Why do the same expressions exist in multiple languages?
<p>An Arabic professor of mine at Berkeley, who was famous for his offbeat sense of humor and extensive knowledge of languages like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Aramaic</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Sumerian</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugaritic" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Ugaritic</a>, loved to talk about the difficulty of learning — really learning — a foreign language. “The first 10 years are the hardest,” he would often say. Students usually responded with laughter. But he wasn’t exaggerating.</p>
<p>As any second-language learner will tell you, idioms are the toughest nuts to crack. Attempts to translate English phrases like “I’ve got time to kill” or “he kicked the bucket” directly into another language just don’t work, and may be met with blank (or sympathetic, or potentially enraged) looks.</p>
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