Who taught: Insider.

Snap out of it (source: http://www.galleryplanb.com/)

Every life has its ups and downs. When things are good, everybody is happy. But, when things are not good, it is hard to be happy and sometimes it makes people depressed or sad.

In my case, one of the saddest moments in my life was when my first girlfriend ditched me to marry someone else when I was in the Army. My seniors and friends tried to cheer me up but it was so hard for me to feel better.

They said the same kind of expressions again and again. They are “Cheer up! It will get better” and “Keep your head up!” Now, the other word that they used a lot is this one, “정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo),” in Korean. At that time, I still had to stay in the Army for 2-3 more months. My seniors worried about any possible accident that I can cause if I were depressed too long because I had to carry 30 bullets for my rifle, 1 grenade and  200 bullets for my machine gun every day as I guarded west coast line.

So, for this specific Korean expression, 정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo), I have thought that I can use “Wake up!” in English if I were to translate… till a few days ago. Watching a TV show, I heard this expression, “Snap out of it.” As soon as I heard it, it was like someone slap my face to tell me that is it. That is the perfect English expression that I can use to mean 정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo). Interestingly, on the show, a woman really was slapping her boyfriend as she said this expression to him. (She could just snap her fingers. Women must enjoy slapping guys.) What a perfect one! If you want to be more effective and strong, you could say “Slap out of it!” as you really slap her (I am not sure who is your her? 🙂 ).

Even though I am happy to get to know this expression, I do not want to personally hear it or use it to my friends. But, you never know what’s around the corner in your life. So, better to know any expression that can be perfectly used. Don’t you agree?