OT:
> "it's rather the exception than the norm"
> "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat are involved."
How does one learn to use idioms like a native?
> "it's rather the exception than the norm"
> "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat are involved."
How does one learn to use idioms like a native?
Basically, delving into culture which contains common phrases, idioms and sayings scattered around. You hear/read them, understand meaning from context, and commit to memory so you can use it later on.
This is not really that different from how kids learn idioms too, isn't it?
By the way, a lot of idioms/saying are pretty similar in different countries. Their wording might be slightly off, but just by translating it in your mind you understand what it means.
Example: "Dark Horse" - One who was previously unknown and is now prominent. In Russian it is pretty much the same thing "Черная Лошадка" or if to translate it to English "Dark Horsey" ("horse" is used with affectionate diminutive suffix).
Source: Russian.
Nowadays, if you have access to the Internet, there's no excuse not to be proficient with English. I've noticed during my travel that youngsters with a bit of education (high school or better) in countries where movies/series aren't translated (because the market is just too small) have very good English level. France has an official language which means that content is vastly translated and this-is-bad(TM) - the we are slower at getting better at English.
That is so true. A lot of my compatriots seem to not realize that they are missing an incredible amount of information by disregarding English. And I often find myself angry at them when they try to argue that English is not that important and they don't need to know/learn it. So frustrating.
> France has an official language which means that content is vastly translated and this-is-bad(TM) - the we are slower at getting better at English.
Again, completely agree. I'm a huge proponent of subtitled media content and believe that that's what should be used when showing movies/tv shows on national networks (cable or sat can do whatever they want).
I should say Chance favors those with a prepared mind or Chance favors only favor people with prepared minds, perhaps minds is plural in Spanish an singular in English and this is reasoning? Can anyone confirm this reasoning or I am completely confuse?
Edited: Gooling I found people with heads are smarter, so here they use the plural. So why mind and not minds.
movies and tv help in general, but live group communication with native speakers teaches you a lot about idioms and nuances in languages.
mind you, it'll also teach you a lot of bad grammar, as a non native speaker i would've never thought of eg. 'should of / should have' .