还给老师

[Scoobyqueen]

I just came across this expression

还给老师了

Nice way of getting out of speaking a foreign language you are supposed to have learnt.

I am curious as to how common it is. I had initial difficulty finding out what it meant. It was a HSK expression. sometimes they are very colloquial, "on a par" with british I suppose.

Cheers.

[SWWLiu]

It means "I have forgotten everything I have previously learned about this subject. So, by implication, I can no longer offer my 'expert' opinion on it." (somewhat facetiously, of course). Literally, it means "I gave it all back to my teacher(s)."

[jade-]

Hi Scoobyqueen,

还给老师了 is a humorous way to say you forget what you have learned. Literally the sentence means "I have returned (what the teacher taught me) back to the teacher." It is a quite often used term.

[Scoobyqueen]

thanks to both of you for illuminating this point.

sometimes it can be quite hard to decipher the meaning of such expressions especially when they are not written down.

[imron]

sometimes it can be quite hard to decipher the meaning of such expressions

And just in case you weren't already clear, remember that in this sentence 还 is pronounced huán and not hái.