“Kill two birds with one stone”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

Most versions are about hunting. English throws one stone at two birds, and Turkish does exactly the same. Spanish uses one shot, Chinese brings down two birds of prey with one arrow, and Italian catches two pigeons with a single fava bean, the bean being the bait. Portuguese kills two rabbits with one blow of a shepherd's stick. French keeps the stone but drops the birds: one stone, two hits.

German and Dutch shrink the game to two flies swatted at once. Korean, Polish and Indonesian move to the kitchen and the table: you eat the pheasant and its egg, roast two roasts over one fire, or drink while you dive.

The Chinese idiom comes with a story. The History of the Northern Dynasties tells how the 6th-century general Zhangsun Sheng, out hunting with a Turkic khan, saw two great birds fighting over a piece of meat and brought both down with a single arrow.

Japanese 一石二鳥 looks like an old Chinese idiom, but it is a translation of the English saying, shortened to four characters in the early 20th century.