Comparisons belong to the field of phraseology. They often have their permanent structure and their meaning is or should be easy to understand, because the given adjective or verb refers to the characteristic of an animal, which is after all a human metaphor (eg. stubborn as a mule, swim like a fish). We therefore assume that the most comparisons will be seen as completely transparent (doorzichtig). The present study explains the following phraseological concepts: transparency (doorzichtigheid), compositionality (compositionaliteit) and motivation (gemotiveerdheid). The research corpus is narrowed to a specific group of animals: farm animals. Based on the Dutch language, we search for French and Polish equivalents. The article also presents research results and conclusions.