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Hi there. How have you been? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Alright. So if you’ve read the title of this episode, you know that it’s gonna have something to do with laughter and such. And you know that “Ri melhor quem ri por último” is like a proverb, right? In English, it’s not a proverb – well, I’m not gonna talk about a proverb today anyway. What people say in English is something like “I got the last laugh” or “he had the last laugh”.

So, what does that mean? Picture this: you’re telling, let’s say… your brother. You’re telling your brother that you’re gonna learn Chinese in six months. Your brother can’t stop laughing when he hears this. It’s been five minutes now and he’s still laughing. “Chinese?”, he says. “There’s no way you’ll be able to speak Chinese in six months. It’s one of the hardest languages in the planet!” He’s still laughing when you reply “Let’s see who gets the last laugh”.

So what are you saying? “Let’see who gets the last laugh”. Let’s see whether I’m gonna be successful or not. I think I can do it, I’m gonna be successful and prove you wrong, and then I’m gonna have the last laugh. You’re laughing now because you don’t believe I’m capable of doing this; you think it is impossible for me to learn Chinese in six months; you think it’s even funny! But when I’m successful, I will be the one  laughing. I will have the last laugh.

So your brother is literally laughing at you now. And you say “Let’s see who’s gonna have the last laugh”. So let’s say it’s six months later and you have, in fact, learned Chinese. You’re just a genius for languages – you really did learn it. You can hold conversations with native Chinese speakers. So you call your friend Mary and you tell her what happened. You say “My brother couldn’t stop laughing when I told him I wanted to speak Chinese in six months. But I learned it and I can totally understand Chinese people and they understand me as well. So, yeah, I got to have the last laugh”.

Of course, though, there’s no need for the other person to laugh in the beginning in order for you to get the “last laugh”. That is an expression that can simply mean “have victory, be successful” when someone didn’t believe you could do it. Here’s a good example of that: a new movie starring actress… Lucy Smith is out. Yeah, Lucy Smith – she’s a new actress, and many critics have predicted that this movie is gonna be a flop. They’re really unanimous about it. In all the newspapers, the magazines, TV shows, critics are saying that Lucy just isn’t impressive as an actress and that this movie is gonna be a box office failure.

Well, the movie is released and it actually turns out to be a blockbuster. Yep. So today you turn on the TV and you see a TV personality saying “Lucy Smith’s new movie brought millions to the theaters – it looks like Lucy got the last laugh”. So it looks like Lucy came out victorious on this one! Despite all the criticism in the beginning, despite all the negative reviews, success was achieved. The movie had great results at the box office. Nobody believed the movie was good; every single critic in the country gave a negative review… but Lucy’s movie turned out to be a great success. Lucy had the last laugh.

So can you think of an episode in your own life where you could say “I got the last laugh”, or maybe a friend of yours had the last laugh…? Let us know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• have / get the last laugh

Glossary

something to do with laughter and such = alguma coisa a ver com riso e tal

prove someone wrong = provar que alguém está errado

a flop = um fracasso

a box office failure = um fracasso de bilheteria

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Hello. What’s up? Nothing much? Well, today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So you know the difference between “um amigo” and “um conhecido, um cara que eu conheço”, right? That’s the difference between a friend and someone you know. Some guy you know. He’s not really a friend… you wouldn’t probably invite him to your birthday party or to your wedding, you wouldn’t give him a call and say “Let’s go see a movie” ’cause he’s just an acquaintance. A-c-q-u-a-i-n-t-a-n-c-e. An acquaintance is someone you know, maybe a friend of a friend, maybe someone that goes to the same school as you, maybe someone who goes to the same church, or club, who you kinda know… but you guys haven’t developed a close relationship. I think you know what I’m talking about. Everyone can think of people in their lives who are not really close friends, but acquaintances.

So you could say, “Oh, Mary? We’re not that close; she’s an acquaintance. We were introduced by a mutual friend and I never saw her again until today”. So Mary isn’t a close friend, she’s just someone you kinda know; she’s an acquaintance. Sometimes you and your acquaintances have mutual friends, right? Maybe you and your siblings have mutual friends. You know, you and your sisters and brothers. In my case… my cousin and I have a few mutual friends. My cousin introduced me to a few different people, and I ended up befriending some of them. For example: my cousin is friends with Maria. She introduced me to Maria, and Maria and I became friends. So my cousin and I now have a mutual friend – Maria. So, tell me: do you and your relatives have mutual friends?

Now, when we say colleagues, that’s more about professional relationships. A colleague may be someone who works with you, but very often there’s some sort of fellowship between you and a colleague: you’re in the same field of work, or in the same department, or you’re both professors at some school and so on. A colleague is not necessarily a friend. In Brazil we use the word “colega” meaning a professional relationship, I guess, but we also use “coleguinha de escola” for kids, right?  In this case, it’s more about friendship; but not so in English. When you say “my colleagues” you’re referring to people who work with you, or have the same profession, or are in the same field. Of course, a colleague can become a friend. For example, a professor might say “Dr. Howard was an esteemed colleague and friend…”

Now, when you talk about a coworker – that’s a bit more specific than ‘colleague’. A coworker is someone who works with you and you guys are probably in the same building and have some kind of regular interaction. Coworkers are people you usually see on a regular basis at the office; you have lunch with your coworkers and sometimes you guys go out for a drink after work. You know when we wanna tell… a friend, for example, that someone at work said this or that… Here in Brazil many times we say something like “um cara lá do trabalho…” In English we could say “This guy at work said this or did that” but we could also say “my coworker said…” or “one of my coworkers did this or that”.

Can you name a few of your coworkers? What about a few acquaintances? Some of my neighbors are just acquaintances of mine. What are your examples for these words? Let us know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• acquaintance
• colleague
• mutual friend
• coworker

Glossary

someone you kinda know = alguém que você não conhece direito

siblings = irmãos, irmãs

fellowship = uma relação baseada em interesses comuns (profissionais, por exemplo)

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Hi, how’re you doing? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So today I thought I’d give examples for a few really common expressions that start with “I’m”. I’m, as in “I am”. Here’s one: I’m on it. This is a great expression. In order to understand what it means, picture this: you’re at work, in a meeting with your boss and a few coworkers. Your boss is assigning different tasks to each one of you. She turns to you and says “Our budget report needs to be revised. This is an urgent task and I need you to understand how important it is that we deliver a flawless report to our VP. I need you to double check every single item in that budget.” So you understand what your boss is saying. You get how important it is to get that report revised and any mistakes fixed as soon as possible. You are ready to start, you know what to do, you look your boss in the eye and you say “Boss, I’m on it”. I’m on it.

What does that mean? When you say “I’m on it”, you’re saying that you’re gonna start doing that task as soon as possible. Now, most likely.  Your boss can relax, you’re taking care of it. You are on it. In some cases, when someone says “I’m on it”, that means they’re already doing it. For example, let’s say this is a different company – the manager arrives in the office and asks the team “Did anyone remember to prepare those slides for our presentation tomorrow?” And you say “Don’t worry boss, I’m on it”. What do you mean? Well, you’re working on them right now. You’ve got the presentation software open on your screen and right this moment you’re creating the final slides of the presentation. You’re on it. You’re taking care of it. In this example, you’re doing it right now.

So next time your boss asks you – in English, of course – to do something, and you’re committed to doing it; you know you’re gonna start doing it soon or maybe you’re already doing it… What can you tell your boss? “I’m on it”. Don’t worry boss, I’m on it.

And here’s another great little expression that starts with “I’m”: I’m good. You know when you’re having lunch at your friend’s and then his mom wants to put more food on your plate? You’re full, you’ve had a lot of food already and, in fact, there’s still some food on your plate. You’re good. So that’s what you say to her: Thanks, Mrs. Martin, I’m good. The expression “I’m good” here means “I have enough. No more is necessary”. I’m good. So if you’re at a barbecue party drinking your soda drink… your glass is still full and then your friend shouts “Need more soda?” You can say “I’m good, thanks”. You can also use that as “No, thanks”. For example, if someone offers you something you don’t feel like eating or drinking, you can say “No, I’m good. Thanks”. That is very informal, OK? It’s a very informal way to say no when someone offers you food or a beverage.

And, by the way, going back to the example above where your friend’s mom wants to put more food on your plate… Let’s say you’re not halfway through your first serving yet. There’s still a lot of food on your plate from your first serving. So you point that out to your friend’s mom when she offers you more food. You say “Oh, no Mrs. Martin, I’m good. I’m still working on my first serving”. ‘I’m still working on my first serving’ means I’m not done eating it, I’m still eating the food… It’s already on the plate, I haven’t finished it; I’m still working on it. I think this expression sounds a little weird at first to our Brazilian ears because we do not associate the verb “work” with eating. And yet, you’ll hear people say that – if you ask someone who’s eating a sandwich right now if they would like to have dessert, they might say “Oh, thanks. I’m still working on my sandwich”.  Or you might ask you friend if she wants tea, and she points to her big cup of coffee and says “Thanks, I’m still working on my coffee”.

Can you remember the last time your boss asked you to do something and you promptly answered “I’m on it”? Can you remember the last time you were eating and someone wanted to put more food on your plate and you said “I’m good, thanks”? Give us your examples in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• I’m on it
• I’m good
• I’m still working on it

Glossary

assigning tasks = distribuindo, alocando tarefas especificamente para essa ou aquela pessoa

flawless = perfeito (literal: sem falha nenhuma)

to double check = re-checar

at your friend’s (home) = na casa do seu amigo

you’re not halfway through = você não chegou na metade

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Hey, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

OK, so the title of this podcast is “Como falo ‘felizes para sempre’ em inglês?” I know that many listeners and readers of this blog already know the answer to this question. After all, this is sort of a famous little expression, isn’t it? It’s part of the ending of pretty much every fairy tale that involves a prince and a princess: and they lived happily ever after…

Actually, though, this podcast doesn’t center around the expression “happily ever after”. Nope! That was just an easy way to introduce the topic. Today I’m going to focus on the difference between happily and fortunately, and also happy and fortunate. Let me start off with an actual example of how the word fortunate can be used. Once, a classmate of mine said “I feel very fortunate to be here”. What did she mean by that? “I feel very fortunate to be here”. That means, I feel lucky to be here, I feel blessed to be here. She felt fortunate to be there, to be a student at that school. She had the good fortune to be a student at that school. “Fortune”, in the expression “good fortune”, doesn’t mean a large amount of money. Fortune here means something like a happy outcome, a lucky fate.

And let me just bring your attention to the correct way to pronounce “fortunate” – yep, it’s the way I just said it, fortunate and not “fortuneite“. It’s just like the pronunciation of chocolate: fortunate. I feel very fortunate to live in a world where there is chocolate. Already, back to what my classmate said: I feel very fortunate to be here”. What would be different if she said “I feel very happy to be here”? If she had said  ”I feel very happy to be here”, that would mean that she had a feeling of joy, a feeling of happiness. So, to recap: “I feel fortunate” means “I feel lucky, I feel blessed”; whereas “I feel happy” means… well, “I have a feeling of happiness or joy”; I’m cheerful, I feel happy.

Here’s a popular way to use the word “fortunate”: you will very often hear someone say that what happened was a fortunate coincidence. It was a lucky coincidente; it was a fortunate coincidence. Example: it was a fortunate coincidence that my friend and I spotted each other at the concert since both of us had left our cell phones at home. So it was a fortunate coincidence that we spotted each other in the crowd.

So here’s another interesting tidbit of information: sometimes, the word happily is incorrectly translated as “felizmente” in Portuguese. Think about it – what does “felizmente” mean? It means that something turned out well; that luckily this thing or that thing happened. “Felizmente, tudo acabou bem”. Fortunately, all ended well. We had the good fortune of finding a nice place to stay. Fortunately, we found a nice place to stay. “Felizmente, achamos um bom lugar pra ficar”. Fortunately the police were able to arrest the criminals. Fortunately, no one was hurt. “Felizmente, felizmente”. Fortunately.

So how would we say “happily” in Portuguese? Here are two popular ways to use this word in English: “they lived happily ever after” and “John and Mary are happily married”. For the first one… I think everyone knows how to say that. “Eles viveram felizes para sempre”. We use the adjective “feliz”, right? They were happy in their lives; they lived happily. For the second one, “John and Mary are happily married”… They’re happy in their marriage; they’re happily married. We could say maybe “John e Mary tem um casamento feliz”? Jane was happily raised in New York. We could say that as “Jane cresceu feliz em New York”.

How about you give us some examples of your own? How would you say you’ve been fortunate lately? Let us know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• happy / happily
• fortunate / fortunately

Glossary

blessed = abençoada

outcome = desfecho de uma situação ou processo

fate = destino

tidbit of information = informaçãozinha

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Hello. What’s up? Nothing much? Well, today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Everyone, today I’d like to talk about two very common constructions that use the word “think”. Actually, one of them uses “think” and the other one uses the past participle form of ‘think’, which is “thought”. Remember the other day when I did an episode on the word ‘thorough’? And I said “Do not confuse thorough with through”…? Well, today we have an expression with ‘thought’, which isn’t ‘thorough’ and it isn’t ‘through’ either. ‘Thought’, again, is the past participle form – and also the past form – of the verb ‘to think’.

The first phrase of today is “Who would have thought?”, which is actually a question; and the other one is “You’d think!”, which is a contraction of “you would think”, and these two set phrases are pretty frequent in everyday conversation. Let’s dive right in: listen to the first phrase. Who would have thought? Slowing it down a little… Who would have thought? If we translated that literally into Portuguese, we’d have something like “Quem teria imaginado?” I think in Brazil, at least where I live, we say stuff like “Quem ia imaginar? ” or “Quem podia imaginar?”.

So as you’ve probably realized, people say “Who would have thought?” when they’re expressing their surprise at… something. It’s like saying “I would never have guessed that this thing could happen”. And, just notice that this is a question, right? Who would have thought? It is a question, but it isn’t really supposed to be answered.  It’s more like an expression of amazement. For example, let’s say there was a kid… let’s call him Timmy – so there was this kid from your neighborhood who never liked to study, was always skipping class, got kicked out from a couple of schools… Some people even said he would never amount to anything. But that was twenty years ago, and this morning you were talking to an old neighbor, and she gave you an update on Timmy.

She said “Remember little Timmy? Get this: he got into Harvard University, graduated from Law School and is now a highly successful lawyer”. You are amazed. You can hardly believe what you just heard. Little Timmy? That kid was impossible! You thought little Timmy was hopeless… but apparently not! Who would have thought? And that’s what you say to your neighbor: Who would have thought? Who would have ever thought that little Timmy, that little devil, would turn out to be a successful lawyer, a Harvard graduate?

So now think of the last time something in your life turned out in an unexpected way. You were definitely not expecting that to happen, and when it did it took you by surprise, and you were amazed, and you could have said “Who would have thought?”

Now the second set phrase I want to give you examples for is “You’d think!” Like I said before, “you’d think” is a contraction for “you would think”. People will almost always say the contraction; “You’d think!”. And, the intonation here is really important, ok? You’d think! Let me start with an example for this one. Imagine your sister tells you that a guy bumped into her this morning and knocked her over! You say “Well, then he helped you get up, right?” And she says “You’d think! He just kept walking and left me there!” You’d think he would have helped me. You’d think he would have been concerned about my well-being. You’d think! But no, he wasn’t! He just walked away.

So when your sister says “You’d think”, what she means is “That’s what you would expect, that’s what I would expect too… but that didn’t happen; something else happened”. Here’s another example: your friend John is telling you about this five-star hotel, where he stayed for a week. It was a super expensive stay, and so you say “Wow, your room must have been amazing”. John  looks at you and says “You’d think! You’d think that, with those rates, my room would have been the most comfortable room in the world! Well, it wasn’t! The bed was awful and my back’s aching; the bedsheets had holes in them; and there was a cockroach in the bathroom when I arrived!” Whoa… right? A super expensive hotel.. you’d think the room would be amazing. You’d think! But it wasn’t.

So what are your examples for both of these expressions? Let us know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• Who would have thought?
• you’d think!

Glossary

dive right in = começar, entrar de cabeça

he would never amount to anything = ele nunca ia ser nada na vida

he was hopeless = ele não tinha salvação

knocked her over = derrubou-a

Whoa… = expressão que denota surpresa e/ou incredulidade

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Hi, everyone. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So this week I wrote a tip on the blog about using the words ours and theirs. This is the second time actually that I’ve written on this topic, so if you haven’t read these articles yet… I suggest you do so! Here’s tip #1 and then tip #2. OK, now that you’re all caught up I think you’re ready for this podcast. Like I said on this week’s article, I think the words mine, yours, his, hers, ours and theirs aren’t nearly as well known by Brazilians as they could be. This set of words is usually presented once in class… and then students do a few exercises, you know, fill-in-the-blanks, and these words then start showing in dialogues that students will only hear a couple of times, in general. So, of course, there usually isn’t enough exposure to ours, or theirs, or hers… and quite frankly it’s pretty rare that I hear people in Brazil, on any English level, use these words.

So for today’s podcast I thought I’d use them again in several examples and maybe inspire you guys to notice how often words like mine, yours, theirs, hers and ours are used in everyday conversation. So let’s start with a pretty simple example: imagine you’re playing a silly little game with a six or seven-year-old kid. You say “My shirt is white. What color is yours?” And the kid replies “Mine is yellow.” Mine is yellow. That means “My shirt is yellow”. Instead of saying “My shirt is yellow”, the kid says “Mine is yellow”, since you both know you’re talking about the kid’s shirt. This kid could also say “This yellow shirt is mine“. And he or she could look at you and say “You are a friend of mine“. So the examples I just gave using the word “mine” are very common ways in which not only mine, but also yours, his, hers, ours and theirs are used.

So let’s say you just checked into a hotel room with your family and the cleaning lady has just finished tidying it up for the new guests – that is, you and your family. So just as you and your family are sort of stepping into the room and checking out your surroundings you start to notice a few objects laying around, and they’re definitely not yours. These are not your objects. They are definitely not yours. So you say to the cleaning lady “Excuse me, this mp3 player isn’t ours“. She replies that there was a family staying in this room and they left just a couple of hours ago. So you say “I see. So the player is probably theirs“. And then your son finds a stack of books under the bed, and he says “Look, a stack of books! These aren’t ours. They must be theirs“.

What is your son saying? These books aren’t ours. They don’t belong to us. These are not our books. These aren’t ours. They must belong to the people who stayed in this room before us. These books must be theirs, ’cause they aren’t ours. So, the mp3 player? Not ours. It’s probably theirs. The books? Not ours. They must be theirs.

Here’s a different situation: you’re discussing your next vacation with a friend of yours. Yeah, one of your friends. Jennifer, a friend of yours. So let’s say that both you and your friend are millionaires and each of you owns a castle. Yours is in… Santa Catarina, let’s say; and hers is in… Bahia. So your castle is in Santa Catarina and Jennifer’s castle is in Bahia. And of course, your castle actually belongs to you and your family; and hers actually belongs to her and her family. So you say “I don’t know if we’re going to spend time at our castle this year. We had a grasshopper infestation there last month and it’s still not under control”

Jennifer says “Oh, what a shame! Our castle is completely protected from that kind of infestation – we’ve hired a company called “Grasshopper protection”. And you, in turn, say “Ours isn’t, unfortunately. We really need that protection, though. We have a large veggie garden; our food is all locally produced”. And Jennifer says “Wow, that’s wonderful. Ours isn’t. Ours comes mostly from supermarkets.” So let’s say that you’re talking to your other friend Mary about the conversation you had earlier with Jennifer. You say “Mary, my family and I own a castle in Santa Catarina; Jennifer and her family own a castle in Bahia. Ours is not protected against infestations; theirs is.” Let me say that again: Ours isn’t protected against infestations; theirs is. And how do you spell “theirs”?  T-h-e-i-r-s.

What else can you tell Mary about the castles? You say “There’s a veggie garden behind the castle where all our food comes from. So, with regards to food, ours is produced locally. Theirs comes from supermarkets“. Again: ours is produced locally; theirs comes from supermarkets. What does “ours” mean in the sentence I just said? It means “Our food”. And what does “theirs” mean in that sentence? It means “their food”.

Regarding the castles, ours isn’t protected; theirs is. Regarding the food, ours is local; theirs isn’t. So please let me know in the comments how much you know about these words. Got any examples? Questions? Let us know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• yours
• theirs
• ours

Glossary

you’re all caught up = você está atualizado

checking out your surroundings = reconhecendo a área

veggie garden = horta (de verduras, etc)

our food is locally produced = nossa comida é produzida localmente

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Hello, all. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So I registered on this website, quora.com, but I haven’t really used it for anything so far. Well… that is, until today. Have you heard of Quora? Are you a frequent user, or participant? For those of you who’ve never heard of it, I’m gonna give you a very basic explanation: Quora is a place where you can ask a question and get answers from people all over the world, so it’s a place with lots of discussions being generated every day on pretty much every topic you can imagine. Anyway, I signed up a while ago and I probably checked the box for weekly digests… Oh, here’s an update: I just looked at the Email preferences page and it doesn’t seem like I opted into any kind of newsletter, so I guess they’re sending this to me without my permission.

Anyway, today that’s a good thing ’cause through reading their newsletter I found the story that inspired today’s podcast. So, just listen:

“We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we’re approaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter:
‘Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended’ They pay for their order, take the two and leave.
I ask my friend: “What are those ‘suspended’ coffees?”
My friend: “Wait for it and you will see.”
Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made by three lawyers – three for them and four ‘suspended’. While I still wonder what’s the deal with those ‘suspended’ coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square in front of the café. Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in through the door and kindly asks
‘Do you have a suspended coffee ?’
It’s simple – people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm beverage. The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwich or a whole meal.

OK, so here’s a recap of the story: in the city of Naples, in Italy, there’s a café… probably more than one, where certain clients will pay not only for what they are ordering for themselves, but they will also pay in advance for people who don’t have enough money to be buying their coffee. In other words, some clients will pay in advance for beverages for people who can’t afford to buy them.

I think most people will agree this is a nice story. What’s your personal opinion about it? Like I said, I think most people will agree this is a nice story, a nice thing to do – that’s actually my personal opinion. So if you disagree, if you think that these people shouldn’t be paying for other people’s coffees, let us know what you think in the comments! And let me give you a few more examples with the expression “I can afford” or “they can’t afford”, “he can afford” and so on. Are you familiar with this? That means simply “I have or don’t have enough money to pay for this”. For example, I can afford my dog’s food but if I owned a thousand dogs then I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to afford all the necessary dog food. When people go out househunting, they have an idea of what kinds of houses they can afford. They usually go to neighborhoods where they can afford to buy a house. If they’re tight on money, they won’t waste time visiting houses in super-wealthy neighborhoods because they can’t afford those houses.

And there’s a very nice use of the expression “can’t afford”: it is not really related to how much money you have or not, but rather to an opportunity that you should not miss. Let’s say it’s very hard to schedule an appointment with a certain doctor, but you try and try and one day you get it. On the day of the appointment, your friend calls you and says “Hey, I got two free tickets for… this new Twilight movie! You’re coming with me, right?” And you can’t go, because you’ve got that doctor appointment at the same time the movie starts, and you can’t afford to miss it! You can’t afford to miss this doctor appointment. In this case, it’s not about money or how much the consultation is going to cost you. When you say “I can’t afford to miss this appointment”, you’re saying that this is something really, really important to you and maybe you won’t get the opportunity to do this again any time soon. Maybe you had to work really hard to get it; or maybe you have no idea how you got that appointment, how you got that opportunity, but you feel so lucky and you know that an opportunity like that may come around once in a lifetime so there’s no way you’ll miss it. You can’t afford to miss it.

Someone who gets in a very competitive school may think “I can’t afford not to go”; or there’s an industry event happening tomorrow and your boss tells you “You can’t afford to miss it. It is essential that you go”. So, tell us: is there anything coming up in the near future that you can’t afford to miss?

Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• I can afford this or that
• He can’t afford to (not do or miss something)

Glossary

weekly digests = resumos (do que foi postado) semanais

I opted into (a newsletter) = eu optei por receber (uma newsletter, marcando o xizinho)

househunting = procurar casa para morar, olhar casas

tight on money = com pouco dinheiro

but rather = mas (ao invés disso)

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Transcrição

Hi, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So the other day I came across a pretty interesting article about Customer Service. You know, customer service? I found the following definition on a dictionary: Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation*. In other words, customer service is what happens every time you have a simple question or a major problem, and you then call the “Atendimento ao Cliente” number, if you’re in Brazil.

If you’re like most Brazilians, you have at least once had to deal with Tim, Claro, Vivo, Oi or some other phone service provider. All of these providers, with no exception, have a bad reputation when it comes to customer service. I mean, I’ve had bad experiences with Vivo and Tim and I’ve heard people complain a lot about every single phone carrier under the sun.

Have you ever had to call your carrier’s customer service number only to be put on hold for several minutes, before being transferred to three different departments? And when you finally got to speak to a human being, that person wasn’t able to solve your problem?  I mean, phone carriers in Brazil are a legend… So that’s why this article caught my attention. I mean, check this out: the article is titled “The 10 Magic Phrases of Customer Service”. The author defends that there are certain “magic words” that customers want to hear when they have a problem and call your company for help.

Here are a few things that, according to author, customers would love to hear from the rep at the other end of the line: I can solve that problem. I will take responsibility. I will deliver on time. And  It will be just what you ordered. I mean, can you imagine the next time you call a company’s customer service number… Let’s make this even more fantastic: imagine you’re calling the “Atendimento ao cliente” of your local phone carrier. Then the customer rep listens to your complaint and says “I can solve that problem” without a hint of irony. Then you say that, the last time you called, the company promised to fix the problem but they didn’t. And the rep replies “I will take responsibility”. I mean, to me that would be so unexpected that it would probably crack me up. Wouldn’t we all love to hear those words next time a service provider screws up?

Of course, saying those words and not following up with actions would be even worse, I think. I guess most people are tired of empty promises and that is why companies that not only talk the talk but walk the walk stand out from the crowd so much. So, tell us: do you have any interesting customer service stories? Do you work in customer service – are you a rep? Have you ever come across a company that provides outstanding service, and keeps their promises? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time!

*Jamier L. Scott. (2002)

The 10 Magic Phrases of Customer Service (article)

Glossary

phone carrier = empresa de telefonia que presta serviços de voz (ou dados) como Vivo, Tim, etc.

under the sun = do mundo, no mundo inteiro (neste caso, usado com um pouco de exagero já que estou falando apenas do Brasil)

are a legend = são “lendárias”, no sentido de que já ficaram famosas e conhecidas por causa desse assunto

the rep = “rep” é abreviação informal para “representative” (customer service representative)

without a hint of irony = sem um pingo de ironia

it would crack me up = me faria gargalhar

talk the talk and walk the walk = falar que vai fazer algo, declarar uma posição sobre algum assunto, e ter ações que estão de acordo com o que foi dito (ao invés de dizer uma coisa e fazer outra)

stand out from the crowd = se diferenciam (da multidão)

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Hello, all. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So today let’s talk about pet peeves. What is a pet peeve? Well, a peeve is something that irritates you, that annoys you, that maybe aggravates you. What about a pet peeve, though? A pet peeve is like… your favorite peeve. It’s that thing that frequently annoys you or that annoys you the most. You know, some things kinda irritate you once in a while, depending on your mood… But your pet peeve: every time that one happens in front of you, you get irritated. It really annoys you, every time, without fail.

So do you have a pet peeve? Let’s take a look at a few things people said online. Here’s what one girl tweeted: “My biggest pet peeve is when people don’t answer their phone”. Well, I have to say… sometimes, that’s me. I don’t always answer my cell phone. And that happens because I often go out without my cell phone. Yep, sometimes I leave it home… the horror! I’ve had friends get mad at me for not answering the phone. Too bad. So, is that a pet peeve of yours? Are you annoyed when someone doesn’t answer their phone?

Here’s what someone else said: “My biggest pet peeve? Judgemental people“. If you’ve been listening to our podcasts for a while then you’re familiar with the word judgemental. Or maybe you’re familiar with it because you listen to English on a regular basis and the word judgemental is such a common word. Judgemental people criticize a lot, they judge other people a lot and that honestly can be really annoying. So this guy said that judgemental people are his pet peeve.

And here’s an interesting one… This guy said “My biggest pet peeve is when I’m watching a movie with someone and they’re asking me what’s going on. We’re watching the same thing”. Does that sound familiar? You and a friend, or girlfriend, or boyfriend are watching a movie together and the other person keeps asking “Why did he do that?” or “Wait… where are they?” or “Who’s that? I don’t remember him”. You know, people get distracted and maybe they think some parts of the movie are boring… so they end up missing an important dialogue or scene and when they go back to paying attention – they’re lost. I totally understand how that can be annoying to people who are super focused on the story though. So is that a pet peeve of yours?

Me… A pet peeve of mine is people who talk in the movie theater. I find that a little annoying. What else…? People who take up the entire space of the aisle in the supermarket – you know? They kinda block other people’s way with the shopping cart and it’s like they don’t even realize there are other people shopping… That’s a pet peeve of mine.

It’s your turn now. What is your pet peeve? Come on, tell us in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

• Pet peeve

Glossary

depending on your mood = dependendo do seu humor

without fail = sem falta (no sentido de algo que sempre acontece)

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Hi, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Last week our podcast centered around the word thorough and today we have an equally nice word! Today’s word is straight – s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t, straight. So listen to this: Just give it to me straight. Come on, give it to me straight. I know you got bad news for me and bad news is never easy to deliver. I wanna hear the news anyway; I wanna know what happened. Just give it to me straight.

Did you get the meaning of “Just give it to me straight”? You know when you gotta give someone the bad news… it’s never pleasant. Have you ever had to fire someone? Have you ever had to assess someone’s performance and then tell them that they had been underperforming? Or maybe you had to tell someone that they’re sick, or that they didn’t pass the Vestibular, or that they’ve lost money or something…

This is all bad news, right? Many people tend to beat around the bush when trying do deliver unpleasant news. And if you are the recipient of bad news, you might appreciate that… Although we usually can tell when someone has something unpleasant to say, can’t we? We can tell by their body language and also by the verbal clues: someone who’s trying to deliver bad news will often hesitate, stutter, fidget a little…

Anyway, many people would rather learn the news as soon as possible, without any sugarcoating. They can tell the other person is trying to be gentle or just hesitating. And sometimes these people will say “Just give it to me straight. What happened?”. Or they’ll say “I know it’s bad. Just give it to me straight. I can take it. How bad is it?”

I think I’m one of those people. If I notice someone trying to tell me unpleasant news, I’ll say “C’mon, just give it to me straight”. How about you? Here’s what someone wrote on a tweet: “Don’t sugarcoat anything with me. I respect honesty because I’m definitely going to give it to anybody straight . ” Do you get what “sugarcoat” means? Imagine covering the truth with a layer of sugar, in order to try to make it more palatable. That’s what sugarcoating something means. So this girl is saying that she’d rather just hear the truth. She’s asking everyone to not sugarcoat anything when talking to her. She wants people to give it to her straight. Just tell her everything at once, don’t sugarcoat it.

So what would you prefer? What’s your style? When receiving bad news, would you rather the other person gave it to you straight? Or do you think a little sugarcoating could help soften the blow? What would you do if you had to deliver unpleasant news to someone? Would you give it to them straight, or would you sugarcoat it a little?

Talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

• Give it to me straight
• Don’t sugarcoat the truth

Glossary

we can tell = dá pra (gente) saber

verbal clues = as pistas que a pessoa dá verbalmente (através do que ela fala)

stutter = gaguejar

fidget = se mexer de maneira desconfortável (na cadeira, por exemplo, quando a pessoa não está se sentindo à vontade)

I can take it = eu aguento

palatable = com gosto bom

soften the blow = amaciar a queda (em sentido figurado)

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Hi, everybody. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Let me talk today about one particular word. That word is THOROUGH. Are you familiar with it? Hear it again: thorough. Thorough is an adjective and it is the quality of something that is done or executed completely, perfectly, in a very accurate and detailed way. For example, when someone writes a thorough review of a book, that means they covered every important aspect of the book in their review. This person reviewed the book from every angle: they analyzed the quality of the story, the characters, they compared it to other books in the same genre, they made comments on different passages of the book… They were very thorough in their review. Their review was extensive, comprehensive, and it covered every aspect of the book. It was a thorough review. This person was very thorough in their review.

So let’s say John did some research about vegetation in the desert, and he was very thorough in his research. He interviewed several different experts, he read up on the subject, he searched Google on this topic, he visited several Universities, and so on. John was really thorough in his research. He wanted to know everything about vegetation in the desert. He even visited the desert so that he could learn all about the vegetation. John was very thorough in his research.

Did you notice that thorough can be used to qualify John as well as John’s research? Listen again: John was very thorough in his research. Who was very thorough? John was. Now, check this out: John did a thorough research about vegetation in the desert. What was thorough here? The research John did. Mary spent three months searching her long-lost sister in the south of… Germany. Mary was very thorough in her search. She went door-to-door asking about her sister, she asked the local authorities to help her in the search, she visited fifteen different towns and talked to hundreds of people, all to try and find her long-lost sister. She was very thorough in her search. Mary conducted a thorough search for her sister in the south of Germany. Here’s one more: Jake is an economist and he analyzed the current economical situation in his country. He was very thorough in his analysis. He spoke for one hour and a half. He did a very thorough analysis of the economic situation. So now I’ll ask you again: did you notice how a person can be thorough, and an analysis, a research study, a search or a review can also be thorough?

Now, the adverb form of thorough is also very popular. Let’s go back to our examples: John researched the topic “vegetation in the desert” thoroughly. What does that mean? He researched it extensively, deeply, completely. Now, here are a couple of other common ways the adverb thoroughly is used: I thoroughly enjoyed this film. My friend thoroughly enjoyed the play. That’s right, thoroughly and the verb enjoy are a frequent combination. When you thoroughly enjoy something, that means you really like it, you love it, you had a great time with it, you can’t think of anything that’s wrong with that thing.

Can you remember the last film you saw that you thoroughly enjoyed? You were enthralled by the film; before you knew it, ninety minutes had gone by and you didn’t even notice; you only have good things to say about this film. I’ll be honest with you – I can’t remember the last film I thoroughly enjoyed… honest to God. I remember movies I simply enjoyed, or movies that I liked… let’s say, fifty percent of what I saw. A movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, though? I can’t remember. What’s yours? Please let us know your pick in the comments.

So how many of you took a glance at the text and read THROUGH instead of THOROUGH? The word thorough has an extra O after TH at the beginning. And also, these two words have completely different meanings. It is much easier to tell them apart when you hear someone say them. Through and thorough. Very different, right?

OK, so let us know your examples, and when they happened in the comments. Have you ever conducted a really thorough search for something or someone? Have you ever written a really thorough review? There are plenty of thorough book reviews in the Amazon website. If it’s films you’d rather read about, you’ll find many thorough reviews over at imdb.com . Talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

• He was thorough in his research
• He conducted a thorough search
• He researched it thoroughly

Glossary

comprehensive = abrangente, completa

read up on the subject = leu muito, leu tudo que estava disponível sobre aquilo

long-lost sister = irmã que ela não vê e não tem notícias, não sabe onde está há muitos anos

enthralled = maravilhado, cativado

honest to God = (Aprox.) juro pelo que é mais sagrado

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Hi, everybody. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Last week I got an email from an Inglês Online reader and he asked me about a few expressions in Portuguese, such as “Faz muito tempo que não estudo inglês” and “Falta um mês para o congresso”. So today let’s take a look at how we can say these things in English.

How can we say “Falta um mês”, for example? There are a few different ways to do that. So let’s say we’re telling a friend about this conference we’re going to attend, and let’s say you’ve got to put together five different presentations for that conference. You’ve started to work on the first one but you have a long way to go before your work is done. So you say to your friend “One month to the conference and I’ve only just begun work on my five presentations”. You could also say “One month before the conference and I still have to create five presentations from beginning to end”. You will notice, as you read or listen to English more and more, that most of the time when someone uses one of the expressions above, they’ll usually say something along the lines “I haven’t prepared yet” or “I haven’t done everything I needed to do to prepare for that event”. A couple more examples: “Two days to our trip to Jamaica and I haven’t even begun to think what I’m gonna pack”. “Three weeks to go before school starts and I feel I haven’t rested at all”; or we could simply say “Three weeks before school starts and I feel I haven’t rested at all”.

Here’s another way: that conference is just a month away, and I’ve yet to prepare and produce five different presentations. The championship final is just eight days away. Spring is nine weeks away. So, tell me: is there some big event in your life that’s just around the corner… and you still gotta prepare for it? Maybe it’s a trip, maybe a presentation, maybe it’s your wedding! I’ll give you an example that’s true for me: Two months to my trip and I still have so much stuff to take care of. What’s your example?

Alright, now on to “faz muito tempo” or “faz tanto tempo”. Let’s say that your example is “Faz muito tempo que eu parei de tomar refrigerante”. You could say “A long time ago I quit drinking soda”. A more literal translation to “a long time ago” is “muito tempo atrás”, but it works here. It communicates what you mean. A long time ago I quit drinking soda.

Now, here’s one thing I wanna bring to your attention. In Portuguese we say “faz tanto tempo que eu não vejo TV” or “faz tanto tempo que eu não vou ao cinema”, or, to go back to our previous example, “faz tanto tempo que eu não tomo refrigerante”. That’s a very common thing to say, right? All of them have a negative: não vejo, não vou, não tomo. Now, just notice that we don’t need a negative to say that in English. Listen: “It’s been so long since I watched TV”. What does that mean? That means that it’s been so long since the last time I watched TV. It was… three year ago, long time! No negatives there, right?  It’s been so long since I went to the movies. Last time was months ago. It’s been so long;  ”faz tanto tempo”. It’s been so long since I had soda. I haven’t drunk soda in… let’s say, four years. It’s been so long since the last time I had soda.

So maybe our first instinct, when we want to say “faz tempo que eu não vejo TV”, would be to try and translate it more or less literally into English and try to fit a negative in there. But we don’t say it like that in English. We just say, it’s been a long time since we did something…or, it’s been a long time since we last did something.

So what are your examples? Talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

• one month before the
• two weeks to go
• one month to
• it’s eight days away
• a long time ago
• it’s been so long since (something happened)

Glossary

I’ve only just begun work = acabei de começar o trabalho (work aqui é substantivo)

what I’m gonna pack = o que eu vou colocar na mala

I’ve yet to = eu ainda tenho que

(something) is just around the corner = (algo) está chegando, está próximo

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Hi, everybody. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So today I’d like to focus on a very useful expression with the word “mind”. You know, mind, m-i-n-d. This is a very nice term because  it’s a very popular way to ask permission to do something. Here’s what I’m talking about: Do you mind if I open the window? Simple question, huh? That’s kinda like our “Tudo bem se eu abrir a janela”, or, more literally, “Você se importa se eu abrir a janela?”. This is a more natural way to ask permission to do stuff like, opening a window, shutting the door, sitting down, than… let’s say, “Can I open the window?” Just say “Do you mind if I open the window?” or “Is it ok if I open the window?” Or even “Is it ok to open the window?”

So let’s say you’re in a restaurant, any restaurant, in São Paulo. Nowadays, if you ask the waiter “Is it ok if I smoke?” the answer will be “No”. People can’t smoke in closed spaces anymore. If you’re at the US Consulate to get your Visa, for example, and you ask the officer “Do you mind if I take a picture?” his answer will be “You can’t take a picture”. Well, actually you might have your camera temporarily confiscated. On the other hand, though, if you were at a friend’s house and asked them “Do you mind if sit down?” they would probably say “Sure, of course!”.

And that doesn’t mean “Sure, of course I do mind if you sit down” meaning “I don’t want you to sit down”. Usually when you ask someone “Do you mind if I do this or that?” and that person answers “Sure” or “Of course”, what they’re saying is “Go ahead, I don’t mind”. Do you mind if I shut the door? Sure, go ahead and shut the door. Do you mind if I sit on the floor? No problem, sit on the floor if you want to.

Now here’s a way to say all that that would be considered just a bit more polite… It’s a bit more gentle: Would you mind if…? Would you mind if I shut the door? Would you mind if I smoke? Would you mind if I open the window? Did you notice that all the verbs look like they’re in the present form? Shut (although the past tense of shut is also shut); smoke; open. Would you mind if I take notes while you speak? Would you mind if I post this on Facebook?

So here a way that’s a bit more formal: Would you mind if I opened the window? That’s the same word as the past tense, right? It’s actually a Subjunctive form. Would you mind if I opened the window? In Portuguese, we’d say that as  ’Você se importaria se eu abrisse a janela?’ That’s a very literal translation. Would you mind if I opened the window? Would you mind if I smoked? Would you mind if I posted this on Facebook? Would you mind if I took notes while you speak?

Many natives can’t really tell the difference, though.. Many people say that they can’t tell the difference between “Would you mind if I take notes….?” and “Would you mind if I took notes…?”.  But we can still say that the more informal way is “Do you mind if I take notes?” or “Is it ok if I take notes?”; then we can turn that into a more polite version and say “Would you mind if I take notes?”; and we can even turn that into what would be generally considered the most polite version, which is “Would you mind if I took notes?”

So think of your own examples. Were you in a more formal setting or were you with friends, for example? When was the last time you said something like “Would you mind if I make a phone call?” Would you mind if take a photo? Would you mind if I take a bite? Would you mind if I call a cab?

Let us know your examples, and when they happened in the comments. Talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

• Do you mind if I open the window?
• Is it ok if I open the window?
• Would you mind if I open the window?
• Would you mind if I opened the window?

Glossary

if I take a bite = se eu der uma mordida

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Hello, all. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So I was exchanging emails today with someone I’m working on a project with. OK, let me repeat this sentence: I was exchanging emails today with someone I’m working on a project with. So did you notice I ended the sentence with the word WITH? That happens a lot in English. I’m working on a project WITH this guy. I’m working on a project WITH him. This guy is someone I’m working on a project with. If we translated this sentence literally into Portuguese, we’d have something like “Esse cara é uma pessoa que eu estou trabalhando num projeto COM”. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? We don’t do that in Portuguese, it’s sort of… counter-intuitive.

In English, however, it’s done very often – you’ll hear lots of people ending their sentences with WITH, ABOUT, OF, IN… So today I’d like to give you guys a few examples to illustrate just that and hopefully help you become a bit more familiar with that kind of structure. So my focus today will be on “with”. So check this out: I’m gonna start with a few examples of sentences that use WITH the “normal” way, so to speak. So just listen:

• I’m working on a project with this guy.
• We went to Buenos Aires with Anthony.
• When I was in college I shared a room with this girl.

Just pay attention to how I used WITH in these three sentences: with this guy, with Anthony, with this girl. I’m doing something with this guy – what am I doing with this guy? I’m working on a project with him. We did something with Anthony. What did we do with Anthony? We went to Buenos Aires with him. And when I was in college I did something with this girl. What did I do with her? I shared a room with this girl. So this girl I shared I room with… She was from São Paulo and we became really good friends. This guy I’m working on a project with… he’s a webdesigner. And Anthony… Anthony is the guy we went to Buenos Aires with.

I’d like to ask you to think of your own examples. You went to school with… Joãozinho, Maria, Luciana. So what about the kids you went to school with? Where are they now? For those of you who have jobs… you work with other people at the office or wherever it is you work. Who are these people? Who are these people you work with? And think about the last time you went to a bar or nightclub or restaurant. Most likely you were with other people. So, these people you went out with… Who are they?

So here are my own answers to those questions: I went to school with Lucy and Rose. I’ll tell you more about these two ladies I went to school with: one is a dentist and the other one is a manager. Now, who do I work with, currently? I work with a guy who’s a webdesigner. Here’s some information about this guy I work with: he has one child, a boy. And the third question was about the last time I went out – I went out for dinner with a friend.  So, who is this friend I went out with? She’s an old friend.. we’ve been friends for many years and we first met when we were both teenagers. 

Listen again to these questions: Who did you go to school with? Who do you work with, currently? Who did you go out with, last Saturday… or Sunday? Here’s how you can start your sentences: I’m gonna tell you more about this person I went to school with. I’m gonna tell you something about this guy I work with. Or… there’s nothing to tell about this girl I went out with…  Talk to you next time!

See also: WHO e WHOM: Você sabe a diferença?

Key Expressions

•  the person I’m doing something WITH

Glossary

wherever it is you work = onde quer que seja o lugar onde você trabalha

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Hi, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Today let me give you examples of how to use the expression “as though”. Do you recognize those sounds, especially the last one? “Though” is spelled t-h-o-u-g-h. Listen again: though. We can use “as though” in many ways: It’s as though, It sounds as though, It was as though and the list goes on. Now, what does that mean? The title of this podcast sort of gives it away. Here’s an example: Mary has a three-year old boy. She says that, sometimes, it’s as though she has two children.

She’s a handful

Listen again: Mary has a three-year old boy. She says that, sometimes, it’s as though she has two children. How many kids does Mary have? Just one. She has a three-year old boy. However, she says that sometimes it’s as though she has two children. What does that mean? That probably means that she has a very active child; maybe… maybe Mary’s son is a handful! When someone is a handful, that means that person is difficult to manage, or that they get themselves in trouble a lot, or maybe they have a difficult personality, or they demand a lot of attention all the time. If you’re responsible for looking after a kid who’s a handful, you’ll probably be very busy; too busy to take care of anything else. Do you know anyone who’s a handful? I think I know a few kids who are a handful.

But anyway, back to our example: Mary’s kid is probably a handful, so it feels as though she has two children, and not one. It is as though she has two children, and not one. How would we say that in Portuguese? We could say “A Mary tem um filho, mas é como se fossem dois”. We could also say “A Mary tem um filho só, mas parece dois”. It’s as though she has two children. I live in a big city but on Sundays it’s as though I’m in a small town. São Paulo is a huge city. During the week there’s a lot of car traffic in my neighborhood… it’s really noisy and crowded. On Sundays, though… sometimes, in the afternoon, it’s as though I’m in a small town. Very few cars driving by, only a few people on the street, all very quiet. It is as though I live in a small town. I have a dog, but sometimes I feel as though I have a cat. Why? Because my dog is very quiet and she enjoys being on her own a lot. It’s as though I have a cat.

Last night I walked into a room full of flowers. The scent was unbelievable. It was as though someone had sprayed ten bottles of perfume around the room. Since I’m talking about a smell, or a scent, I could say “The room smelled as though someone had sprayed ten bottles of perfume inside it”. Ok, and who knows what it feels like when you overeat? You know, when you’re not even hungry anymore but you keep eating, and then your belly hurts? So here’s another example: last Saturday Tom had feijoada, then a steak with fries. Ice cream for dessert. He felt as though he was going to explode afterwards. How about this one? Yesterday I tried to lift a suitcase but it was too heavy and I just gave up. My dad then lifted the suitcase with such ease… It was as though the suitcase was full of feathers. It was as though the suitcase wasn’t heavy at all!  

So you have probably noticed that we can use “as though” in combination with many different verbs.  If we’re listening to someone talk about how they spent the entire morning boxing up old stuff that they’re… giving away to some charity, you could say “It sounds as though you worked really hard this morning. You must be tired”. I said “It sounds as though…” because my basis for that conclusion is the story I’m hearing. So it sounds as though my friend worked hard this morning. In Portuguese, we would say something like “Tá parecendo que você deu um duro danado hoje de manhã”. Right now, where I am, it sounds as though it is going to rain. I’m not facing the window, so I can`t see what the weather looks like right now. But I just heard the sound of a thunder. It sounds as though it’s gonna rain. “Tá parecendo que vai chover”.

Has that ever happened to you – you heard the sound of a thunder in the distance, or the wind against the window and it sounded as though rain was about to start? Talk to you next time!

Key Expressions

•  a handful
• it was as though / it felt as though 
• it sounds as though

Glossary

responsible for looking after (someone) = responsável por cuidar de (alguém)

sort of gives it away = meio que entrega (no sentido de entregar o significado)

facing the window = de frente pra janela

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Hi, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

So last week I was doing one of my walks. I had just left a large avenue and turned left onto a narrower street. Now, let me paint you a picture: this is a typical residential street where you see one car driving by, like, every ten minutes. It’s a very quiet street – actually it’s almost like a boulevard.  One of the dictionary definitions of boulevard is “a wide, tree-lined road in a city, often used as a promenade”. I guess the street I was in qualifies as a boulevard… Let’s see: wide, check. Tree-lined road, check. In a city, check. Often used as a promenade… hmm, I don’t know about that. Usually there’s no car traffic at all on promenades, which isn’t the case here.

Other than that, though, the road I’m talking about looks like a boulevard. Like I said, it’s a quiet road, tree-lined, you rarely see a car driving by, not many pedrestrians… Anyway, it was really hot – it was around four in the afternoon and if you were in São Paulo last week, more especifically last Friday, you know the kind of ‘hot’ I’m talking about. So that’s why I wanted to walk along this boulevard – so that the trees would shelter me a little bit from the sun.

So there I was, happily walking and listening to some podcast on my mp3 player, when… it happened. Somehow I tripped and fell, and twisted my ankle in the process. Yep, I fell and landed on the sidewalk, and there I stayed for at least two minutes ’cause my right foot and ankle were hurting really bad. So after about two minutes I managed to get up and then I tried to take a few steps. No go. So I just hopped across the sidewalk on my good foot and sat by a tree. There was no one in sight and it was really hot, so I just thought it would be a good idea to sit down, rather than keep standing on one leg.

And that’s when I realized that I would probably have to wait  a while until the pain subsided a little, so that I ‘d be able to walk to the nearest avenue… which, by the way, was a good three blocks away. I didn’t have my cell phone on me, so getting to the avenue was my only hope of finding a cab.

Are you guys with me, so far? So, as I’m having those thoughts sitting against a tree I hear the sound of a car engine. You know, the sound you hear when a car’s pulling up to the curb. And my thought was “Wow, that’s unexpected but it must be one of the residents arriving”. The engine was still running.  I turned my head and saw the front of the car. Well… It was a white car. Anyone who’s familiar with the city of São Paulo will know that pretty much every white car you see is… a taxi cab. I couldn’t believe a white car had just pulled up to the curb… right behind the tree I’d been sitting at. I stretched my neck a little and spotted the TAXI sign on top of the vehicle. Yep, it was a taxi cab.

My next thought was “This cab must be dropping someone off – I need to run and and talk to the driver before he leaves!” So I got up as quickly as I could and hopped around the tree till the driver saw me. And here’s the thing, there was no one being dropped off. No passengers, just the driver. The guy rolled down the window on the passenger’s side and I asked him if he was free for the next passenger. He said yes, and then I asked “Why did you pull up…?” And he said “Oh, I was just gonna grab a bottle of water I left in the trunk”.

So that’s the true story of how I twisted my ankle while walking in a really quiet road, and out of nowhere a cab driver showed up right behind me because he was thirsty.

Has anything like that ever happened to you? ‘Til next time!

Glossary

check = check aqui quer dizer “confere”. Eu estou passando pelos ítens de uma lista, e para cada ítem aprovado (no caso do podcast, para cada ítem que descreve a rua que eu estava) eu digo “check”

I don’t know about that = isso eu não sei, isso é novo pra mim

shelter = abrigar (também: abrigo)

listening to some podcast = o “some”, usado assim, quer dizer “algum, que não lembro qual era / não tem importância qual era”

hurting really bad = doendo muito

no go = expressão geralmente usada na frase “It’s a no go”, que significa “não vai acontecer”

it was a good three blocks away = estava a pelo menos 3 quarteirões de distância

pulled up to the curb = (um veículo) encostou, parou perto da calçada

until the pain subsided = até que a dor se tornasse menos intensa

no one in sight = ninguém à vista (até onde eu podia enxergar)

Eu estou gravando os podcasts num MacBook agora e parece que não peguei o jeito ainda, pois estou achando que o som está saindo estranho. Se alguém tiver notado isso também – taí!

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Hello, everybody. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So here’s our first expression: no offense. Offense means… what you probably think it means, at least in this case. When you offend someone, you have caused them offense, they are offended because of something you said or did. We say that this person has taken offense to something you said or did. So, if you have the habit of watching American TV series and movies, there’s no way you haven’t heard this before. You may not have recognized it when you heard it, but this is such a common expression… People say that all the time on TV. No offense.

And why do people say “No offense”? Well, listen to what someone posted on Twitter: “Whenever you hear someone say to you ‘No offense… Get ready to be offended”. People use that expression before they say something potentially offensive. It’s like they’re letting the other person know in advance that they’re gonna say something offensive, you know? ‘No offense’. I guess it is short for ‘I mean no offense’ or ‘No offense intended’. And what’s kinda funny is that right after someone says ‘No offense, but…’, you kinda know that the next thing they’re gonna say is an insult, or at least something a little unpleasant.

I mean, listen to one example I found on Twitter… Some guy wrote “No offense to Selena Gomez, but I think every guy she dated was for publicity”. Selena Gomez is an American singer, I think, and this guy is saying that he thinks that she dated guys not because she really liked them, but because of the publicity that the relationship would get her. Now, I mean, how can that not be offensive? I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but when you say “No offense” and then you follow up with “I think every guy you dated was for publicity” – how would that not be considered offensive?

Urban Dictionary has a great definition for the expression “No offense”: it’s an excuse to insult someone. Now, sometimes people use that expression with something that really is not offensive anyway, to be fair, and in cases like this I don’t even understand why they would say “No offense”.  For example, when someone says “No offense, but you should have turned right, not left”. How is it offensive to say that? Of course, this person could have said something before the driver made the turn… but that’s not an offensive thing to say, I think.

Anyway, like it or not, “no offense” is a pretty popular expression and many times when you say something like “No offense, but your report sucks” the other person isn’t really offended. Many people say “None taken”. What does that mean? That means “I didn’t get offended, I didn’t take offense to what you said”. So let me present you with a few examples that I got from Twitter posts, and you tell me if you think it is offensive, or if it’s something that would make you say just “None taken”:

• “No offense, but don’t make me choose between pizza and you ’cause I’ll definitely choose pizza.” Do you think that’s offensive, or would you say “none taken”?”
• “Paul is such a boring name, no offense to anyone who has it but I’m glad I’m not named Paul”. Offensive, or “None taken”?
• “No offense, but you represent everything I despise in the world”. Offensive, or “None taken”?

And before we wrap up, here are a few more comments I got from people on Twitter. One girl said “I only take offense to statements if they start with No offense”. Another one asked “Why do people say ‘No offense’ right before they offend you?”

So what do you think? Can you think of any situations where it would be valid and useful to say “No offense, but…”? Let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• no offense
• none taken

Glossary

it is short for = é uma forma mais curta para

and follow up with = diz em seguida

to be fair = pra ser justa

I despise = eu desprezo

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Hey, what’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today I’m going to talk about a couple of expressions with the word BEAR. Of course, a bear is a wild animal, as you probably know. Remember Zé Colmeia, also known as Yogi Bear in English-speaking countries? So, that’s a bear and I’m not really going to focus on this particular meaning of the word BEAR for this podcast.

Did you know the word BEAR had other meanings? Here’s a very common expression: bear with me. That means “be patient”, just stay with me and wait while I finish this thing I’m doing, or… please stay here and listen to this story I’m telling you because I do have a point and I am getting somewhere with this. Please bear with me.

How do we say that kind of stuff in Brazil? What comes to my mind is something like “Guenta mão aí”…. only “guenta mão” is really informal language, right? “Bear with me”, on the other hand, is not a slang expression. You could use it in a presentation or with your colleagues at work without a problem.

When I think of this expression, the first thing that pops in my mind is someone telling another person a story, and it’s sort of a long -winded story and the listener is getting kind of impatient. So the one who’s telling the story suddenly realizes that it may take them a while to get to the point they wanna make, and they say “Please bear with me; I’m gonna get to the point” or just “Bear with me; I’m getting there”.

How would you say “Bear with me” in Portuguese? Let us know in the comments, and leave your examples as well.

And here’s another common expression with the word BEAR: Bear in mind. That means… remember this piece of information, keep this in mind when you’re making a decision related to this issue, or when you’re taking action… bear in mind that we’re not going to lend you any money. Bear in mind, remember, keep in mind. Bear in mind that it is usually really cold where you’re going so a bicycle may not be your  best choice to get to work. Here’s an example I found on Twitter: “You have to bear in mind that there’s no treatment for dengue”. So the person who posted that is advising other people to remember, to keep in mind that there’s no treatment for dengue. Bear it in mind. Bear in mind that there’s no treatment. By the way, is that true? I know it’s a serious illness, but I thought there was a treatment.

Anyway, another person tweeted this: Bear in mind that nobody’s perfect. Basic, simple piece of advice, right? So bear this in mind: nobody’s perfect. There’s something useful to bear in mind for the rest of our lives, don’t you agree?

As you listen to this podcast, bear in mind that it is intended for people on an intermediate comprehension level. As both a Portuguese speaker and an English learner, I think you should bear in mind that it’ll take you a while to get used to the sounds of English. Also, bear in mind that understanding a podcast is different from being able to speak it, so… listen, listen, listen and give yourself the chance to effortlessly absorb some English. That’s my piece of advice for you today!

Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• bear with me
• bear in mind (that)

Glossary
also known as = também conhecido como (essa expressão frequentemente é dita abreviada em forma oral, na conversa mesmo – a.k.a)

I do have a point = tem um lugar onde estou querendo chegar (com o que estou dizendo); vou chegar a uma conclusão, demonstrar algo, etc.

I am getting somewhere with this = vou chegar em alguma conclusão; o que eu estou dizendo faz parte dos passos pra chegar à conclusão

a long-winded story = uma história em que a pessoa dá voltas, conta muitos detalhes, demora pra chegar à conclusão

to make a point = defender uma ideia, comunicar uma ideia específica, declarar algo

it may take them a while to = vai levar um tempinho pra ele/ela

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How’s it going, everyone? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Let’s go for some practice today. What kind of practice? I’m gonna talk about a couple of structures that are frequently misused by English learners, especially those learners who haven’t had enough input in English… well, not enough input on those two little structures, anyway.

The first common mistake can be illustrated by this example: “I’m used to wake up late on Saturdays“. That may make sense to our Brazilian ears in the beginning, but it’s really not how English natives speak. So what I’m going to do here is give you several examples so that you get a little more exposure to the correct usage of “used to” to express some activity that is a habit to you.

First of all, when someone says “I’m used to wake up late on Saturdays” – and, remember, this is the incorrect way to say it – this person is trying to communicate a habit; something that he or she does regularly. That’s how he or she usually does things. That’s what this structure communicates. What’s the correct way to say it? We’re gonna use the -ING form here: I’m used to wakING up late on Saturdays. I’m used to waking up late on Saturdays. That means that I usually wake up late on Saturdays. I have this habit of waking up late on Saturdays. I probably like waking up late on Saturdays. I’m used to waking up late on Saturdays.

Like I mentioned before, the incorrect way might make sense to ears that are accustomed to Portuguese. Let’s get that straightened out right away by listening to several examples. Here are a few habits of mine and some people I know as well.

• I’m used to walkING my dog in the evenings.
• I’m used to writING posts in the morning.
• My friend Mariana is used to sleepING late on weekends.
• One of my friends is used to drinkING milk at dinner. She really likes it.
• I’m not used to drivING in Rio de Janeiro, so I would avoid it.
• Sometimes when you start at a new job you have to become familiar with people who are used to doING things a certain way; and that way might not be what you’re used to.

Tell us about your lunch or dinner habits. Examples: “I’m used to having just a salad at dinner. I’m never too hungry at night, so a salad is usually enough”. Or “I would never eat feijoada at night. That’s heavy food and I’m not used to going to bed after eating that much”.

And here’s the second structure for this podcast. It is, yes, a really simple structure and it’s considered very basic. And yet, I hear people say it wrong all the time, including quite a few TV personalities. How do you ask what something, or some word, means? You say “What does that mean?” or “What does it mean?”, or “What does “truck” mean?” Truck means caminhão.

The most common mistakes here are “What means truck?” or “What does mean truck?”. Those are wrong. “Mean” is a verb, and it behaves the same way as… have, go, take and all other verbs. What does “mean” mean? It means “significar”. So let me give you several examples of the correct way to use this. These are all gonna be questions, of course, so if you know the answers… leave a comment! Notice how I always ask the question exactly the same way:

• What does “in retrospect” mean?
• What does “speculate” mean?
• What does “deception” mean?
•  What does “twice as much” mean?
• What does “persimmon” mean?
• What does “resumé” mean?
• What does “resume” mean?
• What does “touch base” mean?

So if you remember saying “What means…?” or “What does mean…?” recently, this podcast is for you. Enjoy, and I’ll talk to you next time.

Ouça mais sobre used to

Leia mais sobre used to para passado

Key expressions

• What does (something) mean?
• I’m used to doing something

Glossary
Let’s get that straightened out = Vamos dar um jeito nisso

Estou achando que tenho aumentado a velocidade da fala nos últimos episódios. Que acham?

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Transcrição

Hi, you guys. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So today let’s take a look at a couple of expressions with the word SKY. You know, sky, that thing that looks blue from where we stand. We have to look up to see it and it is also a place, so to speak, that we think of as very high, very far away from where we are right now. So there’s a little expression that we use to communicate that… something is at a really high level. Of course, it has to make sense: we could be talking about prices, we could be talking about inflation, or the temperature when it’s really hot. We use the expression sky-high for that.

So what does “sky-high” mean? It means as high as the sky, and I think we can all agree that that’s really high. Here’s one example I found, from a tweet. It is a question, so just listen: “How many times has your anxiety, stress or worry reached sky-high levels?” What that person is asking is, how many times have you felt really intense anxiety, stress or worry; so intense that we could say that the levels of anxiety, stress or worry you felt were sky-high? In other words, as high as the sky. So you can see that this expression, sky-high, here works as an adjective. Listen again to the question: How many times has your anxiety, stress or worry reached sky-high levels?

Or let’s talk about inflation. Maybe younger listeners won’t remember but inflation in Brazil, in the 80′s, was out of control and prices were sky-high. No surprises there, right? Prices usually go sky-high when inflation is out of control. Here’s another example I got from the Internet… “Never get your hopes high because it would mean the disappointment would be sky-high.” So this person is advising others to not get their hopes high. Don’t be too hopeful, don’t expect things will go just the way you want them to, ’cause if you do that your disappointment will be sky-high.

Here’s what another person said: “I’ve been eating a lot of cake and sweets the past few months… I had my blood tested last week and my blood sugar went sky-high! What to do?” Well, I’d say… Cut down on the sugar, right? But that’s just me. Sometimes when people move to another city, their expenses go sky-high. Why? Well, because everything is more expensive in the new city: rent, groceries, utilities… So their expenses go sky-high. What are your examples? When did something like that happened to you? Maybe your emotions got to a sky-high level after something happened? Maybe your performance at work went sky-high after you started your new job? Let us know in the comments.

And now listen to this: There is no limit to what we could achieve or create. Sky’s the limit. “Sky’s the limit”, or “The sky’s the limit”, is a popular way of saying… what? That actually there is no limit. Of course, this term, or this expression comes up a lot when we’re talking about dreams, creativity, or what we can achieve in life, how far we can go, or prosperity, things like that. The sky’s is the limit. I have a feeling many listeners here will like this phrase. What do you think about that? Do you think there are real, actual limits to what a person can do? Sometimes we hear those unbelievable, incredible stories about people who achieved something that just seems impossible. It could be someone who was dirt poor as a child and went on to build an empire (I guess Silvio Santos would be an example of that if I’m not mistaken). Or it could be a person with some kind of physical disability who manages to climb the Himalayas. There are some incredible stories out there and every time we hear about one of them, it just reminds us that the sky’s the limit, right?

What are your stories? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• sky-high
• the sky’s the limit

Glossary
tweet = um post na plataforma Twitter

dirt poor = muito pobre, miserável

What to do? = O que fazer?

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Hello, there. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

How about we take a quick look at a couple of very simple expressions with the word ”book”? And I’ll go straight to the example so you get the meaning of the first expression. Let’s say you’re talking to your friend Leslie about this guy, Michael. Leslie is saying that Michael is eighteen years old and doesn’t want to go to college because he thinks working is more important than getting a formal education. Many people criticised his decision, but Leslie’s opinion on this matter is that someone who is willing to take on a job and work hard is an admirable person.

You have the opposite opinion, though: you think everyone who’s around Michael’s age should concentrate on studying, on getting an education. You think Michael is just looking for an excuse to not go to college. In your opinion, college is hard work and he’s trying to avoid it. Well, Leslie strongly disagrees. She says “Michael isn’t a lazy guy. He’s only eighteen and he’s already got a job. He’s a hard worker and very independent. That is a pretty great thing to do at his age in my book”.

Again: Leslie said “That is a pretty great thing to do in my book”. In my book… what does that mean? Is she an author, has she written books? Nope, not likely. That’s an expression which pretty much means “in my opinion, according to what I believe, according to my values”. That’s a great thing in my book means, in my opinion that’s a great thing. As I see it, that’s a great thing. So that’s a really good thing in my book.

Here are more examples I found on Internet forums: one guy said he went shopping for a guitar and found one that was really heavy. He then said that that was not a bad thing in his book, since he has a preference for heavy guitars. According to what he thinks, according to his views and to what he believes, heavy guitars are a good thing. Heavy guitars are not a bad thing in his book.

People also say “Not in my book” to communicate “Not in my opinion, not according to my views”. One example: I was reading a website that allows people to book hotels online. OK, this is another meaning for the word “book”. That means “make a reservation”. So after someone has had their stay in a hotel, they can go back to this website and leave a review. In other words, they can evaluate the hotel and write about what they thought was good and bad about their stay. One person said that the hotel advertised itself as “trendy”. What does trendy mean? When something’s trendy, that means it represents or displays or is built according to the latest fashion trends; it’s modern; it’s hip and so on.

Well, that person said that this hotel promoted itself as trendy, and then he said in his review “Trendy hotel? Not in my book”. So according to what he understands as trendy, hmm… that hotel is not trendy. Not in his book. He went on to explain: he said that the room was dusty, worn and there were lots of cobwebs on the curtains. Yeah, I guess that would not be trendy in my book either. What do you think?

So how about I ask you a few questions and you give me your answers saying something like “Yeah, that’s a good thing in my book” or  ”She’s a really brave girl in my book” or “Not in my book”… or something along those lines?

• Jake got rid of everything he owned. He sold his apartment, his car and gave away most of his possessions. Why? Because he decided to take a trip around the world carrying only a backpack. What do you think about that?
• Laura quit her old job, where she made a lot of money, and took a position with a smaller company for half her old salary. That’s right, she now makes only 50% of what she earned at the old job. Why did she do that? Because she felt unhappy and unfulfilled at the old company. The new job is less demanding and she’s enjoying it way more. What’s your opinion on Laura’s decision?
• Daryl used to drive to work every day. Last week he sold his car and bought a bicycle. He now cycles to work, and …. everywhere, really. The commute to work isn’t really appropriate for cyclists: it’s kinda dangerous, but Daryl doesn’t care. He loves riding his bike. What do you think?

Conheça mais expressões com BOOK nesse quiz

Key expressions

• Not in my book
• That’s ……… in my book

Glossary
getting a formal education = fazer faculdade ou outro curso de formação reconhecido, oficial

worn = usado, gasto

cobwebs = teias de aranha

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Hi, there. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today let’s focus on a couple of popular expressions that use legal terms. What do I mean by legal? Legal means, related to the legal system or to laws and regulations. One of the expressions has the word ‘verdict’. That’s v-e-r-d-i-c-t, verdict. The word itself means pretty much the same as veredito, in Portuguese. However, people ask “What’s the verdict?” a lot in everyday conversation when they want to know about a decision someone has made, or should have made, or their opinion on something…

Let me illustrate the use of this expression with examples I found on Twitter. A girl, let’s call her Jane, wrote this: Who’s tasted the new Lean95 Coconut flavor? What’s the verdict? Listen again: Jane wrote Who’s tasted the new Lean95 Coconut flavor? What’s the verdict? So Lean95 is a product  - I actually don’t what kind of product it is, but it doesn’t matter – it’s a product, and it comes in different flavors. So apparently there’s a new flavor, coconut. Jane wanted to know who had tasted the new flavor, and then she asked What’s the verdict? What do you think? If you have tasted the new coconut flavor, what’s your opinion? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Is it good, bad, so-so…? What’s the verdict?

Here’s another example from the search results on Twitter: North Herts College, which is in the UK, had this question in their timeline - What’s the verdict – how was 2012 for your business? They wanna know how your business did in 2012 (in case you own a business, of course); how well, or how badly it performed. Were you able to expand your business, or has it shrunk? Have you found new customers? How much did you spend versus the profit you made… In other words, what’s the verdict for 2012? How was 2012 for your business… What’s the verdict? One more before we move on: let’s say your friends were talking about spending the weekend at the beach, only they couldn’t decide yesterday where they wanted to go. You had to leave early, so you have no idea what’s been decided… if anything. Today you run into your friend Kevin, who was there yesterday, and you ask him “So what’s the verdict? Where are we going this weekend?” What have you guys decided? Have you guys come to a decision? Where are we going on the weekend? What’s the verdict?

Already… Here’s our second expression of today: The jury is still out. You know what a jury is: a group of people who have to judge and give their verdict on something. Here’s the expression again: “the jury’s still out”. You know when, during the process of a trial, the members of the jury go into a little room to discuss and make a decision about some legal matter? They haven’t come to a conclusion yet, they’re still deciding, right? They’re still in the room. That’s what “the jury’s still out” means, although when we use that expression we’re not talking about an actual jury. We’re just saying that something has not been decided yet; it has’t been determined; there’s no final answer yet: the jury’s still out.

Here’s an example from a Twitter post: this guy, let’s call him… John. John posted “Twitter is either a blessing in my life, or total disgrace. Jury is still out”. What does that mean? John said that Twitter may be one of two things: a very good thing in his life, a blessing; or total disgrace – which is really an awful thing. So apparently John can’t decide whether Twitter is good or bad; whether it’s helpful or just a time-waster. Maybe he just has no idea. And that’s why he writes “The jury’s still out”. The jury is still out on whether Twitter is a blessing or a disgrace.

What about you? Maybe the jury’s still out on where you’re going to spend New Year’s Eve! Is the new soapopera going to be a hit? Jury’s still out on that one. What are your examples? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• What’s the verdict?
• The jury’s still out (on something)

Glossary
…or has it shrunk? = …ou ele encolheu?

if anything = se é que algo (foi decidido)

whether = if (se)

“Already”… = “already” aqui é usado no lugar de “alright” (=OK), não porque signifique OK também, mas meio de brincadeira, pois começa com AL- assim como “alright”. É bem comum que seja usado informalmente no lugar de “alright” dessa maneira. Already quer dizer “já”, em geral.

an actual jury = um juri de verdade

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Hello, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today I’m focusing on the word own. O-w-n. When you own a car, the car belongs to you. It’s registered in your name; you can sell it if you want to. You probably bought it; you paid for it with your own money or maybe a relative… your father gave you the car. But it’s in your name now; you own it. Same thing with a house: you’re a home owner when the place where you live, be it a house or an apartment, belongs to you. If you look at all the documentation regarding the house, your name is up there in the field that says OWNER. You own the house; you’re a home owner. This is a very common term: home owner. In Portuguese I guess we’d say something like “Eu sou proprietário” or “Eu sou dono de alguma coisa”, depending on what we were talking about. Those are great translations for ‘I’m the owner’ and ‘I own something’. But we also say ‘Eu tenho isso, eu tenho aquilo’ a lot in Portuguese. Depending on what we’re referring to, saying that we own something is more common, and also more accurate, than ‘I have or I’ve got
something’.

You could certainly say “I’ve got a house in the beach”, for example, when you’re chatting with someone informally. If for some reason, however, you’d like to convey that you’re the owner of that thing; that it belongs to you… If, for whatever reason, it’s relevant to you to communicate that you are the owner, than use “I own it”. Maybe you’re chatting about residential properties in your area and it makes sense to say that you own a house in the neighborhood. Maybe you’re chatting with a dog breeder and it makes sense to say “I own six poodles”. Maybe… you just wanna show off: “I own three chains of restaurants and there are twenty restaurants in each chain. So, in total I own sixty restaurants.”

It’s not so usual to say “I own a pen” or “He owns three erasers”. We use ‘own’ more often when the thing we own is considered somewhat valuable. And this is an insteresting way to use “own” – when someone does extremely well at an interview, for example, we can say he or she owned the interview. Let’s say Jerry had an interview this morning. He’s back now and you ask him “So how did the interview go?” Jerry says “I owned it. My answers were spot on, the interviewer loved me”. So Jerry owned that interview; he killed it (that’s another way of saying he did extremely well). Let’s say your friend Jane did really well in her math test. She says “I did so well; I owned that test”. “He or she owned that room” is very common as well, and that’s when someone is able to socialize well with people in a party, for example, and entertain them, and everyone thinks that person is great, everyone wants to be around them, and so on.

Now on to the expression in the title of this podcast! “You screwed up” – have you heard that one? Not great to hear, but it happens… When someone screws up, that means that they made one or more mistakes; they went the wrong way about something; the results of something they did were awful, they did it the wrong way… you get the picture.

Of course, when someone screws up, one of the common reactions is to be quiet, or to disappear, to lie or to try and push the blame on someone else. I don’t mean to depress you, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve all seen that happen. Let’s say your coworker Todd screwed something up at work and you’re aware of it. You could tell him ”Come on, Todd. You screwed up; now own it. It’s for the best.” Todd is pretending nothing happened and you insist “Our boss is gonna find out sooner or later. Come on, be a man and own it. We all make mistakes and you should just own it so we can all move on past this”.
Own it! “Assuma!”. And that can also be used for the good stuff – you contributed to your company’s success in a significant way? Own it! Don’t be too shy about it; don’t be excessively humble. Own your contribution; own your success. And what about screw-ups? If you think you should just own it, just say “I screwed up; I’m sorry” or something like that. When you do that, you’re owning it. And, of course, you could always tell someone “You screwed up. Own it!”.

Now let’s hear your stories! Tell us about an occasion when you screwed up and you owned it. How did it go? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions
• to own something
• I owned that interview
• screw up
• Now own it!

Glossary
to convey = transmitir a mensagem, comunicar um determinado significado
a dog breeder = criador de cães
spot on = na mosca
you get the picture = você entendeu / dá pra você saber do que eu estou falando
it’s safe to say that = dá pra dizer seguramente que
so we can move on past is = para a gente poder deixar isso pra trás
screw-ups = pisadas de bola (de gravidades variáveis)

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Hey, everyone, what’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So this week I was listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts when one of the hosts brought up an interesting topic. He basically asked the other hosts if they thought our generation is different from the generations that came before us in that we watch movies at home, with our mobile devices nearby, and we don’t spend one hundred percent of the time focused on the movie. Can you relate? I know I can. If I’m home and watching some movie or TV show and I got my iPod near me, it won’t be long till I start looking stuff up. It won’t be long till I fire up  the browser and google something.

Think about your own behavior while watching a movie; especially when you’re home. Do you have a smartphone? Do you use it while you’re watching the movie? Do you look stuff up? Or are you a hundred percent focused on the film?

Here’s what one of the other hosts said; and I’ll paraphrase. He said that he and his family had a conversation about this on Thanksgiving and his uncle is of the opinion that when you watch a movie, you should do it like you’re in a theater. In other words, you should give a hundred percent of your attention to it. No iPad, no looking stuff up.

Honestly, nowadays I think that is almost impossible for me. When I’m at the movie theater, yes. I’m focused – if I think the movie’s interesting, that is. When I’m home, though… No way. First of all, if I think the movie is boring, I’ll fast forward through the boring part. Yep, it’s kinda difficult for me to sit through a whole movie. What about you?

So back to the podcast hosts: one other host said something that I could have said, “I think when you’re home it’s a lot easier to think “Who is that actor?” and pull it up while you’re watching the show.” Again: I think when you’re home it’s a lot easier to think “Who is that actor?” and pull it up while you’re watching the show. “Pull it up” – what does that mean? Here, it means something like, extract that information, get that information out of some… big pool of information. And what would be a big pool of information? The internet, of course.

Pull it up, pull something up… these are very common things to say when we’re talking about some something we searched on the internet, or some website we visited, or when someone tells you “You should check out this page about… socks I told you about” and you say “What’s the URL? Oh, socks.com, let me pull it up.” That means you gonna type the URL of the site on the browser window and hit ENTER. So now you’re pulling up socks.com. That guy from the podcast said that nowadays it’s very easy to pull up the name of an actor while you’re watching a film with that actor. Or maybe you’re a web developer who’s doing some work on a website, and when you get done you pull it up on Firefox or Chrome to see if it looks alright after all the changes you made.

So, tell me, which camp are you in? Are you always super focused through the end when watching a film, or are you the kind of person who’ll look stuff up if given the chance? You know which one I’m in – what about you? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• look stuff up
• pull (something) up

Glossary

in that = no sentido de que

fire up the browser = inicie o navegador

look stuff up = procurar coisa (no Google, num dicionário, num diretório)

paraphrase (something) = dizer (algo) não necessariamente usando as mesmas palavras, ou intencionalmente de um jeito diferente, para tornar mais fácil a compreensão, por exemplo.

sit through a whole movie = ficar sentada (e assistir) um filme inteiro

Which camp are you in? = De que lado você está? Com qual dos lados você concorda?

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Hi, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So, if you’ve been following the tips on the blog, you’ve probably seen my recent post on “I was told” and “He was asked” and etc. So I thought I’d do a podcast on that, ’cause there’s nothing like listening to a new structure to really get used to it. So this one goes to everyone who’s not that familiar with this kind of structure. So let’s get on to some examples with the verb ASK.

Let’s say your friend Michael took an exam this morning. It’s a tough exam and it’s the same you and all your friends are going to take next year. So you’re all, of course, very curious to know what the exam was like. Well, to your surprise, Michael says that the exam was easier than he expected. He says that the worst part were the security checks he had to go through before entering the exam room.

So you and your friends are really surprised to hear that, and Michael goes on to say “I was asked to leave my mobile at the door”. You think that’s reasonable. And then Michael says “I was asked to wait in a little waiting room next to the entrance while they searched my backpack”. Now that seems like a little too much. You say “What? You were asked to wait in another room while they searched your backpack?” You can’t believe your friend was asked to go to another room while his backpack was being searched.

OK, so notice that Michael said “I was asked to wait in another room”. Asked. Michael was asked to wait in another room. That means, someone asked him to wait in another room. Someone probably said “Sir, please wait in that room for a couple of minutes”. Who asked Michael to do that, to go wait in that room? I don’t know; maybe a security guard. That wasn’t really what Michael was trying to communicate; that wasn’t the point. He just wanted to say that someone asked him to wait in a room while his backpack was searched. An even better way to say that is, “He was asked to wait in a room while his backpack was searched”.

I was asked to do something, or he was asked to do this or that, or they were asked questions… That kind of structure works really well when the “asking” is something impersonal; it’s part of a standard procedure, or… just something maybe impersonal that you had to go through. Sometimes you just don’t want to mention who did the asking; for example: “I went to a party last Saturday where I was asked twice whether I was a reporter”. What does that mean? That means you went to a party, and you talked to people, and two people asked you “Are you a reporter?”. Or maybe the same person asked you the same question twice: Are you a reporter? So right now you’re telling… your mom about the party and you say “I was asked twice whether I was a reporter”. Can you see how the focus here is on the question being asked, and not on who asked it?

Can you think of any examples from your own life where you were asked to do things? Or, you were asked a strange question. Once, in college, I was asked if I was of Japanese descent. I kid you not! Tell us about a time when you were asked to do something really unexpected. Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• I was asked

Glossary

there’s nothing like ………. to………. = nada como ………. para…………

search a backpack = revistar uma mochila

who did the asking = quem fez a pergunta (o ato de perguntar)

whether I was a reporter = se eu era repórter

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Hello, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Are you familiar with the word “bother”? That’s b-o-t-h-e-r, bother. When you bother someone, you disturb them, basically. If you’re bothering someone, maybe you are irritating them, or causing them some kind of trouble, even. Or maybe you’re just… disturbing their peace a little. You could say “Something about this just bothers me”. There’s something about this whole situation that just bothers me. You might be talking about your new job – let’s say you just found out you have three bosses. Three. You now report to three different people. That’s right, you go to work every day, and you do your job, and then you have to talk to three different managers about your work, and not just once. All the time.

In the beginning you thought it sounded like a good idea, but after two weeks you feel a little… strange. Something about this arrangement bothers you. All three managers seem like good people, but the whole situation just bothers you. You’re used to having only one boss, reporting to only one person, and working for three different people just bothers you. So, in this case, when you say something about it bothers you, you mean that you don’t feel comfortable about it, you feel this is odd, it just bothers you that you have to report to three different people at work.

Now, when someone tells you “Don’t bother me!”, that’s a bit stronger. That means “Leave me alone, go away! You’re annoying me”. Quit bothering me, I’m trying to study.

Here’s my favorite meaning for “bother”, though… It’s when you use it like this: let’s say you’re helping a friend move. Let’s say you friend is moving house tomorrow and right now you’re lending him a hand – let’s say your friend’s name is Paul. So you’re lending Paul a hand and you’re helping him pack up his stuff. And then you open a drawer in Paul’s nightstand, and it’s full of papers. You turn to Paul and ask him “Should all these papers go in your backpack?” And Paul says “Don’t bother. Those are just old bills”.

What does that mean? Paul said “Don’t bother”. That means, it’s not necessary to do what you were thinking about doing. It is not worth the trouble, it’s not worth the effort. The effort you would make in order to put those papers in a box, or in Paul’s backpack? That would be way too much effort for the result you would get: just a pile of old bills in the new house… that are basically useless. So, why go through all the trouble of grabbing those bills, taking them out of the drawer and putting them somewhere else? Don’t bother, just leave them there. Don’t bother taking them out of the drawer, don’t even bother touching them. Not worth the trouble. And, just as a reminder, when we say that something is not worth the trouble, that thing is not necessarily a problem, nor are you necessarily going to get in trouble for doing it. Taking old bills with you to your new house is a perfectly OK thing to do, if you want to do it. But in this case? Paul thinks the bills are useless and that’s why he said “Don’t bother packing them. Just don’t bother”.

Here’s one more example: you signed up for French classes but you suddenly realize that classes start tomorrow and you haven’t bought the book yet. So you tell your friend Mary, who’s also a student at that school, that you’re going to call the reception desk at the school and ask if there’s an extra copy of the book that you could borrow for tomorrow’s class. So, again, you tell your friend Mary that you’re gonna call the reception desk. Mary, however, has been a student at this school for a couple of years, so she knows everything about the school. She glances at her watch and says “Don’t bother calling them. It’s five past four now… There’s no one at the desk. The receptionist leaves at four on the dot”.

So what’s Mary saying? Don’t bother calling the reception desk. It’s not worth the effort, because I know there’s no one there. It’s not necessary to dial the digits and wait, it’s going to be wasted effort, since the receptionist leaves at four on the dot. Don’t bother.

So, what are your examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

More examples with “don’t bother” and “not worth the trouble” in another episode

Key expressions

• something about this bothers me
• quit bothering me
• don’t bother

Glossary

you report to (someone) = você responde para (a pessoa que é seu superior no trabalho)

quit (bothering me) = para de (me encher)

lend (someone) a hand = dar uma mão a alguém

at four on the dot = às quatro em ponto

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Hi, all. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Let me read you parts of a little poem that’s floating around on the Internet about the so-called hardships of learning English:

We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,

But I give a boot… would a pair be beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

If the singular is this, and the plural is these,
Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be kese?

Then one may be that, and three be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.

So our English, I think you will agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

So this entire poem basically revolves around one thing: the exceptions to the rules, especially the rules of plural forms. And let’s not forget all the irregular verbs that were not even mentioned in this little poem. The past form of make isn’t maked; the past form of take isn’t taked, and we could go on.

Of course the poem is supposed to be humorous and not taken that seriously, but… any time someone states that English is difficult I feel compelled to say something about it. So let me just present a different point of view. I’m not denying all the exceptions to the rules, of course! I’m just saying that they’re not the reason English is hard to learn. In my experience, English is hard to learn for people who get very little exposure to the language – in other words, the majority of English students. Go read my tips on how to make progress with your fluency. That should get you off to a good start.

I just think it’s a little funny to consider English a particularly difficult language to learn when… we’re all fluent in Portuguese. And yes, I know, we all learned Portuguese at a time when our mental barriers were practically non-existent. But that just goes to show that nothing is really that hard when we’re truly open to it – not even a language that has structures such as the following ones: “Se a gente fosse estrangeiro…” and “A gente estava lá”. “Fosse” and “estava”: how do we say that in English? If we were foreigners… and We were there. We use the same word, “were”, for “fosse” and “estava”.

“Vocês estão cansados”; “Se vocês forem chamados…”; “No caso de vocês estarem cansados…”; and “Espero que vocês estejam confortáveis”. “Estão”, “forem”, “estarem” and “estejam”: that’s our Presente Simples, Futuro do Subjuntivo, Infinitivo Pessoal and Presente do Subjuntivo for you. Four different tenses, four different words in Portuguese, and they all become ARE in English. “You are tired”, “If you are called…”, “In case you are tired…” and “I hope you are confortable”.

There are more examples of “hard” words on both sides. I’m just saying I would think twice before claiming that English is a particularly hard language to learn. What are your examples of irregular words or verb forms that seem easier in one case than the other? Let us know in the comments and, before we wrap up – if you own a phone or a tablet that runs on Android, please go ahead and download the new Inglês Online app for Android. You’ll be able to download our podcasts right onto your gadget and then listen to the episodes even when you’re offline. This is still version 1; version 2 will probably be released next week with a few bug fixes… We’ve had hundreds of downloads in the last couple of days so just look up “inglesonline” in the search box of the Play Store and… drop me a line and let me know what you think, suggestions for future versions… Thanks! Talk to you next time.

Link direto para a app Inglês Online na Play Store

Glossary

get you off to a good start = fazer você ter um bom começo

“hard” = aspas são lidas como quote, unquote, hard

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Hi, all. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So today I thought I’d center the podcast around the word speak. The reason for that is, I had an e-mail exchange with my web developer this week and I ended up using a very common expression with that word. So here’s the backstory: I asked him to implement a new feature on the website, and he did. He sent me an e-mail saying he’d done what I asked and I was out in a mall when I got his email. I was using the mall’s wifi and the connection was a little iffy, so I took a quick look at the website and I had the impression that everything was working the way I wanted it to.

I shot him an email saying “Looks good… Good job” and he responded saying he was glad everything worked well. Well… The next day I was home and decided to take a better look and check the new feature. And as it turns out, it was NOT working so well. I checked the website pages in detail and I was able to find a few errors that I failed to spot the day before. So I fired up Gmail and sent my developer a message that started with “I spoke too soon. The new feature is actually not working”.

I guess that’s kind of intuitive. “I spoke too soon”. What did I mean by that? I meant what I had said the day before was a mistake. I didn’t have all the information I needed when I said that everything was working. I thought I knew what was going on; I thought the new feature had been perfecly implemented. Turns out I was wrong, so when I shot him that e-mail saying that everything was perfect? Now I know, I spoke too soon.

So I told him, “I spoke too soon”, and I explained that I had found a few errors. Can you think of an example of your own? You know when you say “This is great!” or the opposite “This sucks!” and then a few seconds later you get some new information and you realize you were completely mistaken? That’s when you can say “I spoke too soon”. Let us know in the comments. I can tell you that it’s not uncommon for me to say or think that phrase…

And here’s another one with SPEAK: “speak of the devil”. Have you ever heard that one? Imagine you’re with a friend at a bar and you guys are talking about a third friend… John. John isn’t at the bar right know. You don’t know where John is, but you and your friend are talking about John’s… victory in the latest table tennis championship. Your friend is really impressed by John’s table tennis skills, and you’re agreeing with her, when all of a sudden… who enters the bar? John himself. You’re facing the door so you see him and you say “Ha! Speak of the devil…”

What does that mean? Of course, it does not mean that John is the devil. It means that someone that was mentioned in a conversation all of a sudden appears, or enters the room. The person you guys were talking about suddenly shows up, and you say “Speak of the devil… There’s John”. I think everyone can relate to this. It’s a pretty common thing to happen, right? I can’t remember the last time this happened to me – you know, the last time I was talking about someone and that person suddenly showed up. Can you remember the last time it happened to you?

And here’s just one more to wrap things up: speak up! That means “Speak more loudly”. Please be louder! So when you’re speaking, especially in a classroom, or in front of an audience, someone may say “Please speak up”. If there’s no microphone, that is. If there is a microphone, people may ask you to “speak into the microphone”. That means, bring your mouth closer to the head of the microphone so that your voice is actually amplified.

That’s pretty common too, right? Sometimes you’re watching a lecture but the person giving the lecture is kind of… ignoring the microphone and someone might ask them to “Please, speak into the microphone”.

What are your examples for this episode? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• I spoke too soon
• speak of the devil
• speak up
• speak into the microphone

Glossary

I thought I’d (do something) = eu resolvi (fazer algo)

backstory = o que aconteceu antes disso que estou dizendo, o que levou a isso

iffy = incerta (nesse caso, instável)

Turns out I was wrong = acabou que eu estava errada

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Hello, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So there’s a group of words that I’ve written about before: I’m talking about mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. Ring any bells? These are not your regular possessive adjectives: this is my car, that’s her house, this is our dog… No, this is not what I’m talking about. I’m focusing today on the so-called possessive pronouns, those little words that are usually taught as a group in English classes, and that you do a couple of fill-in-blanks exercises and… that’s it. We can tell that it isn’t enough just by noticing that very few English learners employ them correctly in conversation or in writing.

OK, so just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, these are the possessive pronouns:

mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs

They are obviously used in ways that are different from the way we use my, your, her, our and etc. I’ve written a post about the most common ways we use possessive pronouns in English, so I suggest you take a look – here’s the link. Now, of course just reading about them once or twice isn’t gonna make much of a difference, so I thought I’d use today’s podcast to give you some audio on this topic. So I’m using that post as the basis, and this podcast is going to be all about those little words – to be more specific, and because we have limited time, I’m gonna concentrate on these three: yours, mine, and theirs.

Here’s the first one: imagine you’re at the school cafeteria with your best friend and you’ve both ordered a sandwich. The lady at the cafeteria hands you both your sandwich and your friend says “Hmmm my sandwich is bigger than yours!” What is he saying? He’s saying “My sandwich is bigger than your sandwich”. My sandwich is bigger that yours. “Yours” is the same as “your sandwich”.  ”Yours” may also be the same as “your car”, “your bicycle” and “your teacher”. Listen to these examples: “I parked my car just around the corner. Where did you park yours?” Where did you park your car? Where did you park yours?

“I bought my bicycle at Arnie’s bike shop. Where did you buy yours?” Where did you buy your bicycle – where did you buy yours? And how about this one: “Hey, I found this wallet in the restroom. Is it yours?” Is it your wallet? Is it yours?

And then the other person might say “Yep, it’s mine”. Yep, it’s my wallet. Mine means “my wallet”. I found this wallet. Is it yours? Yep, it’s mine. And let’s say you’re in class and Ms. Simpson, the teacher, is handing back exams she graded. You grab one and Ms. Simpson says “That one is Mary’s. Here’s yours” as she hands you your exam. So what happened? You took Mary’s exam by mistake, and Ms. Simpson said “That’s not your exam. That is Mary’s. Here’s yours”. Here’s your exam. Here’s yours.

Now let’s say you’re in a different class… Mr. Thomas is the teacher. He’s just handed back some homework to the students, but you didn’t get anything. Where’s yours? Where’s your graded homework, where’s yours? You ask Mr. Thomas, “Where’s mine?” Where’s my homework? Where’s mine?

Now picture this: you and your friend James are talking about things that belong to a group of people. Let’s say, it’s a family. You guys are talking about things that belong to this family. You tell your friend “See that house? It’s theirs”. That house belongs to them. It is their house. It is theirs. And then you say “That big truck parked right in front of the house… it’s theirs too.” It’s their truck; it’s theirs. The truck belongs to them; it’s theirs.

Let’s say your friends Mary and John own a house in the beach. You can’t just show up and stay there all the time. Why not? Because the house isn’t yours; it’s theirs. It is their house; it’s theirs. “Theirs” is the same as “their house”. It’s theirs.

So can you come up with a few examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• mine, his, hers, theirs

Glossary

(Do they) ring any bells? = reconhece? Te lembra alguma coisa?

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Hi, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So today I was watching an episode of an old sitcom when the lead character just said something that cracked me up. First things first: what does “cracked me up” mean? That means that what that character said made me laugh very hard. I was watching the sitcom, and all  of a sudden I was laughing out loud, all because of that one line the character said.

“It cracked me up” is a very common thing to say. You know that person, that friend you got… and whenever you’re around him or her you always end up laughing your head off? So that friend is someone who cracks you up. Listen again: he or she cracks you up. Why? Because your friend is really funny, and whenever you’re around them, they crack you up. Some jokes crack me up every time I hear them. Seriously, some things are so funny that no matter how many times you watch them, or hear them, you still laugh your head off. Chandler, a character from Friends, cracks me up. I’ve watched every Friends episode multiple times, but it doesn’t matter… Chandler cracks me up every time.

OK, on to the sitcom I was watching. It was an episode of Spin City, which started airing in 1996 and went on for six seasons. This is what the character said that cracked me up: “I’m not the club kinda guy. If I wanna shout in someone’s ear I’ll go visit my grandma”. So if you got what he said, great. If you didn’t get what he said, let’s break it down.

First thing he said was “I’m not the club kinda guy”. “Club” here means “nightclub”, a place where you go with your friends at night and there’s a lot of very loud music, and lots of people dancing… So when he says “I’m not the club kinda guy”, what he means is, he’s not into nightclubs. He doesn’t enjoy nightclubs. If someone tells you “I’m not the salad kinda guy”, what does it mean? It means this guy doesn’t like salad. Someone else might say “I’m not the book kinda guy”, which means he’s not into books. So “club”, “salad” and “book” become something like an adjective in these sentences. “I’m not the club kinda guy” means “I’m not the kind of guy that enjoys or goes to clubs”.

Alright, so after the character says he’s not into clubs, he says “If I wanna shout in someone’s ear I’ll go visit my grandma”. Ok, so anyone who has ever been to a nightclub can relate, right? You don’t really talk to other people when you’re in a nightclub, you have to shout and then that person will shout back to you. Actually carrying a conversation in a nightclub can be really annoying, so… if you enjoy going to clubs I’ll bet you’ve got some reason other than talking. Maybe you enjoy dancing, flirting, but you certainly wouldn’t go to a nightclub to have a long conversation with someone.

So there you have it – when the character said that, I could relate. I knew immediately what he was talking about, and that is why it cracked me up. By the way – that’s what “I can relate” means. I know exactly what you’re talking about, I get it, I’ve been there, I’ve had the same experience and I understand what you’re saying. I can relate. That’s how I felt when I heard him say that – I could relate. So I thought it was funny when he said that if he wanted to shout in someone’s ears, he would go visit his grandma. Why did he say that? Because his grandma is old and she probably can’t hear very well, so he has to shout to her, rather than talk to her.

So what are your examples? Who cracks you up? Can you relate to what this character said? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

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Key expressions

• to crack someone up
• I can relate
• the ……… kinda guy /person / gal (=girl)

Glossary

first things first = primeiro de tudo

laugh your head off = morrer de rir

kinda guy = kind of guy (tipo de cara)

let’s break it down = vamos por partes

he’s not into clubs = ele não gosta de nightclubs (balada em danceteria)

can relate = consegue entender o que ele quis dizer (por ter experiência própria nisso)

other than talking = que não seja falar/conversar

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Hello, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today I’m gonna talk abouta couple of idiomatic expressions with the word RUB. R-U-B, rub. I guess the most trivial meaning of rub… Probably one of the first meanings you’re gonna find in the dictionary is “to apply pressure and friction.” You know when you rub your friend’s shoulders? Or your boyfriend’s, girlfriend’s, your spouse’s shoulders? You rub their shoulders to help them relax, for example.

That’s not really the meaning we’re focusing on today, so let’s move right along and I’ll give you an example to illustrate the first expression. Imagine there’s a new guy at work. He started in your department a couple of weeks ago and at first he seemed like a really nice guy but after two or three days you started to feel a little annoyed by him. After a while you figure it’s something about the way he talks – you think he is being insincere to everyone.

So your friend Melissa says “Michael seems like a nice guy, don’t you think?” And you say “Hmmm, I don’t know. There’s something about him I don’t like”. And Melissa asks you “What is it?” You’re not even sure about the reasons yourself, so you say “He just rubs me the wrong way”. Again: He just rubs me the wrong way.

When someone rubs you the wrong way, you’re not very inclined to like them. Sometimes you know you don’t like them. You may not know exactly what the reasons are for that because… you haven’t given it much thought, but you know that they’re not your favorite person in the world. “He just rubs me the wrong way”. So when a person says that about someone else, they usually can’t be very specific about the reasons why they don’t like the other person. This is more generic in meaning than “I don’t like him because he stole my money”.

He rubs me the wrong way, or she rubs me the wrong way, is for… when you have a feeling about that person; something about them bugs you. Maybe it’s the way they talk, maybe it’s the way they act… They just rub you the wrong way.

And here’s another one with RUB: rub it in. The dictionary definition says that “to rub it in” means to make someone feel worse about something or to keep talking about something that makes that person feel embarrassed or upset.

Here’s an example: let’s say your friend Jane was supposed to make reservations for your friend Mark’s birthday dinner. Well, she screwed up. She forgot, she thought you were supposed to do it, then she remembered but it was too late… So you see Jane today and you say “Well Jane, I’ll never ask you to take care of reservations again…” And then on Saturday when you and Jane meet with some other friends, you bring it up again: “Don’t ask Jane to make reservations… She’ll screw it up” Now Jane is upset and she says “Hey, I know I screwed up but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in”. You don’t have to keep talking about this thing that makes me feel bad; you don’t have to keep reminding me of my screw-up. Stop rubbing it in! One way to say this in Brazil is “Não precisa ficar esfregando na minha cara”.

Here’s another situation where people might say that – let’s say your friend had the opportunity to meet a famous actor and now she wants to rub it in on her friends. She keeps bringing it up in any way she can. You tell her “Ok, quit rubbing it in”. You don’t need to remind us that you talked to him for an hour, and we didn’t! Stop rubbing it in.

And people will often say this in an ironic way, when someone talks about some experience they had, and it sucked. For example, your friend Joe tells you that this weekend he’ll have to help his boss clean up the storage room at the company he works for. You say “Oh, rub it in!” You’re obviously kidding… you don’t feel bad because you envy your friend or anything like that. If anything, you might be relieved you’re not the one who’ll have to spend the weekend cleaning up a dusty old room. So you joke; when your friend says that’s how he’s gonna spend the weekend you say “Oh, rub it in!”.

C’mon, any examples? Let us know in the comments and I’ll talk to you next time.

Nota: o “rub it in” usado em sentido irônico, no último parágrafo, seria como dizer “Ai, que inveja” em tom de brincadeira.

Key expressions

• (someone) rubs me the wrong way
• rub it in

Glossary

you haven’t given it much thought = você não pensou muito sobre isso

she was supposed to (do something) = era pra ela (fazer alguma coisa)

screwed up = fez tudo errado

if anything = se bobear

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Hi, everyone. How are you? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So a couple of weeks ago I got off a plane at Guarulhos airport, near São Paulo. For those of you who don’t know, there’s a bus called Airport Service that will take you from the airport into the city (the city of São Paulo) for… thirty something reais. I’m not promoting this bus service and, for the record, I still think it’s expensive, but it sure beats the hundred reais or so you’ll pay to cab it to São Paulo.

Anyway, I got off the plane, went through Customs for the passport check and picked up my two bags at the baggage claim area. Once I got out of the building, I headed straight to the bus ticket office. It was around 11 in the morning, and I was anxious to hop on the bus and get home. Then I heard the guy in front of me ask the sales assistant when the next bus was leaving. “In one hour and thirty minutes”, she said. Oh, oh… one hour and thirty minutes? The guy thanked the woman and turned around to leave the office. I did the same thing… I wasn’t about to stay there for ninety minutes waiting for a bus.

Then it occurred to me that that guy and I were standing in the same line, which meant he wanted to buy a ticket for a bus that would pass through my neighborhood. So if he and I were headed in the same direction, why not share a cab? I tapped the guy on the shoulder and asked him if he was going in the general direction I was going. He said he was, and then I asked him if he would like to share a cab. He immediately agreed, and we walked to the little cab booth in order to pay for the fare in advance.

So we took care of that, and then got into the line of passengers who were waiting for a cab. Not two minutes had passed before we were on our way home. We began to chat and I found out this guy was a publisher from Espírito Santo and he was in São Paulo to take care of some business. He was actually just starting out in the publishing business and he said he’d been keeping an eye out for work that would be a good fit for his publishing company.

So after we dropped him off, I asked the cab driver if it was a common thing for people to share a cab from the airport into São Paulo. I was totally expe cting the driver to say ‘yes’. I mean, the cab fare from Cumbica to São Paulo is over a hundred reais… Come on! That’s more expensive then some airfares for local travel inside Brazil. So I was surprised when the cab driver said “No, it’s not common at all for strangers to share cabs.” I asked him why he thought that was the case and he said that people were suspicious and scared, and they’d rather pay full fare than share the cab with a stranger.

When I heard that, I remembered something that happened in Rio de Janeiro not too long ago. I was leaving an event and I couldn’t get a cab… There were tons of people competing for a cab and even if you called a company on the phone it was no guarantee you’d get one. Finally I spotted a girl nearby hailing a cab, and when she was about to get in I asked her where she was headed to. It turns out she was going somewhere not too far from my final destination, and so I asked her if we could share. She kinda nodded and I got in the cab right behind her.  After five minutes in the cab, the girl looked at me and said “So… what is it that you wanted to to? Are you getting a free ride here?” And then it dawned on me that the girl had no idea why I had asked her to get in the cab. I explained to her that I had been trying to hail a cab for a while without luck, and I thought that since she and I were heading in the same direction we could share the fare. Her expression changed when she understood and she let out a sigh of relief. I apologized to her for not making it clear that I wanted to actually share the cost of the cab and she said it was OK.

So… what is your opinion on this subject? Would you share a cab with a stranger in order to split the cost? Would you be a little suspicious or even scared if someone approached you and asked to share the ride? Let us know in the comments, and I’ll talk to you next time.

Glossary

thirty something reais = trinta reais e pouco

it sure beats = com certeza é melhor que

cab it to (some place) = ir de táxi até (algum lugar)

hop on = subir (no ônibus, no trem), entrar (no ônibus, no carro, na moto)

keeping an eye out for = de olho em

be a good fit for = se encaixar bem

where she was headed to = pra onde ela estava indo

she kinda nodded = ela fez meio que sim com a cabeça

hail a cab = chamar um taxi fazendo sinal (= flag a taxi)

it dawned on me = eu percebi, eu vi que

a sigh of relief = um suspiro de alívio

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Hey, everybody. How have you guys been? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today we’re tackling a couple more expressions with lose. When someone tells you to not worry about something they may say Don’t lose any sleep over it. That’s easy to understand, right? Don’t lose any sleep over it. Example: your wife tells you that your kid Timmy has been getting in trouble in school and today he came home with a note. His teacher, Ms. Johnson, says Timmy pulled Mary’s hair and Mary started to cry. Your wife is kinda worried about it, but you tell her “This isn’t a big deal. Remember a while back when Mary pushed Timmy and Ms. Johnson called us? Even we didn’t think it was a big deal. I think Ms. Johnson is overreacting again and, frankly, I’m not gonna lose any sleep over this. Unless Mary’s parents give us a call… then it’s a different story.”

So what did you just say? You just told your wife not to worry. You just told her you were not going to lose any sleep over it. This is a very common and useful idiomatic expression when you want to express that you don’t think something is that big of a deal, when you don’t think something is that serious. You may say “Hey, this isn’t a big deal and I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”. And you will also notice that you frequently hear people say this in the negative form, to communicate they aren’t gonna worry much about something. It’s not that common to hear people say “Oh, I’m gonna lose sleep over this problem”, but you might hear someone say “I might lose some sleep over this” or “This is gonna make me lose some sleep”.

So if someone tells you “They said schools are raising tuitions again next year”… You hear that and figure there’s a lot that can happen before the end of the year. So you tell your friend “Hmm… we’ll see. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over that.” Another friend says “I’ve heard it on the news that the so-called potable water we drink is actually full of nasty bacteria”. You look at your friend and say “Yeah, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. We’ve been drinking this water for a long time and… we’re fine.” And yet another friend says “Some South-American civilization predicted the world would end in 2012″. You ask your friend “Did they give the exact date?”. Your friend doesn’t know, so you say “I’m not losing any sleep over that. With any luck, if that really happens I’ll be asleep and won’t even know the world has ended”.

So can you think of anything someone’s told you recently, and they thought you would be super worried about it, and your reaction was more along the lines of “I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”?

And here’s another thing people say a lot: someone is a ‘sore loser’ when they have lost… some kind of competition, let’s say, and they keep saying that it wasn’t fair, and that they should have won, and that the person who won did something wrong… Some people call that “whining”. Whining means complaining about something in kind of an annoying way. So a sore loser won’t accept that they lost the competition and they’ll get mad, or pouty, or they’ll whine… that’s a sore loser. And by the way, the word ‘sore’ is frequently used to mean that some part of your body is painful to the touch, or just plain hurting. For example, you know when your throat kinda hurts when you’re about to get a cold? You have a sore throat. You know when you stub your toe and then your toe’s hurting for the next few days? Your toe is sore; you’ve got a sore toe. Another one: when you go back to exercising after a long time without exercise, you can expect your muscles to be sore for a few days. And just a pronunciation tip here: I just said ‘muscles’: m-u-s-c-l-e-s, and we say muscles.

So once again, when someone’s a sore loser they have a hard time dealing with the fact that they lost something. Maybe they were in the running for a promotion and the other person got promoted. They can’t accept it, although their boss explained the criteria and it was a fair process. Maybe it was a competition and they lost fair and square but they keep whining that this isn’t fair and the winner is a jerk, and so on.

So do you know any sore losers? Have you ever been a sore loser? Fess up! Tell us your stories and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• not gonna lose any sleep over
• a sore loser
• sore throat, sore toe

Glossary

Today we’re tackling… = Hoje vamos ver/lidar com…

came home with a note (from school) = veio com aviso da professora

Even we didn’t think… = Nem a gente achou…

unless = a menos que

was more along the lines of = foi mais do tipo

pouty = qualidade de quem faz bico, manha

just plain hurting = simplesmente doendo

when you stub your toe = quando você bate o dedo do pé em algum lugar

fair and square = de maneira justa e honesta

fess up = admita (alguma coisa não muito boa)

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Hello! How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today I’m going to talk about the word lose. Remember? Lose? That’s what you may use when you can’t find your keys. “I’ve lost my keys”. So you may remember that lost is the past tense and also the past participle of the verb lose. So I’m gonna talk about a couple of expressions and I’m gonna use lose and lost in the examples.

So picture this: imagine someone who has been under a lot of stress lately. Let’s say it’s your boss. He’s lost two great employees recently; he’s going through a divorce; his kid has been getting in trouble in school; and to top it off some big clients have been canceling orders. The atmosphere in your department is pretty tense… you can tell your boss is getting more irritated and impatient by the minute and you’re not sure how much longer he’s gonna be able to keep it together.

Well, not much longer as it turns out. It’s 3PM now and you just stepped out of a meeting with your boss and the VP of Finance, a woman named, let’s say, Tina. Tina came with some bad news: she said there are going to be budget cuts that are going to especially affect the advertising budget. That’s when your boss lost it. He was counting on the advertising budget. He was planning on hiring a new ad agency to try and get some big new clients. So when Tina gave him the news about the budget cuts, he just lost it.

Your boss lost it. What does that mean? That means he lost control of his emotions; he lost his temper, he got really, really angry. He lost it. His face turned red and he raised his voice as he said “So tell me, how am I supposed to recover sales without decent advertising! There’s only so much that can be done with no advertising budget! Who do you think I am, a magician? Am I supposed to perform a miracle? Should I ask my staff to chip in so we can hire a stupid ad agency?” And then your boss stormed out of the room. Your boss completely lost it when Tina gave him the news of the budget cuts.

Have you ever lost it? In public? How often do you lose it? Hopefully not that often ’cause that might make your life a bit hard… And by the way, we say “he lost it”, “she lost it”, also to communicate that that person simply lost control of their emotions… it doens’t mean necessarily that that person became very angry; it could be that he or she became so moved by something they were witnessing that they started to cry. That person might say “My friend was telling me about everything he went through. I was so touched I just lost it and started crying.” I just lost it and started to cry… what does that mean? I lost control of my emotions; I couldn’t control myself any longer so I started to cry. I lost it.

Did you notice I used the expression “lost his temper” about a minute ago? I said that “your boss lost his temper”. That’s another very common expression with lose. Many of you may already be familiar with it. When we say someone lost their temper we’re just saying this person got really angry, usually at someone else. Do you know people who lose their temper often?

And here’s another one with lose just to wrap things up. Gamers will immediately get what I’m saying here. As will compulsive readers. You know when you’re occupied in some activity and you’re so into it that you don’t realize hours have gone by and it’s already midnight and you’re still playing that videogame, or reading that book, or doing whatever? You’ve lost track of time. You’re so entertained, you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you lost track of time. Well, that is one big reason why people lose track of time – they’re very entertained by something; a book, a game and so on. Or they’re very focused on an activity: something at work, or something they’re building, a puzzle they’re trying to solve, and the list goes on.

What makes you lose track of time? Reading sometimes does that to me. When I’m reading an interesting book I often lose track of time and before I know it, hours have gone by and I’m still reading the book. So tell us your stories and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• he lost it
• she lost her temper
• lose track of time

Glossary

someone who’s been under a lot of stress = alguém que tenha estado muito estressado

to top it off = ainda por cima

you can tell you boss is… = dá pra ver que seu chefe está…

keep it together = manter-se calmo, sob controle

chip in = contribuir (com dinheiro); fazer uma vaquinha (quando é um grupo)

stormed out of the room = saiu da sala rápido / bravo

I was so touched = eu fiquei tão emocionado/a

As will… = Assim como (essas pessoas vão também…)

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Hey, all. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Let’s focus today on a couple of idiomatic expressions with the word black. A very simple word, right? One that even beginners learn very fast. Actually, even people who have never studied English sometimes know this word. There are several expressions with the word black in them and today we take a look at a few of them.

Have you ever passed out in public? To pass out means to become unconscious. And we can also say “black out”. As in, “Yesterday I blacked out during dance class”. That means, I lost consciousness; all of a sudden, pouf! I was unconscious. Has that ever happened to you? Not to me, but…  almost. It almost happened once during an exercise class. I think I didn’t eat much before the class, and, you know, exercising on an empty stomach is not a good idea… I started to feel weaker and weaker, but then I just sat on a chair, and then I felt better. I didn’t black out or anything.

People also use “black out” to mean that they forgot everything related to a particular event. For example, some war veterans say they blacked out what happened on a particular day, or a battle. That means they don’t remember, they don’t have any recollection of what happened that day.

Some people use “blacking out” as an excuse… For example, I found a post on some forum by a woman who said she “blacked out during lunch”. She didn’t pass out during lunch or anything. She said she was driving home, ready to make herself a healthy meal for lunch, when all of a sudden she finds herself at the parking lot of a fast-food chain, eating a big hamburger with a side of fries. And then she said I blacked out. I have no idea how this happened. It was very strange.

She was joking, of course. On her way home, she felt like stopping by the fast food place and having a burger and fries instead of the healthy meal she’d been planning to cook. So she joked that she had blacked out during lunch, she had no idea how she ended up at the fast food place, she couldn’t remember what happened.

See, this is different from simply not remembering something because it happened a long time ago. Sometimes you don’t remember exactly how something happened just because you were not paying attention, or because it’s been a long time. In the case of the war veteran, he can’t remember anything because it was probably a very traumatic experience so he blacked it out.

In the case of this woman – the woman who had burger and fries – she’s saying that for reasons she doesn’t understand, she blacked out when she was driving home, and had fast food. She has no idea what happened, because she blacked out. That way, it looks like it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t eat the healthy meal. Of course, “she blacked out” here doesn’t mean she passed out – after all, she managed to drive to the fast food place. It just means that she can’t remember what happened between the car and the parking lot, when she found herself eating burger and fries.

And have you ever blacked out, or passed out, in public? By the way, where were you during the last “blackout”? I was having coffee in a cafe. Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• black out ( = pass out)
• black out ( = have no recollection)

Glossary

when she found herself eating = quando ela se viu comendo

during the last blackout = durante o último apagão

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Hi, all. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So the other day we had a podcast about a couple of terms that use the word ‘once‘. Remember? If you’re not all caught up with the podcasts just visit the archives on the blog and get all the episodes and take a listen! Today, let’s move on to the word ‘twice’, which is in a few really good expressions as well.

So, once means ‘one time’, ‘in one occasion’, and twice means ‘two times’, ‘in two occasions’. So here’s our title expression today: in Portuguese we say “Pensa melhor” or “Você deveria pensar melhor”. In English, we DON’T say “Think better” or “You should think better“, no. What we actually say is You should think twice before doing what you’re thinking about doing. You’d better think twice; you should think twice.

A quick search on Google will turn up several good examples: “Why you should think twice before refinancing”. Refinancing means, recalculating your debt, or the amount of money you owe for your house, so that you’ll be able to make smaller payments… or something like that. More examples: “You should think twice before quitting your job”. “You should think twice before you google your date”. Your date would be the person you’re going out with. So you should think twice before you google your date. That means, think twice before you search Google for information on your date. Here’s the title of an article: “Why you should think twice before referring a friend for a job”.

What’s your advice? What would you say to a friend? Maybe “You should think twice before accepting this job offer”. You should think twice before moving to the other side of the country”. “You should think twice before going to a party the night before your final exam”. “You should think twice before spending your savings on a car”.

And the second expression with twice that I’d like to present today is actually a proverb, and it’s kind of a long one. Ready? OK. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What does that mean? To fool someone means to trick that person, to mislead them, to be dishonest with them, to deceive them. So, if someone fools you once, shame on him or shame on her, the person who fooled you. Shame on her, shame on him? What does that mean? Shame on her! That’s like saying, what a bad thing, what an ugly thing she did! What this person did was awful, bad or embarrassing. Shame on her!

So if you fool me once, shame on you. However, if you fool me twice… shame on me. That means, it’s kind of my responsibility, or my fault, if I let myself be fooled by you again. You tricked me once, and then you went ahead and tricked me again. Shame on me. I should have been alert, I should have been more vigilant so that Iwould not be fooled by you again!

Think about your life -think about someone who tried to take advantage of you in some way, and the first time that happened, it took you a while to realize what was going on. But you did realize it after a while, and then… when that person tried to pull that same trick on you again, they failed because you saw it coming, and you said “No”, or did whatever you needed to do to prevent them from taking advantage of you.

Now, if that ever happens to you again, you can think to yourself Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Any examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• think twice
• Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me

Glossary

your savings = o dinheiro que você guardou, economizou

pull that same trick on you = tentar dar uma de esperto de novo

you saw it coming = você percebeu o que estava acontecendo; o que estava para vir

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Hello, everybody. How’re you doing? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today we focus on a little word: once. It’s a short one, but very useful and always present in conversations. Once means one time. Here are a few examples of how we use ‘once’: “Have you ever had sushi?” someone asks. The answer: “Yes, once. I’ve had sushi once”. Have you seen this movie? Yes, once… but it was a long time ago.

And here’s the first thing you’ll hear a lot: “once in a blue moon”. Once in a blue moon means rarely. So if something happens once in a blue moon, that means it rarely happens. For example, maybe you have a childhood friend that you talk to once in a blue moon. That means you guys rarely get in touch and chat. Or maybe you really dislike a certain type of food but your husband or wife loves it, so once in a blue moon you guys will go to a restaurant that serves that food so your spouse can have it. Or here’s another one: can you cook? Maybe you’re not a talented cook at all (like me) but once in a blue moon you’ll try your hand at putting something together in the kitchen.

And here’s another very common term: ‘once in a lifetime’. People use it a lot to describe something that isn’t likely to happen again in your lifetime. For example, let’s say you receive a job offer from a top company in your field. Not just that, but the salary is twice as much what you’re making right now and the benefits are unbelievable. The only downside is, you’d have to move to the other side of the country.

Your friend Mark thinks you’d be crazy to pass this up. You’re torn: on the one hand, it is an amazing opportunity with an incredible company. On the other hand, your current job may not be spectacular but it pays the bills and you enjoy living where you live. Mark says “Dude, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Tell them you’re moving there yesterday.”

Mark said “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. Notice how he’s using this expression as an adjective. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You’ll hear this a lot in conversations, movies, TV shows, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And, of course, no one really knows for sure whether you’ll have a second opportunity like that in your life again, but people say that to express that it’s just an incredible offer, or event, invitation, etc.

So maybe you teach French at a language school and one day a talent scout hears you just when you’re singing a French song, and he thinks you have incredible talent and wants you to sign a deal with a major record label. Everyone around you says that an opportunity like this doesn’t come by often. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What to do? Well, that’s up to you, of course, but people think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Here’s another way to say that: an opportunity like that only comes along once in a lifetime, or it only comes around once in a lifetime.

So tell us: can you remember a great opportunity you had, or maybe someone close to you, that is the kind of thing that only comes along once in a lifetime? What about things you do once in a blue moon? Any examples? Let us know in the comments. Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• once in a blue moon
• three is a crowd

Glossary

once in a blue moon you’ll try your hand at (something) = muito raramente você tenta (fazer algo)

try your hand at putting something together in the kitchen = tenta preparar alguma coisa na cozinha

pass this up = não aproveitar essa oportunidade/convite

you’re torn = você está dividido, não sabe o que fazer

a talent scout = um descobridor de talentos

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Hi, everyone. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Last episode I gave you two idioms with the word “two”, and this episode we take a look at expressions with numbers five and nine. So, what would you do if someone said to you “Give me five!”? Well, after you’ve listened to this podcast, you’ll know what to do. Just slap your open hand against their hand – which will be raised and waiting for the slap.

That gesture, with the hands raised and the slap, is called a high-five. Americans love to high-five each other when they’re celebrating something, even something small, so if you’re around Americans and one of them says to you Gimme (=give me) five, just raise your hand and slap theirs. That’s all their asking!

Here’s another one with “five”: Let’s take five. Let’s take five is short for ‘Let’s take five minutes off’. You know when someone says “I’m taking the day off”, meaning they’re not working that day? So when someone says  Let’s take five, that means “Let’s take five minutes off”. Let’s take a short break. Let’s take a break that lasts approximately five minutes. Let’s take five.

So when would it be usual for someone to say that? When, for example, you’re at some project meeting working on something with your team, and you guys have been working for three hours already, and the team leader decides it’s time for a break. He or she says Let’s take five. Or let’s say you’re in ballet practice right now, and you and other dancers have been working hard the whole afternoon. You’ve been working so hard that the ballet teacher looks at you and says John, good job. Great legwork today. So the teacher decides it’s time for a break and says to the class Let’s take five, everyone.

And I also wanted to throw in a very popular set phrase that has the words nine and ten in it. When we say that something will happen nine times out of ten, that means that thing will almost always happen; that is usually what will happen. Example: Nine times out of ten Brazilians will eat rice and beans in a meal. Maybe I’m exaggerating? I don’t know. Do you eat rice and beans almost every day? Another example: a computer technician explains that even unexperienced computer users can solve most problems on their own. He says “Nine times out of ten, you can fix the problem yourself”.

Here are my own examples: when I go to a café, nine times out of ten I’ll order a café mocha, which is coffee, milk and chocolate syrup. When I’m home for dinner, nine times out of ten I’ll cook my own meals. That means that I’ll almost always order café mocha, and almost always cook my own meals when I’m home.

Also, notice how I said “Nine times out of ten I WILL cook my meals”, although I’m talking about a habit. That’s a topic for a future podcast or English tip.  So what are your examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• Gimme (give me) five
• Let’s take five
• nine times out of ten

Glossary

legwork = “trabalho com as pernas”, o conjunto de movimentos feito com as pernas numa coreografia

wanted to throw in = queria acrescentar, colocar também

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Hi, everyone. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Let’s take a look today at a few idiomatic expressions that have a number in them. An example? Our first idiom of today is “put two and two together”. That just means that you realize or figure something out because you have some information available which… helped you in figuring that thing out!

Let me give you an example that’ll make things clearer. You’re on the phone now telling someone about how you were at your friend Alice’s last night and then she felt sick. She said she was about to throw up, so you told her to stay put while you ran to the bathroom to get some toilet paper. While you’re getting the paper you glance at the trash can and see a used pregnancy test in it. That’s when you put two and two together: your friend Alice is pregnant.

So, first, Alice feels sick, which is a common indicator of pregnancy (although feeling sick doesn’t necessarily mean the woman is pregnant, of course). Then, you see a used pregnancy test in the trash. You put two and two together, that is, you realize from all the pieces of evidence you got, that Alice is pregnant.

Here’s another example: your friend Mary had told you she had broken up with Michael. You were happy for her because you think Michael is bad news… He cheated on his previous girlfriend, and there are a couple of people who say he owes them a lot of money. So you drop by Mary’s place and, when you guys are on your way to the kitchen to grab a beer you spot Michael’s baseball cap on a chair. You know it’s Michael’s cap because it’s the only purple hat you’ve ever seen. You think to yourself, maybe Michael left it here when they broke up and Mary just doesn’t want to contact him to return the cap.

You guys start talking though and you tell Mary you’d like to see a great movie that has just been released. Mary says she’s busy every night this week. You think that’s weird. You’d think that, now that she’s not seeing anyone, she’d have a lot more free time! But no, she’s busy, she says. By now you think something’s going on that she’s not telling you, but you’re not sure yet.

So Mary grabs her purse because she wants to show you some new pictures she’s taken and she accidentally drops her cell phone. It lands right next your left foot and so you pick it up, and that’s when you see that there was a 15-minute long phone call from Michael just this morning. So you finally put two and two together and realize that Mary and Michael are still dating.

So, again: you thought Mary and Michael were broken up, right? But then first you spotted his baseball cap in Mary’s place; then she said she was busy all week and, finally, you saw the call log on her phone, which showed a long phone call from Michael just this morning. So you finally put two and two together: Mary and Michael are still seeing each other.

You confront Mary, and she confirms: they’re still together. She says “Actually, we’re going to see that movie that you wanted to see. Wanna come with?” You say “Thanks. You know, three is a crowd”.

And that brings us right to our next idiom with numbers. This is the entire expression: two is company, three is a crowd.  People usually shorten that expression to just “three is a crowd”. It’s common for someone to say that when they’re declining an invitation to do something that involves just three people: the person being invited, plus a couple. Just like you said to your friend Mary: Thanks, but three is a crowd. What does that mean? That means that you don’t want to hang out with just a couple because you’re gonna feel like you shouldn’t be there.

Or sometimes people say that because they want to be alone with someone, so they let you know that. You say to your friend Tom “Hey, you and Lisa are going to the mall later? Think I’m gonna join you. I need to get some new glasses and…” Tom interrupts you and says “Hey, go on your own. Three is a crowd” and you get the message, of course: Tom wants to be alone with Lisa.

So what are your examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• put two and two together
• Two is company, three is a crowd

Glossary

you were at your friend Alice’s = você estava na casa da sua amiga Alice

stay put = não sair do lugar

(someone) is bad news = (alguém) não é coisa boa

you spot = você vê, você localiza

you’d think = Dá a impressão que / A impressão que você tem é que

it lands = ele aterrissa, ele vem parar

…come with? = …come with us?

Ah, se eu tivesse feito isso (em algum ponto do passado)…

Queria ter feito tal coisa…

Para ver e ouvir podcasts de semanas anteriores, clique em Podcast Inglesonline na barra lateral. Você pode também assinar o feed do podcast ou encontrá-lo no iTunes (veja o menuzinho ali ao lado).

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Hi, everyone. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today we’re going to talk about a more advanced structure. It’s related to the third conditional of English – we’ve had a podcast about that before. Are you familiar with it? First things first. Remember last episode when I gave examples of how to say stuff like “I wish I worked for company ABC” and “I wish I had a dog”? So, when you say things like that, you’re wishing your present situation were different, right? It’s like this: right now you work for company XYZ, but you wish you worked for company ABC. If only I worked for company ABC… Remember that example? Right now you do not have a dog, but you wish you had one.

So today we have a different topic. We’re going to talk about a structure that expresses regret over some action in the past, not in the present. What does that mean? That means you regret something you did, or didn’t do, in the past. Or, it means that you wish you had done something – or the opposite, that you had not done something, in the past. That’s the structure right there – I wish I had done this or that at some point in the past.

Whereas in last episode we used the simple past tense, in this episode we need the participle of those verbs. Want an example? The simple past form of TAKE is TOOK; but the participle of TAKE is TAKEN. So if we were to give an example of a present wish, using last episode’s structure, we could say “Oh, if only I took French lessons with Jacques… I would be able to understand what this French woman is saying right now”. What does that mean? “Ai, se eu fizesse aula de francês com o Jacques” If only I took French lessons with Jacques, I would be able to get what this lady is saying.

Now listen to this: “If only I had taken French lessons when I was a child… I think I would be able to watch all these French movies without subtitles. I am regretting the fact that I didn’t take French lessons when I was a child. I wish I had taken French lessons when I was a child!

So here’s the general structure:

If only I had (done or not done something), something else (would have happened)

or

I wish I had (done or not done something), and then something else (would have happened)

Here’s the example again: If only I had taken French lessons when I was a child, I’d be able to watch these movies without subtitles. Using this structure, you can express all kinds of regrets about actions in the past. Fun, huh? For example, your friend bought some cheap t-shirts a while ago. Only now the guy who made the t-shirts is super famous and he’s giving interviews everywhere, and his t-shirts now cost a fortune! You like the t-shirts, but you can’t afford them – they’re really expensive. So here’s one thing you can say: “I wish I’d bought one when it was still cheap”.

Again: I wish I’d bought one when it was still cheap. I wish I had bought one when it was still cheap. I’d bought means I had bought. Oh, if only I had bought a t-shirt from this guy when it was still cheap! So what  do you regret? You regret not buying a t-shirt back when it was still cheap. You think “I wish I’d bought one while it was still cheap”.

What are some examples of things people wish they had done, or hadn’t done, in the past? Maybe you wish you had learned how to dance when you were a kid ’cause now you think it’s impossible. Maybe you have this thought once in a while: “If only I had learned how to cook while I had the chance… I’d be able to make my own meals without spending a fortune in restaurants.” Or “I wish I’d gotten an autograph from Julia Roberts when I saw her at that restaurant the other day”.

Maybe you wish you had read more books when you were youger. Or maybe you wish you had exercised more when you were growing up. You might say something like “If only I had read more books when I was youger” and “I wish I had exercised more when I was growing up”.

So what are your examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• I wish I had done…
• If only I had done…

Glossary

regret = se arrepender

whereas = enquanto que

back when = quando (para algum ponto no passado; back funciona como uma ênfase)

A estrutura geral em inglês é essa:

I wish I [past form of a verb] [some complement]  ou  If only I [past form of a verb] [some complement]

Para ver e ouvir podcasts de semanas anteriores, clique em Podcast Inglesonline na barra lateral. Você pode também assinar o feed do podcast ou encontrá-lo no iTunes (veja o menuzinho ali ao lado)

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Hello, everybody. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

How about we recap how to use a certain structure that incredibly common in English conversation? It involves what we know as the past tense, although in Portuguese we sometimes translate it to a Subjunctive tense. In case that’s all Greek to you, I’m talking about something like this: “I wish I had a dog”. How often do you say something like that? Here’s another one: “Oh, if only I had a dog”… These two examples have similar meanings if not exactly the same.

How do we express “I wish I had a dog” in Portuguese? “Ai, queria ter cachorro”. Here are other things you could say: Queria que isso fosse assim ou assado. Queria que já fosse amanhã e etc. So let me give lots of examples using this structure, because I strongly suspect that this is one of those cases that everyone thinks is relatively easy, and… Are you using it in your conversation yet? When you want to express “Ah, se eu morasse na praia…” do you open your mouth and say ‘If only I lived by the beach…”?

So here’s the beauty of English: we use the simple past tense in those structures to express something that in Portuguese may be translated as subjunctive tense, and sometimes as some other tense. The thing is, students acquire the past tense of common verbs relatively fast, but that isn’t always the case with many other verbs that are still common but that are seen as “difficult” or “strange”. I say, listen to them enough and, as long as you understand what you’re listening to, before you know it they’ll be coming out of your mouth.

So let me give you examples with some of my favorite verbs to practice: caught, taught and read, all in the “irregular verb” category, and worked in the “regular verb” category. So here’s the first one: I wish I caught more fish.. in our fishing trips. So here’s the backstory: you go fishing with a couple of friends every five months or so but, for some reason, you never seem to catch that many fish. So there you have it: you’re having this thought right now. “I wish I caught more fish when we go fishing”. Another one: you know there’s a criminal on the loose in your neighborhood and you tell your friend “I wish they caught this guy”. Who is “they”? Probably the police. You wish the police caught this guy. How exactly would you say that in Portuguese? “Queria que a polícia pegasse esse cara”.

Now listen to this:  you’re a teacher who teaches at a school, but you don’t like this school very much. You wish you taught in a different school. You wish you taught at the “International Language School”, where your friend Mark is a teacher. You wish you taught there, because teachers at the International Language School enjoy a great reputation with headhunters and are very well-respected in the market. So you think “I wish I taught there”. Also, you teach French, and today, for some reason, you wish you taught German. You feel this sudden desire to teach German. So you think “I wish I taught German instead of French”.

And your friend Melissa just told you she has a subscription to “Plants and Vegetables Magazine” and you think that sounds so interesting, so you tell her “I wish I read Plants and Vegetables magazine. That way I would be able to talk about plants!” If only I read that magazine… I would probably become a plant expert.

Also, your other friend Scott tells you he’s been working out in a gym. You work every day from 7AM to 11PM so you barely have time to eat and go to the bathroom, let alone go to a gym. Sometimes you work out at home, on the weekends. You think working out at a gym must be great, though. You think to yourself “I wish I worked out at a gym. Oh, if only I worked out at a gym…”

And to wrap things up, one more example: your friend, the same one who goes to the gym, works for company ABC, where he makes a lot of money and has to work only from 9 to 4PM. So of course he has plenty of time to work out at the gym. You start thinking that company ABC is so much better than the company you work for. And then the thought comes: “Oh, if only I worked for company ABC… I would work less, make more money and have time to work out at the gym. I wish I worked for company ABC.”

So where are your examples? That’s all for today, everyone, but give us some examples from your own life in the  comments.  Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• I wish I (had/did something) [Queria ter/fazer alguma coisa]
• If only I (had/did something) [Ah se eu tivesse/fizesse alguma coisa]

Glossary

Are you (doing something) yet? = Você já esta (fazendo algo)?

I say,… = O que eu acho é,…

as long as = contanto que

before you know it = quando você menos esperar

the backstory = a história por trás (do que eu acabei de dizer)

on the loose = à solta

you barely have time to = você mal tem tempo de

let alone = quanto mais

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Hi, everyone. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Are you familiar with the word ‘plenty’? That’s p-l-e-n-t-y, plenty. Plenty means a good amount; actually, a large amount of something. Usually when you say that there’s plenty of something, you mean that there’s enough of it or even more than enough.

To exemplify how you can use ‘plenty’ in conversation, let me start with a popular saying: There’s plenty of fish in the sea. What does that mean? That’s usually said in the context of telling someone who just got out of a relationship that this person will definitely find someone new… Why? Because there is plenty of fish in the sea. There’s no shortage of available people to be in a relationship with – or, at least, that’s what the saying means. Don’t worry, you’ll find someone… there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

Now, I’ve said “there IS plenty of fish” because the plural form of ‘fish’ is… fish. Some people say “There are plenty of fish” but “There’s plenty of fish” is what I hear and see most often. When we’re talking about uncountable things, such as food, information, time, room, we say “there’s plenty of food”, “there’s plenty of time”, “there’s plenty of room”, and “there’s plenty of information”. What does that mean again? That means there’s a very good amount of food, of time, of information and of room. There’s probably more than enough food, time, information and room.

And by the way, that’s right: I mentioned “room” as an example of something uncountable. I’m not talking about the rooms in a house, of course! We can count those, right? How many rooms are there in your house or apartment? Maybe two: one living room and one bedroom. Or perhaps you live in a studio with only one room. So that’s not the kind of room I’m talking about here. Room also means space – let me give you a few examples to illustrate this meaning of the word room. Let’s say you’re a teacher at a language school and you’re planning a class for 80 students. It’s a lot of students, right? Usually the classes in this school are attended by 20, 30 students at most. So you call the school coordinator and you let her know that you need a classroom with enough room for 80 students.

What does that mean? That means you need a classroom with enough space to accomodate 80 people, plus one – you. You need a classroom that’s big enough for 80 students and one teacher. You need a classroom with enough room, with enough space to accomodate 81 people. So when you tell the school coordinator about your plans, she says “Our classrooms are definitely not large enough to accomodate 80 students… none of them. I think our convention center is the only closed space with enough room for that.” That means the school’s convention center is the only closed space large enough to accomodate 80 students. There isn’t enough room in the classrooms for 80 students. In the convention center, on the other hand, there’s plenty of room for eighty students.

Here’s a very common expression: make room for something or someone. Imagine that you work for a small company with three other people, including your boss. Now your boss has decided to hire another two people. He says “Team, I know it looks like there’s no room for anyone else in our small office, but we’re going to have to make room for two new employees. I’m counting on you to make this work.” Your boss is asking the team to make room for two new employees. Maybe you’ll have to move your desks closer together, but you guys will have to, somehow, make room for another two employees. That means you’ll have to, somehow, create some space that will be enough to accomodate two new employees.

So it is very common to hear people say “Oh, there isn’t enough room for this or that here”. “My apartment is very small. There isn’t enough room to throw a party”. Or, “I wanna buy a new car but it can’t be too small. I have four kids so it has to be a car with plenty of room for all of us”. So this person needs a car with enough room for four kids, plus the adults. This person needs a car with plenty of room, right?

So back to the word ‘plenty’. Every time you hear there’s plenty of something, you can be sure that there’s no shortage of that thing. Whenever someone says “There’s plenty of room in our office to accomodate 50 people”, this person is saying “Don’t worry about the size of the office. It’ll be enough; it’ll probably be more than enough. There’s plenty of room for 50 people”. We could say about the Internet – there’s plenty of information on pretty much any topic you can think of. Would you agree? I’d say anyone would be able to find plenty of information on pretty much anything when they look it up on the Internet.

Let’s say someone says  “I’m not sure we have enough food for everybody” and the other person is sure there’s more than enough… that person could say “Oh, we have plenty”. Plenty of what? Plenty of food. That means, we have a large amount of food. Don’t you worry about it. Or you’re at a meeting and you ask “Do we have enough time to finish this project?” Your colleague says “Plenty.” What does he mean? Plenty of time. We have plenty of time to finish the project. We have an ample amount of time. We have more than enough time. We have plenty of time.

That’s all for today, everyone. How about you leave some examples in the comments? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• there’s plenty of
• there’s plenty of fish in the sea
• there isn’t enough room
• make room for

Glossary

a saying = um ditado

there’s no shortage of (something) = (alguma coisa) é algo que com certeza não está em falta

move your desks closer together = puxar/trazer (mover) suas mesas para elas ficarem mais próximas

on pretty much anything = sobre praticamente qualquer coisa

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Hello, everybody. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today I’ll focus on a particular structure that can sound really weird to our Brazilian ears before we’ve had the chance to hear or read it a lot and get used to it. It involves the verb HAVE, which thankfully is a word most English students are familiar with. So this podcast will present you with a few examples, and hopefully it’ll help clarify how this structure works, and it will enable you to recognize and understand it later on when you’re watching movies or TV shows.

Picture this: Ms. Jones is an admin (which is short for administrative assistant). Look at the picture – that’s her. She’s talking on the phone; actually she’s trying to find someone while the caller waits on the line. This is pretty much what Ms. Jones does all day long. She answers the phone and takes messages for her boss, Mr. Marvin, who’s the president of… some company.

Sometimes, if the call is urgent or very important, she puts the caller through to her boss. Usually she just takes messages, though, since Mr. Marvin is a very, very busy man. So now listen to some of the things Ms. Jones has said today:

• Around 9AM Mr. Marvin’s wife called. Ms. Jones said “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marvin, I will have your husband call you before lunch”.
• Around 10AM Federal Express delivered a package for Tony, the marketing manager. Ms. Jones called Tony and said “Sure, Tony, next time I will have the FedEx guy deliver the package to you directly”
• Around 10:30AM Ms. Jones called the office supplies store and she placed an order for twenty pens and fifteen pencils. She told the store clerk “Please have the delivery person call me once they get here”.

Hear those sentences again: Ms. Jones said “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marvin, I’ll have your husband call you before lunch”. Then, she said “Sure, Tony, next time I’ll have the FedEx guy deliver the package to you directly”. And finally she said to the store clerk “Please have the delivery person call me once they get here”. Notice that the structure for all of them is the same: she will have someone do something. Or, in the case of the office supplies store, she asked the store clerk to have someone do something.

Now, what does that mean? To have someone do something is to ask them to do that thing, and maybe make sure they remember to do it, or to take the necessary steps for that person to do that thing. In other words, to have someone do something is to arrange, to take the necessary steps for that person to do that thing. In the first example, where Ms. Jones said “I will have your husband call you before lunch, Mrs. Marvin”… What did Ms. Jones do? She probably told Mr Jones that he was supposed to call his wife before lunch. And then, one hour before lunch she probably reminded him to call his wife. Then, ten minutes before noon she noticed that he hadn’t called his wife yet, so she knocked on his door, opened it and asked him “Mr. Marvin, would you like me to call your wife and put her through to you? She needs to talk to you before lunch”. Mr. Marvin said “Not necessary, thanks”, and he called his wife immediately. So what did Ms. Jones do? She had her boss call his wife before lunch. How? She told him about it, then she reminded him twice so that he wouldn’t forget.

Notice that “have someone do something” is different from “make someone do something”. “Make someone do something” means “force that person to do something”. So, the following week the FedEx guy brought Tony another package. And what did Ms. Jones do? She had the FedEx guy deliver the package directly to Tony. How? She simply showed the FedEx guy to Tony’s office, and there he went to hand the package to Tony.

What else? Oh, the people from the office supplies store came by to deliver some supplies. They called Ms. Jones when they arrived. Why did they do that? Because their supervisor had them call Ms. Jones when they arrived. He told them, before they left the store: “When you get there, please call Ms. Jones. Here’s her phone number”. Their supervisor had his employees call Ms. Jones.

Here’s a summary of this structure in three different verb tenses.

• I had (someone) (do something), for things in the past;
• I will have (someone) (do something), for things in the future;
• I always have (someone) (do something), for habitual tasks.

Notice that ‘do’ is always ‘do’ in all three examples. And ‘do’ is a generic example, of course… it could be almost any verb. So from now on try to notice this whenever you’re watching a movie or a TV show. It won’t be long before you hear it! Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

•  I had (someone) (do something)
• I will have (someone) (do something)
• I always have (someone) (do something)

Glossary

put someone through to (a person) = passar a ligação de alguém para (uma pessoa)

Federal Express = serviço de entregas expressas

the FedEx guy = o cara do Federal Express que veio entregar a encomenda

She showed the guy to Tony’s office = ela levou o cara, ou mostrou o caminho a ele, até o escritório do Tony

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Hi, all. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Are you familiar with the word “boring”? If you’ve been in contact with English for longer than, let’s say, four or five months, chances are you’ve heard this word before. Boring. Boring is an adjective and it describes something – or someone – that, in your opinion, is uninteresting, tedious maybe, or even dull.

So people can say “That movie was boring. I almost fell asleep halfway through”. Or someone might ask you “Why are you so boring today? You haven’t said a word the whole afternoon!” What are some boring things in your opinion? Think of the last boring movie you watched. Alright. Now let’s get to some expressions involving the word ‘boring’ or a related word.

I’ve already talked about the expression bored to tears in a previous episode. That means, like, super bored. You’re almost crying, you’re so bored. Here’s a similar expression: bored to death. That’s extreme, right? It’s like you’re saying, this situation is so boring that I’m dying of boredom. Let me give you an example: many people enjoy action movies a lot, and they’re not used to watching movies that are more dialogue-based. You know, films where most scenes are about the characters talking. Some movies are like that: they don’t have a lot of action and they’re all about the conversation. Many people who grew up watching action movies full of explosions and car chasing aren’t used to slower-paced films, and therefore they find these of films super boring. They might say “I went with my friend to watch that movie and it bored me to death”.

You know one thing that bores me to death sometimes? Traveling. Sometimes, when I’m on a bus or plane, and it’s a long trip, I just get so bored after a few hours. Of course having an mp3 player with me helps relieve the boredom, but sometimes even that won’t help since I’m too sleepy to pay attention to whatever’s playing, and at the same time I’m uncomfortable in the seat, so I can’t fall asleep. That state bores me to death sometimes, cause there’s nothing I can do to accelerate the bus or the plane.

Here’s another way to say that: I was bored out of my mind last time I traveled by bus. OK, I’m exaggerating… I’m usually able to doze off for a few minutes, but in general I’ll wake up after only a few minutes and I get bored out of my mind real fast. Sometimes you hear someone say that they attended a lecture or a presentation, and it bored them out of their mind. Other people are bored out of their mind when they’re attending some kind of class they’re not interested in.

You know what else happens occasionally? You’re at a party and you don’t know anyone, and then someone walks up to you and introduces himself. Yeah, let’s say it’s a guy and his name’s Steve. So Steve starts talking and he talks, and talks, and talks, and you’re struggling to pay attention just because his topic is so boring to you. That monologue is boring you out of your mind. I have to admit: that happened to me before when I was in school, and I didn’t have the guts to excuse myself and leave. That guy went on and on about something I had zero interest in whatsoever, and I kept nodding and nodding. What’s interesting is, one of my classmates noticed I was bored out of my mind, but the guy talking to me didn’t!

And here are a couple of set phrases that are actually kind of funny. For example, if you think soccer is super boring to watch, you could say “I’d rather watch paint dry than a game of soccer”. Yep, that’s right. You think soccer is so boring that you’d rather watch paint dry. Or grass grow, that’s another one. If your friend asks you if you’re up to a game of chess and you think chess is ultra boring, you can say “No thanks. I’d rather watch grass grow than play chess”. That means watching grass grow will not be as boring to you as a game of chess.

So what about your examples? Tell us in the comments about the last time you were bored out of your mind. Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• boring
• I’m bored to death
• (that thing) bores me to death
• I’m bored out of my mind
• I’d rather watch paint dry or grass grow

Glossary

how knowledgeable you are = o quanto você conhece

catching up = botando o papo em dia, contando as últimas

filling you in on = te contando/atualizando a respeito de

has given in to = cedeu às, sucumbiu às

whatsoever = da maneira usada aqui, whatsoever reforça que havia absolutamente zero de interesse

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Hi, all. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Yesterday I spent all morning in a café. A café is a place where you can get coffee, of course, but also a sandwich, a snack, juice, water, stuff like that. In other words, it’s a place where you can get a capuccino and make a light meal if you want. Nowadays pretty much all cafés offer wi-fi connection, which is a big plus for me. I, like many other people, enjoy working at a café while sipping a coffee drink or some tea. For some reason I don’t mind all the buzz around me. You know, other people getting their coffee, chatting, talking on the phone… I find that usually I’m able to concentrate much better when I’m at a public place with a cup of coffee. Go figure!

So last morning there I was writing something on my netbook when a woman standing next to me said, in English, “Excuse me, do you speak some English?” I said yes, and she continued “Are you using the Internet?” I nodded, and she said “Can you help me?” She showed me her iPhone, and an Internet card that is given to customers free of charge at this café. Safari, the browser on the iPhone, was open, but the screen was blank. I told her that was wierd, ’cause the wifi connection at this cafe is supposed to not only fire up the browser, but also to open a screen where the owner of the iPhone would be able to enter their login information and the unique code from the Internet card.

This woman was really puzzled! She didn’t even know what to do with the card. That must be because this is a very famous chain of cafes that is present in several countries – maybe you know which one I’m talking about. In the US and many European coutries, you don’t need a card to connect to the Internet when you’re at this café. You simply get in there and when you fire up Safari you just have to agree to the terms of use and voilá – you’re connected. So maybe that’s what it’s like in this woman’s country. So she showed me the card and the iPhone screen and then she looked at me, and her face said “What do I do?”

I told her that she needed to register online at the Internet provider’s page, and I told her she would have to enter username, password and her passport number. That surprised her – she thought it was a bit much since she only wanted to have access for a few minutes. But the weird thing is that the same page should have showed up on her iPhone browser.

I asked her to hand me the phone and then I shook it a little and tapped it lightly. She thought that was funny and chuckled. Who knows? That might have worked, but it didn’t and I handed the phone back to her. She thanked me and said using the Internet for a few minutes wasn’t worth the trouble of registering and then filling in a form, etc. Then she went back to talking to her friend. From what I was able to tell, they were speaking either German or Dutch.

So, tell me: do you run into many foreigners where you live? I live in São Paulo and I run into people from other countries all the time. Sometimes I’m just walking down the street and I hear some foreign language being spoken, usually English or Spanish. Has anyone ever walked up to you in the street and asked for directions or other kind of information? Were you able to help?  Let us know in the comments… tell us your story. Talk to you next time.

Glossary

which is a big plus for me = o que pra mim é uma grande vantagem

sipping = bebericando

Go figure! = Vai entender!

I nodded = eu fiz que sim com a cabeça

and voilá = e pronto

I tapped it = eu bati nele com o dedo

she chuckled = ela deu uma risadinha

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Hi, all. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Let’s take a look today at a couple of expressions with the word WALK. Yes, this is a very simple word, one that most people learn very quickly when they start studying English, and yet there are many, many idiomatic expressions in English that use this word and the more we hear them and get what they mean, the faster we’ll incorporate them into our own vocabulary.

Before we get to the idioms with WALK… did you notice I said “and yet”? Listen again: ‘Walk’ is a very simple word, and yet there are many English idioms with this word that we may not be used to. I don’t know how knowledgeable you are about the word YET, but here’s a very common way to use it: ‘walk’ is a very simple word, and yet some expressions with walk aren’t that simple. The French course isn’t what Mary expected, and yet she’s still attending classes. Teaching teenagers was difficult and demanding, and yet Mark still misses it. We didn’t know anyone at Jane’s party, and yet we stayed until the end. “And yet” can usually be translated as “no entanto” or “ainda assim”… so keep an eye out (and an ear) for “and yet” next time you find yourself listening to English or watching a TV show.

So here’s our first idiom of today: walk all over somebody. What does that mean? “Walk all over somebody” has a figurative meaning which is usually to treat that person badly or without consideration or respect. Here’s an example: let’s say your friend Sara started a new job a month ago and today the two of you are at a bar catching up and she’s filling you in on her new job. She says her new boss, Lawrence, has been demanding a lot more from her than she initially agreed to do. She says she’s been working late every night since her first day on the job, and that she’s been covering for a colleague who went on vacation last week. When you ask her why she’s agreed to do all that extra work, she says “Well, I tried to tell my boss that this isn’t part of my job description but he’s always so busy and last week he told me I could lose my job if I refused to do the extra work. He said it’s really hard to get a job nowadays and that I was really lucky to be in this company”.

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. In your opinion, Sara’s boss is being a jerk! He’s trying to scare her. You tell Sara “Your boss is walking all over you, Sara, and it is up to you to put a stop to this! If you don’t do it, he’s gonna keep acting like a jerk and demanding things from you he has no right to!”. You think Sara’s boss is treating her very badly. You also think he’s not respecting his initial agreement with Sara, and unfortunately your friend has given in to his unreasonable demands. So he keeps walking all over her.

Can you think of any examples from your own life, or someone you know? Let us know in the comments. And here’s another expression with WALK: “all walks of life”. This is an interesting expression and you’ll hear it when people are describing events or any situation, really, where they saw people with very different backgrounds.  Not just in terms of professional experience, but diverse social, economic and even ethnic groups. For example, you could hear someone who attended a concert at a city park say “The concert was wonderful and what I liked the most was that people from all walks of life were there”. Wealthy, non-wealthy, poor, white, black and yellow; the audience was made up of people from all walks of life. Usually when we attend quality events at open spaces, such as a concert featuring a popular artist, we can expect to see people from all walks of life in the audience.

Your turn now: what’s your example for ‘walking all over someone’? And have you attended an event recently where you saw people from all walks of life? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• and yet
• all walks of life
• walk all over someone

Glossary

how knowledgeable you are = o quanto você conhece

catching up = botando o papo em dia, contando as últimas

filling you in on = te contando/atualizando a respeito de

has given in to = cedeu às, sucumbiu às

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Hello, everybody. How’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Our episode today is dedicated to a couple of very popular sayings in English. The first one is What goes around, comes around. Think of a boomerang. When you throw a boomerang, it kinda makes a u-turn and flies back at you, or at least near you, right? That’s kind of the principle behind this saying: what goes around, comes around.

People usually use this saying to mean basically that if you’re bad, bad things will happen to you, and if you’re good, good things will happen to you. So let’s say you’re telling your friend Sara what happened at the office last week. You were in a meeting with your boss, who reports to the company CEO, and you watched how the CEO chewed your boss out right there in front of everyone. And what’s really weird about it is, the CEO is usally such a calm, slow-to-anger kind of guy! Not last week, though. He raised his voice and proceeded to scold your boss. Now, you’ve been working for this guy for a year and the thing is, he has the habit of scolding employees in front of everyone else!

When your friend hears that, she says “What goes around, comes around. He’s been such a jerk to his employees; now it’s his turn to be yelled at”. So he yelled a lot at his employees; now the CEO is yelling at him and scolding him. What goes around, comes around. Here’s another example: you friend Mark tells you that he had a neighbor who kept throwing trash on Mark’s backyard. Mark confronted him and he denied it. This morning, however, someone dumped a lot of trash on his garden and ruined the flowers! You could say “What goes around… comes around”. This guy dumped a lot of trash on Mark’s garden, but now it is his turn. Someone did the same thing to him, and he’s not happy! What goes around, comes around.

And this is the perfect example to introduce our second expression today. You know what else we could say about Mark’s neighbor? Here it goes: we could say that he got a taste of his own medicine. Again: Mark’s neighbor got a taste of his own medicine. What does that mean? Well, this expression means that Mark’s neighbor was doing something unpleasant to Mark, and now someone’s doing the same thing to him, so he can have a “taste” of that unpleasant thing he was doing. And just to clarify: “medicine”, here, means “drug”, but not that bad kind of drug. “Medicine” here means the kind of drug people take in order to heal a disease.

And what about my initial example, where Sara’s boss got scolded by the CEO? Remember I said he had the habit of doing just that to his employees?  Well, when the CEO yelled at him in front of all his employees, he got a taste of his own medicine. You know when someone keeps doing something unpleasant, or bad, and then all of a sudden they become the victim of that same thing they were doing? That’s when you can say They got a taste of their own medicine.

So please give us your example in the comments. Can you remember any examples from your own life where someone had a taste of their own medicine? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• What goes around, comes around
• get a taste of his/her/your/etc. medicine

Glossary

reports to = responde para (é subalterno de)

chew someone out = dar a maior bronca em alguém

scold = repreender, dar bronca

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Hi, everyone. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So today let’s take a look at a popular saying in English: you reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. We have a similar ditado in Portuguese: “a gente colhe o que planta”. Have you ever heard this saying here in Brazil? Well, it is used by English speakers basically in the same way we use it in Portuguese: to say that what we experience, or the results we get, are consequences of our own actions.

So let’s take a closer look at the key verbs in this saying: reap and sow. Sow is a verb  frequently used together with the word “seeds”. Do you see the picture? That guy is sowing some seeds. He’s spreading the seeds over an area of land and soon, if all goes well, some kind of plant will start growing there, and he will reap fruits or maybe grains. So the process of growing something on the land illustrates very well what this saying means. For example, if you sow orange seeds, you will eventually reap oranges. If you sow apple seeds, you’ll reap apples. If you sow corn, corn will grow and you won’t reap olives!  You will reap corn.

So figuratively speaking, if you sow lies and deceit, you will probably reap… something that is not good. You may end up without a job, or without support from other people and so on. What do you think about that? Would you agree that people reap what they sow?

So of course the word “reap” is very often used figuratively in conversation. For example, people say that if you work hard at something, you will reap the rewards later. Reap the rewards. What does reward mean? A reward is something you get in return for doing something else, usually something good. So, let’s say, if you go to college and study really hard you will later reap the rewards of your hard work. You’ll probably get a good job, or you’re going to become a scientist and become very famous, something like that.

Here’s an example: your friend Richard started eating more veggies six months ago and now he’s reaping the rewards. He feels better and he looks better, so he’s reaping the rewards of his dietary change. Many bloggers are reaping the rewards of putting a lot of work into their blogs over the years. Can you think of an example from your own life? Maybe you abandoned a bad habit some time ago, and you’re now reaping the rewards of doing so. Maybe you started saving some money last year and now you’re reaping the rewards: you have enough money to fulfill your dream of traveling around the world. What’s your example?

And, finally, it is also common to say that, after saving some money, or working hard, you’re now reaping the fruits of your actions. Of course, the fruits can be bad or good, depending on your actions. For example, if you kept lying to a friend in order to take advantage of him, and… let’s say your friend just found out about all your lies and he never wants to see you again, and he’s telling everyone about how you’re such a big liar. Well… it looks like you’re reaping the fruits of all that lying, right?

So let us know about your example. A genuine example; something that really happened in your life. Are you reaping the rewards of something you did in the past? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

•  You reap what you sow
• Reap the rewards
• Reap the fruits of (your actions)

Glossary

deceit = ato de enganar; fraude

veggies = forma informal de “vegetables”

fulfill a dream = fazer um sonho se realizar

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Hi, everyone. What’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So let’s take a look today at something that may confuse you if you’ve been listening to podcasts or watching TV series and films in their original language.  This is something that took me a while to acquire – what I mean by this is, it took me a certain amount of listening to English to finally get this and absorb it, and incorporate it to my speech. It didn’t make sense to my ears in the beginning, but… enough with the mystery. I’m talking about the way the beginning of some questions is omitted in everyday speech.  What do I mean by that? I’ll show you.

These are a couple of questions you’ll hear people ask in everyday conversation:

• Anyone have a pen?
• Everyone see the show?

They may sound weird to you. You may ask yourself, Are these really questions?  They sound wrong. After all, we learn that ‘anyone’ and ‘everyone’ are the third person of the singular and therefore, we say ‘anyone has’ and ‘everyone sees’.

Well, let’s see: take the first one, Anyone have a pen? That is actually the quick, shorter version of Does anyone have a pen? When people are talking fast they will often skip “Does” and just go with the rest of the question. In my first few months in the US I would often say something like “Anyone HAS a pen?” because in my mind ‘anyone’ goes with ‘has’, not ‘have’.

This is a question, though, and it is a question in the present tense. The present tense calls for does when you’re using anyone. We say Does anyone have a pen? And, of course, one way to make ‘Does anyone have a pen?’ shorter is by skipping that little word at the beginning, ‘does’, and saying simply Anyone have a pen?

And that is exactly what many native speakers do and that’s why you will sometimes hear things like Anyone know what time the movie starts?, which comes from Does anyone know what time the movie starts?. Or Get it?, which comes from Do you get it? and You know what I mean?, which comes from… you guessed it. Do you know what I mean? The last two don’t sound so weird because we’re used to “you know”.

And here’s the other example I gave at the beginning: Everyone see the show? If you don’t get this question and you think “everyone see” sounds super weird… here’s why: this is a shorter version of Did everyone see the show? The speaker is obviously talking to a group of people and he or she wants to know whether everyone in the group saw a certain show. The auxiliary word “did” in Did everyone see the show? disappears and the question asked by this fast-talker becomes Everyone see the show?

Now, you may be asking yourself “But how would I know? How can I know this person is asking a question in the past if they’re not starting the question with DID” Well, the same way you know when a friend sees you and asks “So, how was the party?” What party is your friend talking about? Oh, your girlfriend’s birthday party. You told your friend yesterday that your girlfriend was gonna throw a big party to celebrate her birthday. Your friend sees you today and asks about the party. You know immediately what he’s talking about.

Same thing with that other person. When they ask “Everyone see the show?” they’re talking to people who are going to get the question, because they have talked about this show before. Maybe they talked about it last week and everyone was really excited to watch this show, which aired on Saturday. So when this guy asks “Everyone see the show?” people immediately get what he is talking about. He’s asking about the show that aired last Saturday. The question is Did everyone see the show?, but this guy is a fast-talker and the question becomes Everyone see the show?

How about this one: Anyone lose their wallet? It comes from Did anyone lose their wallet? Whoever is asking that will likely be holding a wallet he or she found laying around. “Anyone lose their wallet?” And by the way, credit goes to Steve Ford for letting me know that these are all examples of ellipsis. Here’s the definition according to Merriam-Webster Online:

“Ellipsis is the omission of one or more words that are obviously understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete.”

So there you have it. Fast-talkers are frequent users of ellipsis, I’m sure, so if you happen to be one of them or if you’ve heard an example of ellipsis recently- please let us know in the comments! Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Shortened questions (examples of ellipsis)

Glossary

Fast-talker = uma pessoa que fala rápido

Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online falamos sobre uma maneira simples de expandir nossa comunicação em inglês. Para ver e ouvir podcasts de semanas anteriores, clique em Podcast Inglesonline na barra lateral. Você pode também assinar o feed do podcast ou encontrá-lo no iTunes (veja o menuzinho ali ao lado).

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Hello, all. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Everyone, let’s practice something a little different today. When we’re learning a new language, we start with the easy stuff, and that’s how it should be. After a while we become curious about how the language is really spoken, and we start paying attention to native speakers and their movies, TV shows, radio programs and so on. And then we notice that they don’t always speak in simple phrases – the ones we learned in… at the beginning of our English course. Here are a few examples of what I mean by this – here are a few short sentences. Notice how simple they are:

• I saw a dog in the yard.
• The crowd was noisy.
• That woman is from Germany.
• People say Mr. Jones is a great teacher.
• Did you see those people?

Short and simple, right? Here they are again, said a bit faster: I saw a dog in the yard. The crowd was noisy. That woman is from Germany. People say Mr. Jones is a great teacher. Did you see those people? So there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and as you and I both know, what people say is frequently longer and more detailed. So how about we take a look at one of the ways we can pack more information into those sentences?

Take the first example: I saw a dog in the yard. OK, that’s fine. However, when I looked at the dog, he was doing something. Yeah, I said “he” because… I could see it was a boy, so to speak. A male dog. So what I noticed when I saw the dog was that… he was barking at Sally. Sally is someone I know, and she was standing next to the dog. And the dog was barking at her. Remember my initial sentence? It was ‘I saw a dog in the yard’. And it was barking at Sally. What I would probably say in a real conversation is I saw a dog barking at Sally in the yard.

The additional information here is “barking at Sally”, right? And that’s pretty much the same thing we do in Portuguese. You don’t want to simply communicate you saw a dog. You want to communicate that you saw a dog barking at Sally. And, of course, instead of saying two sentences, such as “I saw a dog. It was barking at Sally”, we go for the easy way… We combine them into one sentence: I saw a dog barking at Sally in the yard.

What about the second one?  The crowd was noisy. What crowd am I talking about? Well, I was driving by a theater last night and got stuck in a bit of a jam. It was right at that moment that the crowd inside the theater was coming out to the street, and they were really noisy. They were talking and laughing and I thought they were really noisy. So what I’m telling you is that “The crowd was noisy”. Which crowd? The crowd coming out of the theater. So what I would probably say is The crowd coming out of the theater was noisy.

Let me call your attention again to the simple version of this example: The crowd was noisy. What’s the subject in this sentence? “The crowd”. Now the longer version is “The crowd coming out of the theater was noisy. What’s the subject here? The subject here is “The crowd coming out of the theater”. What was noisy? The crowd coming out of the theater.

Moving on… ‘That woman is from Germany’. Here’s some more information about this woman: she is talking to my sister, and for whatever reason I think that that piece of information is very relevant to the story I’m telling you. So what I would say in reality is not “That woman is from Germany. She is talking to my sister”. I would say “That woman talking to my sister is from Germany”.

Now, I know this is relatively easy to understand, and exercises about this in your English book aren’t that difficult either. But are you talking this way, though? If you’re not yet using this kind of structure in your conversation, then this topic isn’t too easy for you. Here’s the fourth example: People say Mr. Jones is a great teacher. What people are these? The people who are taking the course… some course. So the people taking the course say Mr. Jones is a great teacher. People taking the course say Mr. Jones is a great teacher. My last example is a question: Did you see those people? So now I’m going to be more specific: Did you see those people yelling outside the restaurant? There were some people yelling outside the restaurant and I’m asking you if you saw them. Did you see those people yelling outside the restaurant?

It’s all about being more specific and providing more detail to what we’re communicating. Let me tell you a few things about my morning. The girl sitting next to me talked on her mobile for hours. The guy serving coffee was wearing a baseball cap. People walking in the street looked rushed. The guy working in his computer kept silent. The woman wearing a black suit didn’t have anything to drink.

So what can you tell us about your morning? Let us know in the comments. Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

-ING clauses

Glossary

pack more information into the sentences = “carregar”, adicionar mais informação àquelas sentenças

so to speak = por assim dizer

got stuck in a bit of a jam = fiquei presa num pouco de congestionamento

baseball cap = boné

looked rushed = pareciam estar com pressa