This may be one of the first multilingual podcasts. At a women’s college in Western Japan teaching an intensive course on translation, there were two Chinese and two Japanese students, so I had them each explain in English as well as in their native language. Five proverbs were selected, and the question was if there was a similar way of thinking in the three cultures. Intercultural researchers usually focus on cultural differences, but the existence of similar proverbs arising independently in the East and the West would point to universally human wisdom.
The five proverbs are: 1) Actions speak louder than words, 2) Advice when most needed is least heeded, 3) Look before you leap, 4) Penny wise, pound foolish, and 5) Ignorance is bliss.
