Translation Please

A few weeks ago the students in my lab went out for dinner to celebrate a PhD candidate's submission of her thesis. We started talking about what it was like when she first started grad school, and we discovered that she, along with the other PhD student, were the first grad students to join our PI's lab here. I thought, they are like the 開國功臣! Haha.

Now, how do I say that in English?

There was 1 other person there who spoke Chinese so I shared that thought with her and she laughed, but no one else knew what I was talking about.

Has something like this ever happened to you? I realized that this actually happens to me a lot. It's hard to translate because once you spend the time explaining the phrase, it either gets lost in translation, or the moment for using that phrase has passed. And usually the saying doesn't sound nearly as good in English.

Of course, the same (or should I say opposite?) thing also happens when I speak Chinese, although usually the people I speak Chinese to also speak English, so we end up speaking Chinglish :P

My cousin told me some funny stories about her 4 year old son speaking Chinglish. He is learning to speak 2 languages at the same time so he gets the grammar mixed up. He says things like, "我仲喺度畫ing幅畫". Haha, so cute!

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