Phrasebank Vol. I

DE German · colloquial · 6 of 6

Tomaten auf den Augen haben

scolding, comic

Word by word

tomatoes · on · the · eyes · have

Idiomatic sense

To fail to see what is obvious and sitting in plain view. The tomatoes are covering the eyes. The phrase is a reproach, or a confession, and it is comic rather than kind.

It is not about a considered opinion one refuses to change. It is about a thing one should have noticed.

Examples

  1. Du hast wohl Tomaten auf den Augen. Der Schlüssel liegt direkt vor dir.

    You're staring straight at it. The key is right in front of you.

  2. Ich hatte Tomaten auf den Augen und habe den Hinweis glatt übersehen.

    I was blind to it and walked right past the hint.

Equivalents

Marks say how far the other phrase travels with this one. How to read them.

  1. near

    Chinese

    视而不见

    To look and not see. A set phrase. It can be willful, where the German is more often mere obliviousness.

  2. partial

    English

    to look right past something

    Describes the miss. English has no stock phrase about produce on the eyes. To have blinders on is a worse match: it suggests a willful narrowness.

  3. partial

    Miles away, distracted. The German phrase is about an object in front of the eyes, not a drifting mind.

  4. none

    Japanese

    見て見ぬふりをする

    That Japanese phrase is pretending not to see. Tomaten is failing to see. No equivalent is claimed.

Notes

Wohl in Du hast wohl Tomaten auf den Augen is the particle of an exasperated guess, close to "you must have". It is not "well" and it is not "probably" in a careful sense.

No origin story is adopted. The picture is already clear from the words.

Sources

  • Standard colloquial idiom. Glosses and examples are original to Phrasebank. No dictionary wording is copied.

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