Here I attach the full document wih the English idioms, sayings and proverbs we were going through the other day in class. Definitions and explanations are also included in this post for your convenience. But remember this very old proverb: Soon learnt, soon forgotten, so you don't want to rush with this material. Savour the cognitive and cultural frames behind them instead.
Do we also have some of these images in Spanish? Maybe you would like to look into parallel structures in both languages! And what about Romanian, Diana and Cosmina?
I am fascinated by the idioms! I really like to know their origin. It says a lot about the country/region where they coming from. Actually, I am my Spanish friends nightmare because every time they are using one, I ask for its origin. In most of the cases they don't know.
ReplyDeleteSo I will share with you one of my country.
We all had exams and we all studied in the last moment even if we had enough time to do it before. In Romania, there is a saying (Porcul nu se ingrasa in Ajun) wich would be directly translated: The pig doesn't put on weight in the Christmas evening.
Behind this saying there is a tradition. Romanians used to raise pigs in order to kill them before Christmas and so, to assure family's food for the winter holydays. Many families used to do that in the Christmas evening and the pig should be by this time big and fat. But there were families where the animal it was not so well fed so it remained slim. The fact of giving him food in the Christmas evening won't do much to making him get fatter and bigger.
In nowadays people prefer to buy meat but there are a lot of villages where the tradition steel remains.
The idiom means that there are things that you can't improve in the last moment and you must be persistent, do a continuous work.
I asked in my office if somebody knows about the existence of this idiom in Spanish. Nobody knew any with the same meaning. It would be great if someone of you knows the Spanish/English equivalent!