Hey friends are you someone who likes to get things quickly? You want to achieve things
fast? You want things to change overnight? Well if you are one of them, I'm sure your
parents or your teachers must have told you; remember Rome was not built in a day, right?
That means things take time to develop you get what you want but it takes a little time.
You work towards it. So when they say, Rome was not built in a day that means it took
that long to make Rome such a beautiful place. Well that is what today's lesson is about,
proverbs in English. So when I said, Rome was not built in a day, it's a proverb. So
basically these are basic thoughts that we've learnt since we were kids. Okay and they are
used depending on certain situations. So let's take a look at some common proverbs that we
could use in English.
The first one, all is fair in love and war. Now supposing you snatch your best friend’s
boyfriend, okay. That’s mean, it's not right but well like we believe all is fair in love
and war. Right that means it is okay, it is accepted because it's in love, okay. Or if
you have some enmity with someone and you take revenge and give it back, is it right?
May be, because you could say, all is fair in love and war. So when you use this proverb,
it means it's fine, it's fair, it's acceptable or it's okay. So use this proverb when you
want to say, whatever happened is okay or it is fair.
The next one, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Now imagine you see a friend of
yours, very tired. he's worn out and you look at him and say, “why do you look so tired?"
and he tells you, "I work really hard" and then you tell him, “all work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy." this means that relaxing and resting is equally important as working
is. So if you work a lot, right? You don't balance your life, what happens? You look
dull, there's no time to recuperate, there's no time to you know relax, to feel fresh all
over again. So that is when you say, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. So use
it when you want to tell someone, hey you need to relax, take it easy, fine?
Don’t judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Now it's very easy to criticize
people, right? Or judge them without really understanding what is the truth or what is
the reality in their life? So before judging or criticizing, you need to be in their shoes
that means you need to experience what they did before you judge them. So if you have
a friend who keeps criticizing or saying something, you could always use this proverb and tell
her, hey don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That means be in his
place, experience what he has experienced and then make a judgement. If you haven't
walked a mile in his shoes, do not judge the person, right?
Okay friends, the next one says, don't talk the talk, if you can't walk the walk. Okay
now this is one of my favourites because I have a friend of mine, who has a guitar in
his house, and he always just poses, okay and all his profile pictures is with the guitar
where he poses with the guitar. He doesn't know how to play the guitar but he brags to
people and says that you know I play the guitar really well and I tell him, "listen, don't
talk the talk if you can't walk the walk." I say this because he brags about doing something
that he is actually not capable of doing. So if you know someone who brags about doing
certain things and you know for sure that they actually can't do it, go ahead and use
this proverb and say don't talk the talk, if you can't walk the walk. The next one says,
haste makes waste. You have a deadline and you really need to hurry and you want to finish
your work or maybe you have to meet a friend over coffee and you want to quickly wrap up
your work. You start doing things quickly only to land up making mistakes and really
silly mistakes. So when you do things really fast, you don't think properly and you just
do it because you want to complete it and you make mistakes, you realise haste, haste
means to do it in a hurry, quickly makes waste. So all the things that you did in a hurry,
has gone wasted. so it could be your time, your resources, could be money, it could be
all the energy and efforts that you have put in. so remember, when you do things quickly
and you makes mistakes, someone's gonna surely come and tell you, haste makes waste.
Okay, so are you someone who likes to see his opportunity and strike when the iron is
hot? Well if you are, great. But if you aren't, I’m going to tell you, if you snooze, you
lose. Okay so what does snooze mean? Snooze is basically a short nap during the time of
the day. Maybe when you are at work and you like to sleep with your eyes open, okay. So
if I tell you, if you snooze, you lose, what I'm trying to say, if you are going to be
daydreaming or not alert, you lose. That means you need to act quickly. You want something,
act quickly. So if you snooze, you lose, well too bad. So you better not snooze if you really
want to get something that you've always wanted, okay. Or you need to take advantage of the
situation or the opportunity.
The next one is look before you leap. Now leap is a sudden or a quick movement we make.
So if I tell you, look before you leap, I’m trying to caution you and tell you, be careful
because you could be doing something, that once done, you cannot turn back and change
it. So look before you leap, it could be making a decision regarding a huge investment, your
marriage and I tell you look before you leap, that means don't just do things without thinking.
Think twice, think carefully, be sure. So when someone says, look before you leap, well
you need to be careful because he is cautioning you, maybe he has more experience and he is
telling you, take care, take your time and make the right decision. Okay friends so remember,
with all the big decisions that you make in your life, look before you leap, fine?
And the last one say, you can't have the cake and eat it too. Well this is one of the most
common proverbs I’ve heard. I’m sure you've heard it many times. This means that you just
can't have everything. So you want a job, you want a high pay package, you want you
know all the holidays, you want all the perks, you want all the benefits and you want less
working hours. So that's asking for too much and too much of everything by the way. So
I tell you, you know something, you can't have the cake and eat it too and when I say
this, I mean you need to make choices. You can't get everything in life. So may be if
you get something, you would lose out on something else, right? So well you need to decide what
you want because you can't eat the cake and have it too. Now there are people who are
lucky, well we believe that they are born lucky and they have everything. The best of
everything and may be they get whatever they want. So then you can say wow, he can have
the cake and eat it too. So you put it in the positive and say he can have the cake
and eat it too. That means he has the best of everything, fine? So you can't have the
cake and eat it too, that means you don't get everything at one go or you don't get
everything in life. You need to compromise, you need to decide what you want and what
you are ready to let go and then you can use this proverb to tell your friend, you can't
have the cake and eat it too.
So these are common proverbs that we use in English. I hope you enjoyed it and I'm sure
you've learnt these proverbs and you are going to use it depending on the situation. I’ll
be back soon with a new lesson, till then take care and bye.