A ciegas – blindly
A ciencia cierta – for certain
A duras penas – painstakingly
A ojo de buen cubero – approximately (used with a number)
A sabiendas – although
A toadas luces – everyone agrees
A grandes rasgos – in a few words, to summarize
We learned these new expressions and then were supposed to write them in sentences. I tried a paragraph. It follows:
Nadie sabe a ciencia cierta que va a pasar en su vida, pero cuando nacimos necesitamos aceptar las reglas de viviendo a ciegas. Viviendo es difícil. A duras penas podemos estar más o menos contentos. Continuamos viviendo a sabiendas de que vamos a encontrar algunos obstaculos y algunas cosas terribles. A todas luces superando los problemas es mejor que la muerte. En mi familia, tenemos a ojo de buen cubero sesenta o setenta años para vivir la vida. A grandes rasgos, la vida vale la pena.
Nobody knows for sure what will happen in life, but when we were born we need to accept the rules of living blindly. Living is hard. We can hardly be more or less happy. We continue to live with the knowledge that we will find some obstacles and some terrible things. Clearly, overcoming problems is better than death. In my family, we have, as a rule of thumb, sixty or seventy years to live life. Broadly speaking, life is worth it.
shewhodaresnothing 