《往期回顾》-日子滚烫，人生可爱，愿新岁一路生花

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Hi, everyone and happy new year. 一年前的今天, 我们在新年特辑里讲到了new year resolution新年的决心. In this episode, Lulu is gonna walk you through some very interesting and natural expressions to do with starting and beginning. We're also going to look at some inspiring quotes about new beginnings. Let's get started.
To talk about the word “start”. It's usually about something new, exciting. For example, start up a new company. Nowadays you look around, there's so many startups. 初创公司就被叫做startup. And in English, when you say start a family, it doesn't mean getting married. It actually means having a child. For example, a married couple would say we're planning to start a family next year. That means they are ready to have a baby. But apart from these basics, there are many idioms in English with the word “start”.
The first one is a fresh start, to get off to a fresh start. This means everything's new, everything's exciting. For example, you might say I'm excited to get off to a fresh start with my new job. 新工作, 全新的开始. Same can be said about new relationships, new homes, a new stage in your life or a brand new year. In comparison to a fresh start, we can also have a head start. Getting a head start means to get ahead of schedule or to start before other people. To have a head start. 有抢得先机或者提前做某件事的意思. For instance, the report isn't due until next Friday, but I'm going to get a head start on it by doing some research over the weekend. The report isn't due until next Friday, but I'm going to get a head start on it by doing some research over the weekend. Although getting a head start is a great attitude, it is a huge Challenge for a procrastinator like me. 如果你也和璐璐一样, 是个procrastinator拖延症患者, a head start might be a bit of a Challenge to you.
In addition to fresh start and head start, you also hear the expression, jump start or kick start. Sounds very vibrant, doesn't it？You have jump and kick. Actually to jump start originally means to jump start a car that is connecting the car to another car's battery using cables in order to restart it. 其实jump star的原意是指一辆汽车上电池没电了, 发动不了, 就可以用两根电缆线把没有电的电池和另一辆车上的好电池相连, 帮助这辆车启动. 这个就叫做 jump start. You might have seen it in TV shows and movies a lot. In day to day speech when you say jump start something or kick start something. It means to put things in motion, especially if they were previously stopped or slow. For example, this seasonal promotion might help jump start sales again. 这一季的推广活动应该可以刺激销售额重新增长. This seasonal promotion might help jump start sales again.
As for kick start. An example would be we need to find ways to kick start this project, 要想办法启动这个项目. Actually, I once mentioned in the buzzword segment, there is a website called kick starter, which is a crowd funding website that helps fund creative projects. 之前我在buzzword里面也提到过, 其实有一家很有名的支持创意项目的众筹网站, 就叫做 kick starter.
So far we have talked about fresh start, head start, kick start, jump start. And perhaps a more common expression you would hear in day to day speech is to start over. If you start over, it means you begin again. Usually because the past wasn't so great, you experienced some difficulty, some challenges, mistakes or even failures. You might say she is planning to start over after her divorce and move on with her life. 离婚之后她计划重新开始自己的人生.
Actually nowadays it is getting rather common for people to start over later in their life. And that I find to be really inspirational. I guess it's never too late to start over. As long as you have enough determination. Sometimes people would also say they want to start over with a clean slate, a clean slate. It's like a blank board. Basically, everything has been erased. Clean slate 白板一块, 其实就是零过去, 重新开始.