close on a house Does it mean you move in the house and you already signed the contract? Or it means you sign and pay for the house?

"pflanzen sich fort" What is the meaning of this phrase in the sentence: So pflanzen sich etwa in einem Wolfsrudel bevorzugt die „Führungspersönlichkeiten“ fort.

Bei aller Initiative ist da der Abgang in die Erwerbstätigkeit nicht so stark. What's the meaning and the structure of this sentence?Jetzt, habe Ich das verstanden. Danke an Alle. I thought "da" means there, and "der Abgang in die Erwerbstaetigkeit" means "leave the job position", thus confused me.

what's the antecedent of population? which or whom? On our planet, the total population is 6,914 million, among which the number of people speaking English, Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, French, Arabic, Russian, Portuegese, German, Japanese and Korean combined altogether is 5,474 million. and does this sentence have any other problems to you?I would appreciate if you suggest a more native expression of this sentence.

the two meaning of the word "sacrifice" 原来这个词作动词有两个意思，一个是牺牲，一个是祭祀，原来一直只注意了第一个最常用的意思。 好像大家觉得这一个英文词对应着两个毫不相关的中文意思，其实，在中文里，牺牲和祭祀也是有着很大的相关性。 牺牲，最原本的含义就是指在中国传统文化里祭祀祖先和神明时宰杀供奉的牲畜，后来就引申为了某种目的舍弃或者损害某部分利益，再后来讲把自己当做牺牲，就是为了某个目的放弃自己的生命把自己当做宰杀供奉的牲畜，这后面两条才变成了我们平时最常用的牺牲的含义，而第一条反而被我们遗忘了。 所以“牺牲”和“祭祀”在中文和英文里都非常相关，通过上面的解说，你也很容易记清sacrifice的两个中文含义了吧？

我发现有个词在中英文翻译的时候经常被混淆 形容一个东西在实现某项功能时十分有效率，一般说“有效地”(efficiently)，这使得它容易跟另外一个词混淆，就是形容一个东西在实现某项功能时有明显的效果，一般也说“有效地”(effectively)。 这样中文翻译到英文的时候，“有效地”经常会被误译，因为同样是“有效地 ”，有可能是指“有效率地”、“高效地”，也可能是指“有效果的”、“效果明显地”，这源于两个中文词效率efficiency和效果effect第一个字都是“效”，而英文中也都是以eff开口 大家觉得我说的对吗？

What's the difference between "ueberlegen" and "nachdenken"? Both means "consider" or "think over", are there any difference?

the difference between "fictional", "fictive" and "fictitious"

"kennen lernen" and "sitzen bleiben"? although i can understand the meaning when i saw these two couples of verbs, but i'm a little confused with the grammar and correct usage. this combination should count as two verbs or one single verb? and sometimes i saw "kennenlernen" sometimes "kennen lernen" or "kennen zu lernen", "sitzen bleiben" in the same condition.and also "spazieren gehen" and a verb + lassen