You stole my thunder!
Whose story : Patty and her friend
Yay! Finally, I got a story from my reader. It is always gonna be the top in my draft queue. Patty whom I have never met before is Carol’s sister and she sent me a story about weather related phrases. One of her friends who is also non native English speaker used “You stole my thunder!” to her. Patty was so proud of her friend using this kind of expressions considering she/he has been in the U.S. only one year. I am curious, though. Patty, is she/he from European countries? Because I think people from Europe learn English faster than people from Asia do. Maybe I am wrong but very curious about it. The other thing is “Patty, did you pat her/him when she/he used the expression?” You should! Hey… native English speakers out there! If you see any non-native English speakers using very hard expressions in a good context, you guys should pat/compliment them. Especially, if they have been in the U.S. not a long time. ๐ They are gonna be so happy and even try to learn English harder. In that sense, I like my friends, especially Jake. Jake, you made my day so many times by simply saying, “T-Bone, your English is very good!” Anyways, do you guys know what the expression means? The definition would be as follows.
take attention away from the person who has brought it in the first place.
Let me see! What would be an example??ย Oh, I know a good one. I actually learned this expression from watching TV show, Friends. In the show, there was a time that Monica announced her engagement with Chandler. She’s got all attention from friends. But then, because of that announcement, Rachel got lonely and made a move to Ross and they kissed. Friends got to know that and, all of it sudden, Rachel got the whole attention from friends. At that time, Monica got angry and said to Rachel, “You always stole my thunder! Why?” Now, can you feel the expression? More specifically, I guess Monica was the one who made the thunder (attention) initially but then Rachel stole it from Monica.
Speaking of watching TV show to learn English, there is one tip I would like to share with you. If you want to be good at listening to English, you should watch the same TV show over and over instead of watching too many different shows. It is a lot better and faster to get yourself accustomed to some specific pronunciation and intonation. And, if you want to be able to speak English, then you should memorize all of the conversations you heard from the show and speak them loudly so that you can hear what you are speaking. The most important thing here is that you gotta try to mimic the original conversations as much as you can almost like you are the actors in the show. Finally, if you want to improve your writing, you should write many of your stories to me in English. I am just pulling your leg ๐ You should write journal everyday to improve your writing.
Patty also provided another weather related expression. “When it rains, it pours!”
Definition: When something bad happens, there are also much more worse things happening in a short period of time.
Korean equivalent : ์ค์๊ฐ์ (Seol-Sang-Ga-Sang) This one is borrowed from Chinese. Seol means snow. Sang means on and Ga means frost. So literal translation would be “frost on snow!”
Hey! If you use this “Seol-Sang-Ga-Sang” to me in a proper context, I will definitely pat/compliment you. ๐
I should say Terry out of all the Korean expressions so far in your blog โSeol-Sang-Ga-Sangโ is the shortest and easy one to remember.
Laxmi, your pronunciation was perfect today. So, try to use it later to me!
To answer your question Terry, my friend is from China
First of all, thank you for sending the story. I really appreciate it! And I think you should really proud of your friend. That is really amazing that she can use the expression properly in just one year of U.S. life.
Wow! You wrote story everyday for last 4 days. How long does it usually take to write one story? It takes a little bit long time if I write story. As you know, I am very terrible at writing in English. That is why I failed to get enough grade for immigration to Australia. For me, writing is the most difficult section to improve.
I know how to improve writing but it is not easy though.
Hey Bro! When I first started this blog, I set the goal of writing one per day. (I mean at least week days.) So, just trying to keep it. It depends on the story but I think on average it takes between 45 mins and one hour. Majority of the time spent on thinking about the story itself not a real writing. And, I know it is hard to continue to work hard on your studying but, you know what, you need to commit to it.
I think this bog is a kind of your mistress at some point in your life….*^^*