if at first you don't succeed, try, try again
Meaning: Keep trying after failure.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “The cake collapsed twice, but if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.”
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Popularized in the 19th century by schoolbooks; it is often credited to the educator Thomas H. Palmer, whose teachers' manual printed it in the 1840s.
Equivalents in other languages
- Japanese: 七転び八起き (Nanakorobi yaoki) — literally: Fall seven times, rise eight
More idioms — Daily Life
- look before you leap — Think carefully before acting.
- love is blind — People in love do not see the faults of the one they love.
- word gets around — News and rumors spread quickly from person to person.
- Rome wasn't built in a day — Important things take time.
- better late than never — It is better to do something late than not at all.
- be afraid of one's own shadow — To be very timid and easily frightened.
More English idioms
- like chalk and cheese — Completely different, though perhaps similar at first glance.
- blush to the roots of one's hair — To go very red with embarrassment.
- not see beyond the end of one's nose — To have a narrow outlook and ignore anything beyond one's immediate concerns.
- shut the stable door after the horse has bolted — To take precautions only after the harm is done.
- many hands make light work — A job is easier when many people share it.
- kick the cat — To take out one's anger on someone weaker or innocent.
From our untranslatable words
- Matpakke — The plain packed lunch of open sandwiches in paper, eaten at your desk — a small national…
- Takk for sist — A greeting that thanks someone for the previous occasion you met, acknowledging shared hi…
- Orka — To have the energy or will for something. Jag orkar inte carries the whole of 'I can't fa…