How do you say “Beat around the bush” in German?
The closest natural German equivalent is Um den heißen Brei herumreden, which literally means “To talk around the hot porridge”. English speakers use beat around the bush to mean to avoid saying something directly. An excellent match, used in exactly the same impatient way. It is informal, neutral and common in everyday German.
Closest natural German
Um den heißen Brei herumreden
/ʊm deːn ˈhaɪsən bʁaɪ hɛˈʁʊmʁeːdən/
- Literal meaning
- “To talk around the hot porridge”
- Register
- informal, neutral
- How often it's used
- common
- Equivalence
Near-exact equivalent
95 out of 100
What a native German speaker would actually say
The German image is someone circling a bowl of porridge that is too hot to eat, delaying the moment of contact. It carries the same mild irritation as the English.
Both are used as a prompt: get to the point.
How close is the meaning?
- Meaning5 out of 5
- Tone5 out of 5
- Context5 out of 5
- Literal similarity2 out of 5
These ratings are editorial approximations, not measurements.
What are other ways to say it in German?
Komm zum Punkt.
Literally: “Come to the point.”
The direct request, without the image.
Nicht lange drum herumreden
Literally: “Not to talk around it for long”
Slightly softer.
Don't translate it literally
Um den Busch schlagen
Not idiomatic German. The porridge, not the bush, is the image German uses.
Word-for-word versions like these are understood as literal statements in German, not as expressions.
In context
English
Stop beating around the bush and tell me.
German
Red nicht um den heißen Brei herum und sag es mir.
English
He beat around the bush for ten minutes.
German
Er hat zehn Minuten lang um den heißen Brei herumgeredet.
Related expressions
- What “Beat around the bush” means in English
- The elephant in the room, An obvious issue nobody mentions.
- Sit on the fence, To stay deliberately neutral.
Last reviewed 2026-09-11