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Idioms

Whenever I show an international visitor around, I try to shy away from phrases like, well, "to shy away from" since I realize that they're not the most common phrases to learn when picking up a language. I also try to avoid saying things like "picking up" when I could say "learning" and try to avoid--for simplicity's sake--interrupting my sentences with extra clauses or asides.

But most of all, I try to avoid idioms. I liked today's Left Handed Toon about "Kick the Bucket" and other language's similar idioms. Click the comic below to be taken to the larger version.

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  • Anonymous Bridget O'Donnell says so:
    March 20, 2010 at 12:22 PM  

    Ahhhh In my Chinese class the other day we studied a whole list of idioms. There are some really strange ones. "ma ma hu hu" for instance literally means "horse horse tiger tiger" and saying it means "mediocre." Don't ask me why. top