同じ”ear”が入っていても、今回のは以前紹介した”I’m all ears”とはほぼ逆の意味をもつものなのです
もしも、まだ”I’m all ears”についてご紹介した投稿を見ていないという方は、
それでは今週の慣用表現を見てみましょう
“go
in one ear and out the other”
片方の耳から入ってもう片方の耳から出る…というのを想像してもらえば意味はすぐにわかりますよね
この表現は、右から左へ聞き流す、つまり、ちゃんと話を聞いていない、又は聞いたけれどすぐに忘れてしまったという意味になるんです
日本の四字熟語、『馬耳東風』と同じような意味ですね
例文はこちらです
“Today I took a lecture at my university
but it was too difficult for me, so it went in one ear and out the other.”
－今日、大学で講義受けたんだけど、難しすぎて右から左へ抜けていってしまったよ
あなたがティーンエージャーだった時（今も？）、ご両親から勉強しなさい、早く帰ってきなさい、あれしなさい、これしなさいと言われて、適当に聞き流した経験があるのではないでしょうかそして、私たちが親になった今、自分の子供たちに私たちの小言を聞き流される番が回ってくるんでしょうね…
Do you remember that we introduced you to
an English idiom, “I’m all ears” in our previous post? Today we want to
introduce you to an idiomatic expression with ear in it again but it has almost
opposite meaning of “I’m all ears”
If you haven’t read the post about “I’m all ears”, please check this
now
OKLet’s see this week’s idiomatic expression
“go
in one ear and out the other”
I think you can guess what it means easily
if you imagine that something goes in one ear and out the other
Yes, it means
that you don’t listen to what someone says seriously or you hear something but you don’t rememberThere is a four-character idiom (Japanese has many idioms that consist of four Chinese characters) that has the similar meaning to this idiomatic expression in Japan as well
Here is an example sentence
“Today I took a lecture at my university
but it was too difficult for me, so it went in one ear and out the other.”
When you were (are) teenagers, I think you
have experienced that your parents told you what to do, like nagged you to
study or to come home earlier, and you let it go in one ear and out the otherNow we are parents and it is our turn to be let what we say go in one ear and out the other by our children? Oh dear…
Cheers,
David