More animal expressions ! Birds and Insects .

"the early bird catches the worm"

Bruce Prince is an Australian opera singer who has decided to retire, and he has just given his swansong performance at Covent Garden, London. He has had a very tiring, but enjoyable UK tour. The tabloids (periódico sensacionalista) have reported that he has been a busy little bee, with 25 concerts in 31 days.

At 10 o’clock in the evening he left his favourite opera house for the last time and took a taxi back to The Hilton. As the crow flies the hotel is about three kilometres from his house. He decided to celebrate with one of his best friends, the famous Spanish opera singer Sol Lunes. As they are both night owls, they stayed up till 4 o’clock in the morning talking about some of the highlights (lo más destacado) in their singing careers.

In the morning, they went to Waterstone’s bookshop in Tottenham Court Road to sign their autobiographies. Outside the shop, they saw to their amazement that there was an extremely long queue(cola ). “My God! They must have been up with the lark” said Sol. “Well, only the early bird catches the worm. I don’t think everybody is going to get a copy” replied Bruce. 

Below are the Spanish equivalents for  the expressions cited above:

Bird and Insect Expressions	Spanish Translation	Literal Translation
swansong	canto del cisne (última actuación)	swan = cisne
to be a busy little bee	trabajar como una hormiguita	busy = atareado bee = abeja
as the crow flies	en línea recta	crow = cuervo to fly = volar
to be a night owl	ser un noctámbulo	owl = búho
to be up with the lark	levantarse con el canto del gallo	lark = alondra
The early bird catches the worm	A quien madruga Dios le ayuda	early = madrugador to catch = coger worm = gusano

The Animal Test 
Now you have seen a few of the animals that appear in informal conversation, can you put  the appropriate animal phrases in the following sentences? Good luck and remember to put the verbs in the appropriate tense!

as the crow flies                donkey work                      to have a bigger fish to fry to drink like fish                 a whale of a time                black sheep not to give a monkey’s       stag party                           busy little bee

1. Jim has painted most of house while Tom just painted the doors. Poor Jim has done the __________________.
2. Judy is enjoying herself at the party. She is having __________________.
3. The shortest distance between the two houses is 5 miles. It’s 5 miles __________________.
4. Penelope is the only person in the family who gets into trouble. She’s the __________________ of the family.
5. Carla doesn’t care about school. She __________________.
6. A week before the wedding, Ben had a celebration with his male friends. Ben went on a __________________.
7. Susan has been working very hard .She is a __________________.
8 Alex likes two bottles of wine before lunch; he. __________________.
9. Sarah said she couldn’t waste her time arguing about silly things because she ______________ .

Solutions: 1. donkey work 2. whale of a time 3. as the crow flies
4. black sheep 5. doesn’t give a monkey’s 6. stag party
7. busy little bee 8. drinks like a fish 9.had bigger fish to fry