Wednesday 28 March 2007

Ask About English Q30 'making mistakes'

Please, is there any idiom in English to express you´ll never do the same thing again (you´ve done sth. wrong and you tell yourself: "that is the last time I´ll do that").

In Czech you may say so in this way: Dvakrát do stejné řeky nevstoupíš.

Thank you very much.

Hi,

If I did something wrong I would probably say to myself:

"I won't do that again!" or "Never again!"

or similar proverbs are:
"Don't make the same mistake twice"

"Once bitten twice shy"

The proverb that you mentioned (Dvakrát do stejné řeky nevstoupíš) is from the ancient Greek philospher Heraclitus whose writings influenced the thought of Socrates, Plato, and modern process philosophy.

The proverb in English is:

"You can't step twice into the same river"

This is, for example, what your friend might say it too if you had split up with your girlfriend and you wanted to go back out with her again (if he was a very philosophical friend)

Hope this helps

Matt


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