“Make a mountain out of a molehill”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

Most languages turn something tiny into a huge animal. A fly becomes an elephant in French and Russian, a mosquito becomes a camel in Czech and a stallion in Romanian (where țânțar and armăsar also rhyme), and a flea becomes a camel in Turkish. Arabic builds a dome out of a seed. English is the only one that reaches for the landscape: a molehill turned into a mountain.

The fly and the elephant are very old. The Greek writer Lucian, in the 2nd century, ends his mock speech In Praise of the Fly by saying he will stop before he is accused of making an elephant out of a fly.

Two entries are close but not identical. French se noyer dans un verre d'eau and Spanish ahogarse en poca agua, “to drown in a glass of water” and “in a little water”, describe being overwhelmed by a small problem, not making a fuss about it to others.