"Filling up with sunshine" this German idiom goes, much like filling up your gas tank. It means to soak up some rays. Now, though, with heat waves in many countries, splashing around in water sounds even more appealing.

Who wouldn't want it: having sunshine in your heart?! It makes us feel like anything is possible. The expression is used to describe optimistic and happy types — in other words, those who always look on the bright side of life.

This is not so much an idiom, but rather farmers' lore, yet it's still poetic and rhymes, too. The traditional piece of wisdom on weather and its effect on agriculture says that if the month of March is cold but sunny, the harvest later in the year will be bountiful.

"Sunshine follows rain" is an optimistic German idiom, meaning that good days (can) follow bad ones, or that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Keep the faith and the sun will show itself again! And rainbows can always assure us that the combination of sunlight and rain can make the world beautiful.

"Move out of my sunlight" is what this literally says. It means to let someone be, leave them in peace, go away, to get out of their way. According to legend, the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes, while lounging in the sun, was approached by ruler and military mastermind Alexander the Great, who offered to grant the thinker one wish. Diogenes was bold enough to stand up to the leader.

Sunlight obviously illuminates the world. But this maxim refers to the fact that not everything can stay concealed, that eventually, the truth or something unpleasant will be revealed. "Shedding light" on something means to make something clearer.

In English, we say something is "clear as a bell," like a voice, or "crystal clear." In German, you say something is "clear (or bright) as the sun." It's completely evident, transparent, like this afternoon winter sunscape at Vestrahorn in Iceland.

You're in a good place if you "stand in the sunny spot of life," as this German expression says. You're lucky and life is easy-peasy for you.

That's exactly the kind of thing you want someone to say to you. Imagine it: It's a gloomy Monday morning and you show up at the office. As you appear in the doorway, your colleague says: "Ah, die Sonne geht auf!" The sun is rising. In other words, you are a bright light that has just appeared on the horizon. In English, we have an equally nice expression: "You are my sunshine."