It`s Raining Cats And Dogs!

When I decided to teach English in Vietnam, I was so worried about how I could possibly teach Vietnamese students English when I didn't know a word of Vietnamese. Would we just sit there and look at each other? Would I turn from teacher to actress and pantomime every new vocabulary word? My mind spun with the possibilities.

Luckily, I got a good education in how to teach English to speakers of other languages and learned that there are easier ways to learn a new language than to first think of the vocabulary in your native language. Instead of seeing an object, thinking of the vocabulary word for it in your native language, and then trying to remember it in English, my students were more successful by making direct collocations with the word into English, but it wasn't an easy habit to make.

My students used to spend a lot of their time learning English by translating text word-for-word from English to Vietnamese, often with the help of Google Translate. Although this tool can be an excellent guide, I know from experience that even when translated, language is definitely "lost in translation" quite easily!

I'll never forget the puzzled looks on the faces of my students in Vietnam when I exclaimed during monsoon season, "it's raining cats and dogs!" The students laughed (perhaps politely) and I realized, of course, they did not know what that idiom means. I explained that it's an expression we use in English to express when it is raining very hard. That satisfied most of the students until an advanced student asked, "Is it because cats and dogs fight?" Well, no. No one is really sure where the phrase comes from. The student wanted an answer, but the best I could give her was that it is just a phrase we use and not to read into it literally, and, in case she wondered, cats and dogs do not fall from the sky in English-speaking countries.

Idioms are quite confusing for anyone learning another language. Most times, idioms are best learned in conversation and in cultural interactions with other English-speakers. And oftentimes, students just have to give up trying to find the exact translation and meaning, shrug their shoulders, smile and agree, yes, teacher, it sure is raining cats and dogs out there.