Unit 3 Page 29 Lesson D2B

Page 29:

Lesson D: proverbs

2: listening and writing

Favorite proverbs

B:

Listen to 4 people talk about their favorite proverbs

Number the proverbs above

1:

We have one very popular proverb that goes, “The rattan basket criticizes the palm leaf basket; still both are full of holes.”

You use it when somebody is criticizing somebody else, or complaining about somebody, even though they might have the same faults or do the same thing.

So it’s a kind of warning against criticizing people too quickly, without looking at yourself.

it’s a good one, I think.

2:

in my country we have a very strong work ethic.

We work very hard - we have to - and so we have proverbs that reflect that.

One goes something like this:

'’You are beautiful; but learn to work, for you cannot eat your beauty.”

And it is true.

I mean, you can be very beautiful, but that’s probably not going to earn you money and put food on your table.

So it’s important to be prepared to work and not rely on your beauty.

It basically says that beauty isn’t enough.

3:

We have thousands of proverbs - there’s a saying for practically every situation in life!

One good proverb we have is this:

“A fall into a ditch makes you wiser.”

I like that one.

I like the idea that when you do something wrong or have some kind of problem, you learn from it and grow wiser.

Basically, it means that you learn something every time you make a mistake.

It makes sense.

4:

I love proverbs.

They’re fun, and they make you think.

One from my country that I like translates roughly like this:

'’There is no bad from which good doesn’t come.’’

To me, it’s optimistic.

You know, sure, bad things happen in life, but every bad thing leads eventually to something good.

Life is full of ups and downs.

And sometimes when things go wrong, it’s hard to believe that anything good could ever come from it.

So that’s when this proverb helps.

It makes you look for the good in a situation.