Hello, everyone. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre algumas expressões super comuns com a palavra twice.
Transcrição
Hi, all. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.
So the other day we had a podcast about a couple of terms that use the word ‘once‘. Remember? If you’re not all caught up with the podcasts just visit the archives on the blog and get all the episodes and take a listen! Today, let’s move on to the word ‘twice’, which is in a few really good expressions as well.
So, once means ‘one time’, ‘in one occasion’, and twice means ‘two times’, ‘in two occasions’. So here’s our title expression today: in Portuguese we say “Pensa melhor” or “Você deveria pensar melhor”. In English, we DON’T say “Think better” or “You should think better“, no. What we actually say is You should think twice before doing what you’re thinking about doing. You’d better think twice; you should think twice.
A quick search on Google will turn up several good examples: “Why you should think twice before refinancing”. Refinancing means, recalculating your debt, or the amount of money you owe for your house, so that you’ll be able to make smaller payments… or something like that. More examples: “You should think twice before quitting your job”. “You should think twice before you google your date”. Your date would be the person you’re going out with. So you should think twice before you google your date. That means, think twice before you search Google for information on your date. Here’s the title of an article: “Why you should think twice before referring a friend for a job”.
What’s your advice? What would you say to a friend? Maybe “You should think twice before accepting this job offer”. You should think twice before moving to the other side of the country”. “You should think twice before going to a party the night before your final exam”. “You should think twice before spending your savings on a car”.
And the second expression with twice that I’d like to present today is actually a proverb, and it’s kind of a long one. Ready? OK. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What does that mean? To fool someone means to trick that person, to mislead them, to be dishonest with them, to deceive them. So, if someone fools you once, shame on him or shame on her, the person who fooled you. Shame on her, shame on him? What does that mean? Shame on her! That’s like saying, what a bad thing, what an ugly thing she did! What this person did was awful, bad or embarrassing. Shame on her!
So if you fool me once, shame on you. However, if you fool me twice… shame on me. That means, it’s kind of my responsibility, or my fault, if I let myself be fooled by you again. You tricked me once, and then you went ahead and tricked me again. Shame on me. I should have been alert, I should have been more vigilant so that Iwould not be fooled by you again!
Think about your life -think about someone who tried to take advantage of you in some way, and the first time that happened, it took you a while to realize what was going on. But you did realize it after a while, and then… when that person tried to pull that same trick on you again, they failed because you saw it coming, and you said “No”, or did whatever you needed to do to prevent them from taking advantage of you.
Now, if that ever happens to you again, you can think to yourself Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Any examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.
Key expressions
think twice
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me
Glossary
your savings = o dinheiro que você guardou, economizou
pull that same trick on you = tentar dar uma de esperto de novo
you saw it coming = você percebeu o que estava acontecendo; o que estava para vir
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
Ana, too many years of life to u. The organization of the materials you post, meet my needs and I’m getting into closer contact with the English language. This matter “como digo em inglês você deveria pensar melho”, is so useful like the former.
The one I know is “To err is human, to forgive is divine” which is a different thing from the one you mentioned… i’m not sure that one is a popular saying – have you heard anyone say that?
I will try an example:
Once a colleague asked me for some money and he never paid me. It wasn’t a very large amount, so I gave up to recover that money. But after a while he came again:
“Oh, I have some problems with my car… May I borrow some money?”
And I thought: “No way! Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!”
PS: I think there is a typo in the 4th paragraph from bottom to top. (What this person did was aufwl,…)
