Everyone is a green hand at the very beginning!

cassielin

November 18, 2008, 09:05 AM posted in General Discussion

I wrote a new blog in English, I would love to share with you guys and hope you can help me or correct my english! Thank you!

http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1270174661#

...

Do tell yourself this true stament again and again and remind yourself do not be upset！Just hold on and keep trying your best! You will know how to handle those things very well someday!You just need time! With time comes the experiences!

...

Don't be mad at those people who do not have patience!

Don't complain about others, just do your job!

Don't take everything for granted, you should know that there is no such thing as a free lunch!

...

Sometimes, it is not a big deal to lose! Learn ceaselessly and accumulate little by little! Life will complete you!

MuampHeadphones

November 18, 2008, 10:49 AM

Nice proverbs, but I'm not sure I understand the bit about 'a case of crabs'?

sebire

November 20, 2008, 09:46 AM

When I click on the link I get:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>æ¸¸è¿‡è¿™ç‰‡æµ·çš„BLOG _ æ–°æµªåšå®¢</title>
<script>
var $uid = "1270174661";
var uid = "1270174661";
var $pageid = "index" ;
var $conf = {"t":"3_25","r":0,"cl":[901,9,14,5,1002,1,2,8,12,17],"head":"","bg":"","cms":0} ;
var $uhost = "cassietiantian";
var indexPagingHash = {
page: 1,

pagecur: 10
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://blogjs.sinajs.cn/v5js/Boot.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">loadCss ();</script>
<script type="text/javascript">loadResource();</script>
<script type="text/javascript">renderBlog();</script>
<script>
<!--# block name="blk737369" --><!--# endblock -->
<!--#include file="/hits?act=3&uid=4bb553c5" stub="blk737369" --> 
</script>

etc etc

I've tried two browsers. It's most peculiar.

changye

November 18, 2008, 11:41 AM

There is no such thing as a free lunch!

Probably its Chinese translation should be "羊毛出在羊身上", which is the Chinese saying Pete used in other thread yesterday. I guess a lot of languages have a similar saying. In Japan, you say "ただほど高いものはない", and its literal interpretation is that there is nothing more costly than something got for nothing. I would say "啤酒出在啤酒厂".

cassielin

November 18, 2008, 03:55 PM

thanks chenhongjie!

Rjberki,

is "a case of crabs" not appropriate?

I just wanted to express "learn from failure"！

uncle changye,

“there is no such thing as a free lunch!”

I used this sentence to express天下没有免费的午餐!tian1xia4mei2you3mian3fei4dewu3can1.

btw, thank you for you sharing!

urbandweller

November 18, 2008, 04:54 PM

你好甜甜!

I'm glad to see a new english blog from you. Your selection of proverbs are interesting but....

I think you could really challenge your English skills more by writing whole paragraphs. It would be really cool to learn about your everyday life in the Fujian Province. Maybe some funny stories about your students and family. Or just some of your thoughts and observations on life as a young Chinese woman. Give it a try and we can do our best to help you with it.

changye

November 19, 2008, 12:21 AM

Hi cassie,

天下没有免费的午餐

I think it's a literal translation of the original one. I prefer 羊毛出在羊身上 because it's very "Chinese", haha!

xiaohu

November 19, 2008, 01:10 AM

cassielin

Actually "a case of crabs" is quite inappropriate! Don't worry, every Poddie here knows you didn't know, but remember, in your everyday English speaking life, don't ever say that again! (ROFL!!!)

jamestheron

November 19, 2008, 02:15 AM

I mostly agree with xiaohu. It's not really too a bad thing to say, but you certainly don't want to mistake crabs with crabs. Unless the context is very clear, the phrase "a case of crabs" or "a case of the crabs" refers to the latter definition.

RJ

November 19, 2008, 02:32 AM

Xiaohu and James, I did explain it to Cassie in a pm when she asked. Isnt language a wonderful thing? Im sure we will make similar mistakes in Chinese.

changye

November 19, 2008, 05:42 AM

Hi guys,

Please tell me what "a case of crabs" actually means. I can't find it even in the largest online English dictionary in Japan, which contains more than 1.6 million words at present. The dictionary says that "crab" is sometimes used in the sense of "nitpicker".

RJ

November 18, 2008, 11:05 AM

chenhongjie,

I think she is saying you can learn from your troubles and misfortunes.

MuampHeadphones

November 19, 2008, 10:32 AM

Cassie,

I apologize for drawing attention to the statement.

MuampHeadphones

November 19, 2008, 10:33 AM

I also apologize for that last statement.

I pasted from a Microsoft WORD document.

I must remember not to do that again.

RJ

November 19, 2008, 11:04 AM

Chenhongjie,

If you didnt, somebody else would have. Not to worry, Its all good. We are all on the same team here.

I did learn one thing from you just now - How some posts end up with all that extra bummble text at the begining. Further proof that Word is crap.:-)

cassielin

November 19, 2008, 12:03 PM

hey guys, I felt very very embarrassed when I knew I used a very inappropriate word on my post! chenhongjie, don't appologize for that, rjberki is right, if you didn't do that ,there must be another people will point out.

Everyone will make mistake when learning a foreign language.I am a native chinese and I have not been to any English speaking country to prove my poor english.However, I have never give up learning English, I like it and really enjoy it! Thank you for helping me to correct my english. I will keep on learning hard.

btw, I think I made a very good example for those people who are learning foreign languages. Don't use those words or phrases that you don't really understand. And don't overrelay on those online translations.That might drive you to this embarrassing situation like me someday. You should pick up the dictionary and look up those words. Try to understand them very clearly. Also, when you made a mistake, face it and learn from the failure!:-)

At last, thanks to chinesepod team(pete), they help me to delete portion of my comment! I really appreciate it!

sebire

November 19, 2008, 12:33 PM

Am I the only person who thought about crustaceans?

Incidentally, when I click on the blog link I just get lots and lots of HTML. Is it just me?

henning

November 19, 2008, 01:13 PM

Thanks guys - learned something new!

Don't worry, Cassie! I always use English phrases I don't fully understand in the hope that my listeners or readers will find some profound interpretation for it. If they consider my messages to be inappropriate, well, it is probably their fault ;)

bababardwan

November 19, 2008, 01:27 PM

Yeah,and if I ever post anything inappropriate or inadvertently offensive can I point out that I live and grew up in a former penal colony and don't have the benefit of better breeding ? ..I'm usually jesting and think this community is the best.

ps Cassie.What do you mean poor English ? It's amazingly good for a non native speaker and even native speakers will accidentally say things that have other meanings.All good I say.

cassielin

November 20, 2008, 01:02 AM

henning,bababardwan,

Thank you,谢谢你们的支持和鼓励。我会继续努力的。:-D

sebire,

Can you open my blog link right now? still not work?

ummmm

Adam,

In my personal blog, I did write about my life. But maybe it is hard for you to understand those chinese. I will try to write more in English and challenge myself!

RJ

November 19, 2008, 08:58 AM

btw Cassie,

that was a nice message. It shows great wisdom. Keep writing. It is good to be reminded of these things. The music is a nice touch also.