sink or swim

基本解释

Two weeks ago I came to the end of eight straight weeks of staring at the ceilings of hospital rooms, and now I’m alone in a new city- sink or swim!
两周前我终于结束了整整8周在医院小隔间的生活，而现在我已经在一个新地方独立生活---或沉沦或遨游！
With technology undermining the old monopolies that postal services used to enjoy, the obvious answer is to privatise them and let them sink or swim.
随着科技正逐渐动摇邮电业曾经享受的垄断地位，明显的答案就是将邮电私有化，然后任其沉浮。
If you’ve suddenly been dumped, you’ll have had a picture in your mind of how your life was going to be and, when it all comes crashing down, you either sink or swim.
如果你突然被人抛弃，你一定会在脑海里想象未来的生活将会变成什么样子，然而，当这一切如洪水般从天而降，您所能做的，就是要么沉入水底葬身鱼腹，要么奋力拼搏去击水中流。

They're in this classroom -- they're sort of just thrown in to sink or swim.
WHITEHOUSE: Online Town Hall
Perhaps, more pragmatically, he calculated that Wahhabism and the Saud family would sink or swim together.
ECONOMIST: Sheikh Bin Baz
There is little public support for scrapping more social programmes—however dysfunctional—and leaving the poor to sink or swim.
ECONOMIST: Lexington

If you are left to sink or swim, you are given no help so that you succeed or fail completely by your own efforts.