HeyImLeeroy

That is a very interesting story. I recall my dad telling me a story like that once, except it's about a tortoise who got covered in leaves during autumn.

Hahaha. Anyway, an interesting idiom with a historical origin I would like to share is:

'To turn a blind eye' which means to pretend not to have noticed something.

Interestingly, this expression is said to have originated as a result of the famous English naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson, who, during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, is alleged to have deliberately raised his telescope to his blind eye, thus ensuring that he would not see any signal from his superior giving him discretion to withdraw from the battle.

To rule with an iron fist -  to have strict and complete control over a person or a group of people

Slap on the wrist - A light punishment

Wash one's hand - to stop one's involvement in something so that one would not have to take responsibility

This one is pretty interesting:

To force someone’s hand - to maneuver so that someone is compelled to act prematurely or reveal his or her intentions.

And one of my favorite although it might not have much to do with hands:

To Throw Down the Gauntlet, which means to challenge.

The term derives from the time of medieval knights when a knight would offer a challenge by throwing down his gauntlet (a metal glove which formed part of his suit of armour). The other knight accepted the challenge by picking up the gauntlet.

One of my favorite quotes and one I try to live by would be:

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

Hahahah that's why I always try to simplify my explanations, even when they are about complex issues to a level where a layman with absolutely no knowledge of the topic would understand what I'm talking about once I'm done.

And here are two gems from Bruce Lee himself:

"Knowledge will give you power, but character respect."

on the differences between being educated and being a person of character, and

"Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind." - Bruce Lee

on the importance of being flexible.

Hahaha I believe Bruce Lee was not only a great martial artist but a great philosopher as well!

For me, if the trauma is emotional, I'd distract myself by focusing on studying for the exam.

LOL I've found that my reaction to emotional problems is like killing two birds with one stone.

It takes my mind off the problem long enough for it to be not a problem anymore and it helps me focus on studying too. Hahaha

For me, I prefer to use the word 'cheque' because I think it sounds more refined and it helps to further differentiate between the more common shared word 'check'.

Hahahhaa, it just seems weird to me when I see people write 'I'll hand you a check tomorrow.' 'can you pass me a check?' 'I'm going to bank this check in.' because I kept imagine the other type of 'check' which is the act of being inspected and it has made me giggle in front of people more than once. 

Hahahha thanks! I think food puns are great especially when told in the right situations.

For example, in a mexican restaurant.

"Do you wanna taco about it?"

"It's nacho problem."

or

"Stop taking my nachos. It's nacho food."

Hahahaha thanks! Like the English proverb 'fox calling the grapes sour', Chinese is also full of proverbs that doesn't make sense unless you know the story behind them.

Another interesting one would be 'Three people makes a tiger' - 三人成虎] / 三人成虎 - Sān Rén Chéng Hǔ

On first look, someone might think that it is a proverb about how 3 people can make a formidable opponent, but it is actually about the nature of how rumors tend to spread and be believed by other people.

To put it simply, it's about a story where an adviser asked his emperor

'if one person told you that he saw a tiger walking in a busy street, would you believe him?

the emperor said 'no'

and the adviser said 'what about two people?'

the emperor still said 'no' then the advisor asked further 'what about when three people claims it?'

the emperor replied 'as much as it is improbable that a tiger might appear in a busy street, if three people claims it, then i would be likely to believe it.

The actual story is much longer but from this story we can see that the more people talk about something, even if it is not true, the more likely we are to believe it.

三人成虎] / 三人成虎 - Sān Rén Chéng Hǔ. Three people create a tiger. This expression is said to express doubt about a widely-held idea.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a tongue twister but the English pronunciation poem 'The Chaos' by G. Nolst Trenite has certainly given me a hard time trying to get every pronunciation right! Hahahaha it also made me realize what a crazy, diverse and amazing language english is :grin: :

Warning: the poem below is VERY long

The Chaos by G. Nolst Trenite

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

Hahahah

I like using french idioms now and then when talking to my friends such as:

'C'est la vie' meaning 'Such is life'

'À boire ou je tue le chien' meaning 'Bring me a drink or I kill the dog'

And of course, the tenth doctor's very own:

'Allons-y!' meaning 'Let's go!'  :grin:

Oh, by the way, I noticed "Add legs to the snake after you have finished drawing it." hasn't been explained yet.

Hahaha that proverb actually came from a story where a teacher ask two of his students to draw snakes in a time limit to measure their talent.

The first student was a very talented drawer so he finished the drawing of the snake in record time while the second student was slower.

However, the first student, after seeing how much extra time he had, decided to show off by adding legs to the snake.

In the end, the teacher gave the win to the second slower student because the first student's drawing does not resemble a snake anymore.

Hahahha so I guess the lesson from that proverb is: Don't be a smartass and overdo what you are told to do.

Hahaha, I came from a Chinese family and some of the proverbs from our culture that I think do not exist in their English equivalent would be:

1) 师傅领进门，修行在个人

Shī fu lǐng jìn mén, xiū xíng zài gè rén

Translation: A teacher can open the door, but you yourself choose whether to enter

2) 树倒猢狲散

Shù dǎo húsūn sàn

Translation: When the tree falls, monkeys run

3) 人算不如天算

Rén suàn bùrú tiān suàn

Translation: Men's calculations cannot compare to heaven's calculations

4)  良药苦口

Liángyào kǔkǒu

Translation: Good medicine taste bitter

5) 读万卷书不如行万里路

Dú wàn juǎn shū bùrú xíng wànlǐ lù

Reading ten thousand books cannot compare to travelling one thousand miles

Those are a few of the many good Chinese proverbs I can think of. :grin:

I really don't get how bad translation can appear in multi-million dollar blockbuster movies. Sometimes it seems like the producers did not even TRY to get a legitimate translator.

It really pisses me off when I see sentences literally translated word for word in movie translations rather than properly translated to convey the actual meaning the conversation was supposed to carry in the movie.

I mean, I work as a translator sometimes on Freelancer.com and I am convinced that some of my clients actually do a better job of screening translators and having other local translators check my finished work before using it than most movie distribution agencies.

French has always been known as 'the language of love' which is ironic as France has historically been known as one of the most war hungry nations. hahaha

My favorite romantic french phrases are:

1) Je suis sous le charme -I have been charmed

2) Tu es ma joie de vivre - You are the joy of my life.

3) Tu es dans toutes mes pensées - You are in all my thoughts.

4) Tu es pour moi la plus belle - You are, for me, the most beautiful.

5) Mon amour pour toi est aussi grand que le monde - My love for you is as grand as the world.

I'm not sure if it can be considered as an 'online tutorial' but I use Pimsleur's programs to help me learn how to speak and understand a new language.

It is quite effective as it teaches us new languages by reverting back to the method we used to learn languages as children - through imitation and constant usage in conversations.

I hope you guys will find it useful too!

Me and my friends love making puns using Indian food! hahahhaha

For example:

Friend 1: "we must curry on! Okay. That joke was bad. sorry."

Friend 2: "It's okay. you don't have tosai anything."

Friend 3: "I find this conversation a little bit dahl."

Friend 1: "it's naan of your business."

Yea, the over usage of the word 'lol' annoys me nowadays so I try to prevent using it.

Nowadays I only use LOL on something really funny that makes me laugh in real life. In other cases, I use 'hahahahahaha' or 'that's funny!'

It sounds friendlier and makes it seems like you're more committed in the conversation.

Hahahahah I have some uncommon idioms to contribute as well!

1) A Shot In The Dark - Making a guess

"How did you figure out my age?" "Eh, it was a shot in the dark."

2) Variety is the spice of life - An idiom to justify a change of pace

"Let's have lunch at that chinese place today." "eh? But it looks sketchy" "variety is the spice of life, bro."

3) When It Rains, It Pours - when something happens, it happens at an overwhelming pace.

"I have not seen a single customer all morning!" "wait for lunch time. when it rains, it pours."

4) water under the bridge - something that something belongs to the past and isn't important or troubling any more

"You invited her to lunch? I thought you hated Sheryl." "Eh, it's all water under the bridge now."

5) Tooth And Nail - putting up a good fight

"She'll definitely fight you tooth and nail for the contract. Good luck."