Portuguese Proverbs and Idioms
Reply
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Japanese Proverbs
This is my class project and we need to write down interesting proverbs from the country that we are doing in class.
Proverbs/Quots from Japan:
Literally: stumbling seven times but recovering eight.
Meaning: perseverance is better than defeat.
Equivalent: perseverance is the key.
Literally: after the rain, earth hardens
Meaning: Adversity builds character. After a storm, things will stand on more solid ground than they did before.
If the father is a frog, the son will be a frog.
Even a sheet of paper has two sides.
Source: (Japanese)
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master.
Source: (Japanese)
A smile is worth a thousand words.
Your smile determines how you see and think about the world around you.
Ones that would not work in our society:
Beat your wife on the wedding day, and your married life will be happy.
Source: (Japanese)
A good husband is healthy and absent.
Source: (Japanese)
Here are my cited sources CLICK HERE or CLICK HERE or CLICK HERE
Indian Proverbs and Sayings
These are some sayings from India that I really liked
- Once out of the throat it spreads over the world.
- If you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile.
- A person who misses a chance and the monkey who misses its branch can’t be saved
- A single blow of a blacksmith is equal to a hundred blows of a goldsmith.
- Living in water and being an enemy of the crocodile is not good.
- A thief is a thief, whether he steals a diamond or a cucumber.
- Self praise is no praise.
- What is play to one is death to another.
- One who cannot dance blames the floor.
Websites I used: vinobalan.tripod.com, hamara-bandhan.org
Another good site for translation is bharatonline.com
Jamaican Sayings and Proverbs
Jamaican Sayings and Proverbs
‘When trouble ketch yu pickney shut fit yu”
Any port in a storm
“What a fi yu, cyaan be un fi yu'”
What is yours will always be yours
”Duppy know who fi frighten”’
People know who they can intimidate
Rock stone a river bottom cyaan know sun hot
He who feels it knows it
SOURCE
German Proverbs
Here are some German proverbs that can give us a peak into their culture.
- Striking the iron while it is hot
- To see the forest for the trees
- His bark is worse than bite
- Better a sparrow in the hand than the pigeon on the roof
- The devil is in the detials
- Looking for a needle in a haystack
This is a link to the website I got these from. Just click here.
Here is some more proverbs from a diffrent website.
- Age does not protect from foolishness
- Barking dogs don’t bite
- To saw off the branch you are sitting on
- The last shirt has no pockets
Here is a link to the website I got these proverbs. just click here.
Culture Study-Israeli Proverbs
- Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.
- Don’t approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
- God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers
- Don’t be too sweet lest you be eaten up; don’t be too bitter lest you be spewed out.
- If you can’t go over, you must go under.
- Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles but keeps from you all his joys.
- Loneliness breaks the soul.
- What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your mouth.
- You can’t force anyone to love you or lend you money.
- When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry