Top 7 English Proverbs that You MUST Know

459,154 views ・ 2019-02-01

Speak English With Vanessa


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Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
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Are you ready to learn about useful proverbs?
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Let's talk about it.
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Part of having an advanced English vocabulary is knowing phrasal verbs, idioms and yes,
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proverbs.
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But if you search on Google English proverbs, you're going to find lists of 150 proverbs.
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That's way too much.
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Nobody wants that, and when I looked at those, half of them, I didn't know what they were
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and I've never used most of them in my life.
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You don't want to waste your time.
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If native speakers don't use them, then you don't need to know them unless of course you
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know everything about English already and you want to know more of the stuff that I
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don't even know, okay, go ahead.
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Today I want to help you learn seven common proverbs that native speakers actually use
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in real life.
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If you use these, native speakers won't look at you like you're strange because these are
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normal.
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Don't use a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
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We never say this.
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It sounds pretentious.
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Pretentious means snobby or stuck up.
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Instead, use these seven proverbs, like normal people.
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Sometimes English learners find it difficult to learn proverbs because proverbs can be
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long sentences or at least a couple words all together that you need to know in the
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exact order, but the good news is that all of these seven proverbs can be shortened to
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just a few words.
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We'll talk about that in just a moment.
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But let's get started with the first four.
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Number one, actions speak louder than words.
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If you tell your mom that you're going to take out the trash and you don't do it, she
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might say to you, "Actions speak louder than words, just do it."
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Or you can reduce this proverb and use the expression, "You know what they say about
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actions."
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We're going to be filling in that final word with something different for each proverb.
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So if you don't take out the trash and your mom says to you, "Actions speak louder than
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words."
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Well, she might say, instead, "You know what they say about actions," and she's expecting
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that you know this proverb.
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She's expecting that in your head, you will fill in actions speak louder than words.
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So you will definitely hear this and you can use this.
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Oh, you know what they say about actions.
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It means that actions speak louder than words.
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So what you're doing right now is not matching with your words.
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Actions speak louder than words.
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Let's see how this kind of phrase, the shortening in this phrase would work with another proverb.
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Proverb number two, honesty is the best policy.
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Just like all proverbs.
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This is a little bit too simple.
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Sometimes honesty is not the best option, at least 100%.
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Honesty, you don't want to say, "That dress looks terrible on you."
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Probably not a good idea to be completely honest in this situation, but in general,
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honesty is a great idea.
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So we could say honesty is the best policy.
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What if we used our shortening expression?
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You know what they say about honesty.
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So let's imagine that at work, one of your friends saw that someone else was stealing
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some supplies from the office and your friend says to you, "Should I tell our boss?
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I don't want to tattle."
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That means to tell on the other person, "But I don't think it's right.
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What should I do?"
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You might say, "Well, you know what they say about honesty," and you're expecting that
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your friend knows this proverb because all native speakers know this proverb.
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Honesty is the best policy.
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You're expecting that your friend will think, "Oh yeah, honesty is the best policy.
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I should be honest.
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I should tell my boss about this situation."
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So you can say honesty is the best policy, or you can use our special phrase, you know
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what they say about honesty.
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Let's go onto the third one.
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The third common proverb is no news is good news.
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Let me tell you a quick story.
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When my husband went to college, which is where I met him, the college was eight hours
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away from where his parents lived and when he went to college, he was so into the activities
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and into studying, kind of studying that he didn't call his mom for two months.
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So in this situation his mom could have said, "Well, no news is good news."
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This means that if there was a big problem, she would probably know about it.
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Either Dan, my husband, would call her or maybe the school would call her.
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So if there's no news, it's probably good news.
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We can shorten this expression with our key phrase, "Well, you know what they say about
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no news."
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So maybe if a Dan's parents are having a conversation and they're saying, "Why didn't Dan call us?
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Is he okay?
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It's been two months."
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Dan's dad might say to his mom, "Well, you know what they say about no news," and Dan's
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mom might say, "Yeah, yeah, I know.
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Okay, well he's probably fine."
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So we can shorten it by using that expression.
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The fourth common proverb is better late than never.
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This is one of my favorite excuses for being late because you don't really have to explain
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why you're late.
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You can just say, "Hey, better late than never," which means you should be happy that I'm here
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at all.
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It's better to be late than to never come to that place.
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So better late than never.
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How can we shorten this?
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Using the phrase, "Well, you know what they say about," we can't use the previous style,
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which is just taking that first word.
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Instead, we're going to have to make a little verb phrase here, you know what they say about
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being late.
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You know what they say about being late.
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It's better than ever coming.
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So here, if you come to a party late and everyone's already there, they're already eating.
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You could say, "Better late than never," or maybe if you're the host of a party and someone,
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one of your friends comes to the party late, you could say, "Better late than never."
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Or you might say, "Well, you know what they say about being late," and it just shows,
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"Hey, I'm glad you're here.
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Even though you're late.
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Who Cares?
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I'm glad you're here."
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Before we go onto the next three proverbs, let's do a quick review.
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You could say, "You know what they say about actions.
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You know what they say about honesty.
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You know what they say about no news.
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You know what they say about being late."
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All right, let's go onto the next three proverbs, which we can shorten in a different way.
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The fifth proverb that we commonly use is slow and steady wins the race.
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Slow and steady wins the race.
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This comes from the fable of the tortoise or a turtle and the hare, another word for
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a rabbit.
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They're in a race.
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The hare goes quickly and then gets often distracted, but the tortoise, the turtle goes
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slow and steady.
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He is consistent and because he doesn't stop, he wins the race.
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Maybe you don't want to learn all seven of these proverbs and memorize them today, but
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you're going to memorize one every day for a week.
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You are going to study slow and steady, great.
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But how can we shorten this expression?
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We often just say slow and steady.
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It just means the same thing.
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Slow and steady wins the race.
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Let's imagine a quick situation.
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If you're cleaning your house and it just seems like a total disaster.
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There's so much mess everywhere and your friend comes over and says, "What in the world are
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you doing?
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This looks like a disaster."
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You could say, "Slow and steady, slow and steady," and this means that you're cleaning
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slowly but steadily.
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It might look like a disaster, but don't worry, slowly and steadily you will clean your house.
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You can just say, "Slow and steady, slow and steady," and they can understand that by being
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slow and by being steady, you will win the race.
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You will win the cleaning mess.
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Let's go onto the sixth proverb, which we can also shorten by saying just the first
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couple words.
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The sixth proverb is the grass is always greener on the other side.
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Grass is the little plants, the little green leaves that come up in a soccer field, that's
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grass.
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Have you ever been out to eat at a restaurant and you see your friends' food and you think,
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"I wish I'd ordered that."
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You're kind of jealous of their food.
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Well, in the situation the grass is their food.
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Someone else's thing seems better than yours.
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The grass is greener on the other side.
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The origin of this proverb is a lawn or a yard.
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There is a fence and there's your lawn and there's your neighbor's lawn.
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Their lawn always looks better than your lawn, at least that's what you think.
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You're a little bit jealous because their thing looks better than your thing.
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But here we have a subtle meaning with this idiom.
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It means that you think their food is better.
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You think their grass is greener.
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But in reality it's probably not.
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It's just in your head.
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What someone else has always seems better than what we have.
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So here it's kind of a false perception.
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Other food isn't actually better than what I ordered, but I just think it is.
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So in this situation, when you're eating out with your friend and you say, "Oh, your food
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looks so good, I wish I'd ordered that."
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Your friend might say, "The grass is always greener."
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The grass is always greener.
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Your friend didn't finish the expression on the other side.
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Your friend just said the first couple words.
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The grass is always greener.
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You can use this in so many situations in English and really in daily life.
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So I hope that it will help to add and enrich your vocabulary.
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I want to know, is there a proverb leg this in your language?
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I know that there are a lot of similar proverbs to this in other languages, but I'm curious
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about yours.
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Let me know in the comments, is there one like this in your language and what does the
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translation mean?
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Is it about grass?
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Is it about something else?
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The seventh and final proverb that we're going to talk about is a classic one, do unto others
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what you would have them do unto you.
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This comes from a saying of Jesus in the Bible and really it means do to other people what
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you want them to do to you.
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It uses some kind of fancy old fashioned language.
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We often use this for children.
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Maybe if one child takes a toy from another child, the parent might say, "Oh, do to your
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friends what you want them to do to you."
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Maybe in little simpler terms like this instead of do unto others, we might use it in simpler
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terms for children.
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I thought about this proverb actually a couple weeks ago because a local store got robbed
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by a man at gunpoint and it was the third time that this store got robbed within a couple
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of months, and I thought, "What?
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How did this happen again?
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Come on, do unto others.
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How hard is it?"
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I used this, and in my head as I was thinking about it, do on to others, to mean why did
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the man do this?
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He's not thinking about how his actions will have an effect on other people.
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He doesn't want someone to rob him, so come on, do on to others what you want them to
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do unto you.
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But instead we can shorten this and just say, "Do unto others.
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Do unto others."
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We might say this to other people in our lives or maybe just think about it in our hands,
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"Do unto others.
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Okay, I can do it.
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Do unto others."
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Now I have a question for you.
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Do you have any of these proverbs in your language?
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The grass is always greener on the other side.
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Just remember the next time you're late to you can just say, "Better late than never."
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Or if your friend is upset because you told her the truth about something, you can say,
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"Well, you know what they say about honesty," and if you're worried about your progress
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in English, you can just think, "Slow and steady, slow and steady.
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I can do it."
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Thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new
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lesson here on my YouTube channel.
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Bye.
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The next step is to download my free eBook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
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Speaker.
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You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.
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Thank you so much.
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Bye.
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