[General] If this phrase isn't natural, I'll strike it out.

[Silverobama]

I said "If this phrase isn't natural, I'll strike it out" to my teacher who corrects my sentences. I asked him if a phrase is natural or not.

Is my italic sentence natural?

 

[GoesStation]

Yes.

 

[Rover_KE]

Didn't your teacher say it was natural?

 

[Silverobama]

Didn't your teacher say it was natural?

Sdgraham (my teacher) is 81 and he's turning forgettful, Rover.

I asked the question because I thought "strike out" wasn't natural while "strike" was natural. I looked up "strike" in a dictionary and it says "strike" means "to remove".

I always bear in mind that your time is precious. Please trust me, I don't want to waste your time.

In Chinese, there's a saying which goes like "Wasting others' time is like taking one's life (killing someone)". I don't and won't do that.

 

[tedmc]

Use strike out, not strike. To strike something out is to draw a line through something written on paper. You can also say delete or cancel.

turning forgetful - becoming forgetful

 

[emsr2d2]

As long as you're talking about a written phrase, your original is OK. In BrE at least, it would be "I'll cross it out". That isn't the same as erasing it or removing it. It is like the strikethrough facility here. It means that you draw a line or a cross through the phrase, but it would probably still be legible.

 

[Rover_KE]

"Wasting others' time is like taking one's life (killing someone)".

In English, 'taking one's life' means 'committing suicide', not 'killing someone'.

 

[alexanderfinn]

It looks like you meant 'taking someone's life', which would be correct in the context.

 

[Silverobama]

I meant "If you waste others' life, it's like you're killing them".

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . In Chinese, there's a saying which goes like "Wasting others' time is like taking their life (killing them)". . .

The one's was confusing. It's usually awkward to use one's that way. And since ithe line started with the plural others', it became confusing as well.

More natural translations are:

- Wasting people's time is like killing them.

- Taking people's time is like taking their life.

Normally I'd say lives, but I like your time/life parallelism.