This site may be useful

[becka_sutton]

Was nosing around looking for info on various real world natural languages and stumbled across Omniglot. This site seems to have sketches of loads of languages.

It also has a lovely page of idioms in multiple languages - inspiration for idioms for our languages. :-D

Comments

[anke]

*looks at idioms*

klar wie Kloßbrühe
as clear potato dumpling water = as clear as crystal - easy to understand
originally meant difficult to understand (as clear as mud)

That reminds me of a discussion my class had with a teacher about another idiom, "Passt wie die Faust aufs Auge", which literally translates to "fits like the fist on the eye".
He said it meant "doesn't fit at all", the entire class said it meant "fits very well".

Ironic usage getting set in stone? XD

[becka_sutton]

I assume a similar thing happened with the Estonian "Clear as soapy water".

Ironically Clear as Crystal is sometimes used to mean the opposite.