Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel - Idioms and Undocumented Expressions | General discussion | Forum

Love the video! Thanks for sharing!

Well it does make sense. Shooting fish in a barrel would be easy because they are easy targets, compared to shooting birds in the air for example. It's more about shooting and targets than the fact that they are fish. The barrel just means they are in an enclosed space so can't escape you very easily, or there'd be no water and they'd simply be dead and not moving.

But when you make it seem like part of the fishing or food preparation process, as he seems to be understanding it, then of course it sounds ludicrous

Most idioms rely on exaggerations or things you wouldn't do. Saying something is as boring as "watching paint dry" could be an equally frustrating idiom for this man and lead to another video. You'd never actually sit and watch paint dry, but it portrays an image well, as doing so would be terribly boring, as shooting fish in a barrel would be terribly easy.

Terms like this make a language rich! I love learning them in foreign ones! While I find this video hilarious and worth sharing – if someone actually asked me that question I'd say they are missing the point entirely. You can easily retort him with German expressions that make no sense.