Elena: confine ourselves to ourselves is extremely clumsy here, and if anything, it would refer to someone who was so introverted that they never communicated with the outside world: https://www.google.com/#q=%22confine+ourselves+to+ourselves%22

Jane: Your translation is much to wordy and formal for such a simple, informal sentiment.

Tatiana, I think "choose' is too dramatic here. I think you would have done well to just repeat the same verb: Since you can't PLEASE everyone, just PLEASE yourself."

Thank you, Uly. Would it be correct to say: "It's impossible to please everybody, so let's at least please ourselves"?

Спасибо!☺

Yes, that would be better, but I think the general YOU is good in both languages.

Thanks!

Jane, "in the first place" means something else. In questions, you use it to express confusion as to why somebody did something that put them directly in a situation that they were trying to avoid. For example, let's say you got a divorce from your husband and found out he had a new girlfriend. You've been dreading running into them, yet you go to a party at a mutual friend's house and see them. you run out of the house and the hostess runs after you and asks "If you knew they were going to be here, why did you come in the first place?" I guess in Russian it would be something like: - Зачем ты ВООБЩЕ пришла?

It's also used in questions to distill things down to the matter at hand. For example, let's say you want to borrow your father's car for the evening. So you asked him a series of questions: – "Do you have plans tonight? Is mom using the car tonight? Does the car have gas?"... Your father doesn't understand why you're asking so many questions and says "Jane, if you wanted to borrow the car, why didn't you just ask me for it in the first place?"

Finally, it's used in the affirmative statements to refer to an original intent. For example, let's say your friends are all driving to the country for the weekend. When the day comes to leave, they tell you that there's not enough room for you in either of the cars. You become angry and say "Well I didn't want to go to the country in the first place!" This means something like "well I didn't want to go anyway, so I don't care!"

Для меня это тоже познавательно и полезно, Улий. Да, в первом случае - это ВООБЩЕ👍, да и в третьем, я думаю тоже:" Да я вообще(-то и) не хотела ехать на природу/за город!".

Супер пупер!

Спасибо за русские варианты)

А вот во втором случае я как-то зависла...

А! "Если тебе нужна машина, почему ты С САМОГО НАЧАЛА (просто) не попросила меня?" А путаница, вероятно, произошла оттого, что "в первую очередь" в словарях, включая reverso, есть и in the first place наряду с first of all.

...что в значении "в первую очередь"...

Баш на баш, Улий!😊

👍🏼

Thank you for the detailed explanation, Uly! As always, actually 😊 And yeah, like Tatiana said, I used this phrase in the meaning "В первую очередь, во-первых". I guess "first of all" would sound better here?

You're very welcome. Actually, you would use just "first".