Feeling like a soft-boiled egg
Hello and welcome to this edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s language programme where you can learn some interesting phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today we’ll hear the song Doteky, or Touches by Vladimír Mišík and his band Etc from their 1987 album, 4 and the phrase we’ll listen to is “jak vejce, celej naměkko”.
The song Doteky – Touches is about how impossible it is to resist when the narrator is touched by his beloved woman. It’s no use to wrap myself in blankets, he says, I’ll feel your touches all the same. That’s why the singer feels all mushy – like a soft-boiled egg. But when we say someone is natvrdlý, or hard – we mean he is dumb.
There are several Czech phrases and sayings revolving around eggs. When two people or things are very similar, you can say “podobají se jak vejce vejci”– they are as alike as two eggs – the Czech equivalent of “two peas in a pod”. To describe a very active and energetic child, for example, you can say “je jak z divokých vajec”– he’s like he was born out of wild eggs. When someone or something is really delicate, you have to handle it like a painted egg – “jako s malovaným vejcem.” Unlike English, however, the Czech language does not use eggs to express the meaning of the phrase, put all your eggs in one basket. In Czech we would probably say, “vsadit všechno na jednu kartu, or put all your money on one card.
We’ll let you know whether any new phrases using the word egg have been invented during the egg fights Czech towns and cities recently witnessed. Until then, thanks for listening and good bye.
