Lost in Translation

When you're working in a second language sometimes it's hard to translate the idioms and sayings. I work in an English setting with Vietnamese coworkers. They are forever trying to understand our sayings. And when you think about them from a ESL (English as a second language) perspective it is really funny to imagine some sayings. Also, we have so many sayings that we don't even think about their original meaning.

• The other day I was trying to help Dr. Thai understand what "The Big Cheese" meant when I was referring to our boss.
  
• "Holding his feet to the fire"-- wow! that has got to hurt
• We'll wait "til the cows come home" - strangely enough I haven't seen any cows in downtown Saigon!
• "Draw a line in the sand" and crossing the road in a line is "The Moses effect" used by two different Americans.
  
• I was explaining to Chau that one of the reasons that I am doing a fellowship is because that I am a little "rough around the edges" and need some more mentoring. So I went into a long discussion about how when making furniture or something out of wood that one must sand down the rough parts of the wood to make it look nice.
• I went to spend the night with a friend and her family last night and apparently everyone around knew that I was gone last night because today my manager asked me if I spent the night with my boyfriend. I responded "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" That proceeded to be a long conversation... =)