an English question
By dufresne
@dufresne (137)
China
2 responses
@CrushThisCharade (159)
• United States
14 May 09
Yes, you're right- "lined up" means arranged and "come through" means about to happen.
A lot of phrases in English are strange, and we English-speakers tend to not even think about how bizarre they are. If you try to translate the sayings directly, they end up not being accurate. I once worked at the grocery store with a girl from Brazil who was still learning English. She could understand most things, but some phrases would always trip her up. I would always be saying things like, "this customer is all set", or "these boxes are all set", and finally one day she asked me what "all set" meant. It was strange because it's so second nature for us, but to her, there was no way to translate the given meaning. If you think "all"=inclusive and "set"=combination of items, it still doesn't mean "okay", like we interpret it to be. Interesting stuff!!
@dufresne (137)
• China
14 May 09
"Second nature"--good remark! But as a foreign language learner, we have to go step by step. Not given the English-speaking environment like your people that leads to the mysterious second nature, we can only deal with the annoying single words. It, as I often perceive, is sometimes really inefficient, but it's in essence not a matter of efficiency, because it's a matter of necessity and survival, instead.
@scarlet_woman (23465)
• United States
14 May 09
this is true.
it doesn't help that some english words have multiple meanings,and some also sound alike though quite different.
@scarlet_woman (23465)
• United States
14 May 09
kind of.
it also means "upcoming" or "in progress" or "in the works"
