All of the above :) Whenever I can't express myself I get frustrated regardless of my level. Even in my native language.

Do you have access to a scanner? There are free OCR (optical character reader) programs on the web that let you convert an image or pdf to text. From there you can just paste the text into google translate.

Alternatively, if your typing skills are up to it, you could just go to google translate and start typing the document. Actually, it might be better to type the document into a local text file and then cut and paste. You wouldn't want to spend a whole bunch of time typing into a web browser and have it disappear on you :)

Viel Glück!

@Richard, your upcoming shopping trip would definitely produce a "What the ..." moment - in my household at least. i.e. from my wife as I walked in the door with a lasagna and large truck outside delivering a press capable of hundreds of tons of pressure.

Me: Dear, remember how you wanted a new diamond ring?

Wife: Yes.

Me: <hands wife lasagna> Can you please put that in the oven for 5 hours at 500 degrees. I'll go put the press together.

Wife: ... What the ... !?!?!

The only thing I can think of is a play on the word 'trip' which can also mean to stumble and possibly fall. i.e. I was walking along and tripped on my own shoelace and fell over.

The joke, as written is not good. Slightly better, but still not great:

I had a trip last week.

Oh no! Did you hurt yourself when you hit the ground?

The problem with the original joke (ignoring the bad word play) is that 'trip to Paris' unambiguously points to the meaning of trip and it CANNOT mean stumble and/or fall.

Hi Dhanusha,

In Canada we say: "I have a degree in electrical engineering" or "I have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering". You obviously will have to swap out 'electrical' with the appropriate field of study such as mechanical, chemical, etc. The type of degree can also be different. We have bachelor's, master's, and doctorate level degrees with increasing specialization.

You cannot say "diplomat" as that word means a person who is appointed by the government to engage in diplomacy with other countries.

You cannot say your second sentence either. You could say something like "I am graduating with a diploma in electrical engineering" though I would probably say "I am graduating with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering."

Note that I'm saying this as someone who actually has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering :)

@Grace

I totally agree with your frustration. I also had a case where I arranged a language exchange with someone and they decided not to show up at the agreed upon time. Even though we had reconfirmed just 30 mins prior! It felt like he didn't really want to go through with it and perhaps chickened out at the last minute. An excuse was given (he was out at the time) which I found entirely lame given all the lead up to the actual exchange. He suggested meeting another time and I cut my losses and had no use for wasting any more time.

I understand life happens and my current language partner and I have times when things come up, but we give as much advance notice as possible and make sure to communicate clearly so as not to waste the other persons time.

As for the topic of this discussion, I only find it frustrating when people don't read my profile and/or don't even speak a language I'm learning. It's like they just expect free English conversation with nothing to offer in return. Given this is a language learning site, I'm clearly not here to just converse in English.

As an idea, if you find someone you REALLY want to talk to in whatever language and they are not learning your language, at least offer SOMETHING in return. i.e. I know you are not learning my native language X, but would you be willing to learn some basic greetings, etc in exchange for 30 mins of chatting in English? That's something I might at least entertain if I happen to be in the right mood and/or the person is repectful enough to realize they should offer something to the exchange as well. That's why it's called EXCHANGE.

I know of no direct way to do it on this site, but if your friend has posted in any discussions on italki you can use google. i.e. do a google search for: italki name

Once you find a discussion they participated in, click on their user profile and you're good to go.

some means...not none

any means...whichever, not a particular one

a few means...more than one, less than many

a little means...more than none, less than a lot

most means...almost all, but not all

a lot means...more than a little, many

enough means...sufficient for my purposes