Apples, grass and Tanabata

July 7th, 2006

About one year has already passed since I resumed my English study and started posting articles in English on my blog space. I'm not sure if I could improve my skills on those ways. Actually, these days any English idiom sounds interesting to me. It might be a proof that I cound improve my skills. :)

And now, an American guy often visit my blog and post some comments on it, who showed me an interesting idiom, which was "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree". After that I found out an idiom with the word "apples" when I was browsing my dictionary.
The saying with "apples":
"The apples on the other side of the wall are the sweetest."

I came a Japanese idiom into my head at that time, which is "隣の芝は青い(となりのしばはあおい tonali no siba wa aoi)". If I translate it literally, it means that your neighbor's grass always looks greener than yours. Those idioms have the same meaning as far as I consider. I think that they mean "The stuff which another person have always looks better than yours."

After a while, I dug up another English idiom at the time when I was browsing the Internet without any special purpose. It's "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Wow! This phrase is completely the same as the Japanese one I wrote down above! Amazing! What a coincidence! I'm so lucky to find out it!
But.... my neighbor's wife doesn't look more beautiful than mine. Mum's the word. :p

By the way, it's 七夕(たなばた tanabata) today in Japan. If you wanna know about it, I recommend you to access the following web page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata

| Japanese idiom | English idiom |