palatal lateral approximant
[c] is a voiceless palatal plosive


----------



## mataripis

Tagalog: _1.)May halaga talaga._2.) Talagang mahalaga


----------



## Encolpius

There is nothing like you have in Hungarian, so we do not say it costs + something, any fruit or parts of body  We say something like Icelanders say: 
- kész rablás [complety robbery] OR
- méregdrága [méreg poison + drága expensive]


----------



## ilocas2

sakvaka said:


> Do you have any nice idiomatic phrases to tell that something costs a lot?



Czech:

Stojí to nekřesťanské peníze. - It costs non-Christian money.


----------



## 810senior

Japanese:　値が張る(lit. the price wells out; to price up, to cost a lot/much)


----------



## Anja.Ann

federicoft said:


> *Italian*:
> _costa un occhio della testa_ (lit. 'it costs an eye of the head') or just_ costa un occhio_.



As an alternative: "costa un botto!" literally "it costs _a bang_" meaning "_very much/load/ton_"


----------



## Nino83

Another one, Italian: "costa un sacco" (it costs a sack)


----------



## Sardokan1.0

Italian : 

è caro (it's expensive)

è carissimo (it's very expensive)
costa un botto (it costs a lot)
 the word "botto" in Italian means "bang, loud noise", but can also be some dialectal word, in Sardinian language "botto" means "can, tin", (in Italian "barattolo")


Sardinian : 

est caru que sàmbene (it's expensive as blood)
còstat unu muntone 'e* dinari (it costs a pile of money)
còstat unu botto 'e dinari (it costs a can of money)

*the D of DE is often omitted if preceded by a vowel, the same happens with the D of Dinari, I can say it in two ways : 'e dinari or de 'inari


----------



## Chaboue

Also in french:
Ça coûte une blinde


----------



## Nawaq

Like in English you can also say "_ça coûte une fortune_"

And _coûter la peau des couilles_ (vulgar).


----------



## SuperXW

Chinese (P.R.C Mandarin):
天价 noun. “*A heavenly price*”
E.g. 天价马桶 "a heavenly price toilet"

The thread reminds me the following new slangs:
*The kidney phone: *
iPhone is nicknamed "the kidney phone" because news says a 17 years-old student sold his kidney for buying an iPhone4. "Cutting/selling the kidney" has since become a humorous way to say "buying an iPhone".

*The matang (切糕):*
Matang is a kind of traditional snack of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but was used by netizens to mean "something very expensive".
Matang vendors in China were notorious for tricking or forcing customers on streets to buy overly-expensive matang pieces. Rumor said a man had to pay a vendor 160k Yuan (over 20k dollars) for a vendor's pack of matang after it was damaged in their fight. (The broken motorbike plus the medical fee required only 40k Yuan, or 7k dollars).


----------



## ThomasK

ThomasK said:


> You can hear in Dutch: "Het kost *stukken van mensen*." [Pieces of men] But I think there must be other expressions.


I thought of "het kost *handenvol geld*" (handsful of money)


----------



## Red Arrow

Or: Het kost een fortuin.


----------



## Penyafort

Catalan:

*Costa molts diners *= (standard) It costs a lot of money
*Costa un munt de calés *(or *de cèntims*, or *de pasta*, etc) = (informal) It costs lots of money (cents, dough...)
*Costa un dineral */ *Costa una dinerada */ *Costa una picossada  *= (informal) It costs a bundle
*Costa un capital */* Costa una fortuna* = It costs a fortune
*Costa un ull *(*de la cara*) = (informal) It costs an eye (of your face)
*Costa un ronyó *= (colloquial) It costs a kidney
*Costa un colló *(or *un ou*) = (vulgar, for testicle) It costs a ball (egg)
*Costa un sentit *= (rare) It costs one of the senses

​


----------



## 123xyz

I can't think of any phrase in Macedonian, especially not with the structure "it costs X", but we have do have a single metaphorical word for the concept - изгор. It basically means "that which burns" (and it looks like a deverbal derivative of the verb "изгори", meaning "to burn, scorch"). So, the inconvenience of paying a high price is being associated with the pain of a burn. 

Thinking in terms of body parts, we do have the phrase "ме одраа", meaning "they charged me a lot", literally "they skinned me" (the pronoun and the form of the verb can be changed based on the situation, to produce the other possible options, such as "he skinned us", of course), but it doesn't really refer to the high price of the product in question; instead, it's directed at the people who chose to sell it as such a high price. So, this might not be totally relevant.


----------

