German wordplay help?

Question

Is there anybody who would be willing to refer me to a site with german wordplay (such as palindromes, anagrams, idioms etc ) with english translations provided. I have found some sites with German wordplay, however, they are all in German, and a computer translator can only do so much and I am not yet at fluency level to translate such things. Or, if you know any examples and could post them, that would be appreciated too, thankyou.

Answer 1

I don't know of any site with wordplays and English translations - but if you post some German examples, I'm sure people here will translate them for you.

Here are some I can think of.

Palindromes:
Reittier (mount)
Rentner (retired person)
Reliefpfeiler (an engraved column, e.g.. in a church)
Nie, Amalia, lad' 'nen Dalai Lama ein (Amalia, never invite a Dalai Lama.)
Erika feuert nur untreue Fakire. (Erika only fires disloyal fakirs.)
Eine güldne, gute Tugend: Lüge nie! (Ah golden, golden virtue: Never lie!; "gülden" is an archaic form, normally, you'd use "goldene" nowadays, but then the palindrome wouldn't work.)


Anagrams (well, othe rnaagrams, sinxce technically, palindromes are justa special case of anagrams):
Lager - Regal (storage - shelf)
Martin Luther - lehrt in Armut (teaches in poverty)
Palme - Lampe - Ampel (palm tree, lamp, traffic light)
Mehl - Helm (flour - helmet)
Venus in Beton - Subventionen (Venus in concrete - subsidies)

Idioms
sich Hals über Kopf verliebt sein - to be head over heels in love
Es schüttet wie aus Kübeln - It's raining cats and dogs.
Langer Rede kurzer Sinn - to make a long story short
mausetot - as dead as a dodo

And here's a famous German tongue-twister:
Fischers Fritz fischt Frische Fische
frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritz.

(Fritz, the fisher's boy, is catching fresh fish. Both lines say that, they just phrase it slightly differently.)

Hope this helps. :)