What is wrong? What is the problem? That is the gist of the question, "Wo drückt der Schuh?" — literally, "Where does the shoe pinch?" Legend has it a Roman man, asked why he had left his beautiful, rich wife, pointed at his shoe and said, "That is beautiful, too, but only the wearer knows where it pinches."

If you put the blame for something on someone, you are — as the German saying "etwas in die Schuhe schieben" goes — literally "pushing it into their shoes." In medieval times pickpockets spending the night at an inn would quickly hide their loot, like stolen coins, in a bed fellow's shoes if a search for thieves was on.

… and I won't wear it, is the English equivalent of the German idiom, "den Schuh ziehe ich mir nicht an." It literally means, "I won't put on this shoe." This, too, is about blame and responsibility and not allowing someone to make you deal with something that you want no part of! One glimpse of the above sneakers and you definitely don't want to slip them on!

When Germans say, "Umgekehrt wird ein Schuh draus" — literally, "turn it inside out and it makes a shoe" — they mean the opposite is true, and someone is putting the cart before the horse. The idiom presumably goes back hundreds of years to the shoemaking craft. Leather was stitched together inside out, and then turned to "make a shoe of it."

"In den Kinderschuhen stecken," or "stuck in children's shoes": The image conjures a toddler in children's shoes, an absolute beginner at taking his or her first steps. The saying refers to projects or developments that are in their early stages, whether they're ingenious inventions or political change.

If you overhear someone saying, "Das zieht dir die Schuhe aus," they are referring to an unbearable, perhaps even disgusting situation or event. The literal translation is, "That takes off your shoes." An similar English idiom would be, "That takes the cake" or that "knocks your socks off" — but not in a good way.