The idiom that translated itself

Some idioms cross languages easily and some do not, and the difference is largely predictable.

An idiom built on a shared physical experience usually travels. Expressions about a heavy heart, a sharp tongue or seeing the light appear independently in unrelated languages, because the metaphor rests on something every body does. An idiom built on a local practice does not travel: a phrase from a card game, a legal procedure or a sport is opaque to anyone who has not met the practice, and the opacity is total rather than partial. Hearing 'follow suit' without knowing the card game gives you no route to the meaning at all.

The practical consequence for a learner is that idioms should not be learned as a single category. The body-based ones can often be guessed, and guessing them is a reasonable risk, because the guess will usually be close enough to follow a conversation. The practice-based ones cannot be guessed and must be learned as vocabulary items with their source attached, because knowing that an expression comes from sailing or from a courtroom is most of what makes it memorable and tells you the register it carries.

There is a third group worth separating: idioms that have drifted so far from their origin that native speakers no longer know it. These behave like ordinary words, and researching their history is an interesting activity with no effect on your ability to use them.

For anyone building a vocabulary list, the useful note beside an idiom is therefore not a translation. It is where the expression came from and whether an educated speaker would use it in writing, because those two facts predict almost everything about when it will be appropriate.