All too often, people give up at the first hurdle.

很多时候，人们在第一个难关就放弃了。

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At first they all thought I was a loony.

起初他们都以为我是个疯子。

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My parents were a bit dubious about it all at first but we soon convinced them.

起初我父母亲对此尚心存疑虑，但很快我们便说服了他们。

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Kirsten Kennedy,housing director at the University of South Carolina in Columbia,says all first-year undergraduates there have to live in a dorm.

VOA: special.2009.03.26

First of all, it will only be a minute or two at a time, maybe once or twice a lecture.

首先，每次只有一两分钟，一堂课最多不超过两次。

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Yeah, so first of all, I always wanted to, at least, stay for a while in the U.S.

首先，我一直就想，想在美国至少呆一段时间。

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And back then when I was a kid, there were at first no medications at all for the illness she had.

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Instead, Smith wasn't taken in the first round at all.

WSJ: Tears of relief for Manuel in NFL draft 1st round

The new body will initially conduct two reviews - the first looking at all 400 tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions in the system to see how they can be streamlined, and the second finding ways to simplify the tax system for small businesses, including finding a simpler alternative to the controversial IR35 code.

BBC: Tax system 'to be simplified to encourage investment'