Podcast Inglês Online

How's it going? No episódio de hoje eu falo sobre o idiom keep your fingers crossed.
Transcrição
Hi. How are you? This is Ana, back with a new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Hope all is well. What's the weather like in Brazil? I think it's getting cold in Brazil, isn't it?

Today I came across this really, really cool idiom, which is keep your fingers crossed. Keep your fingers crossed. Open your hand and look at your fingers: you have your thumb... Let's say your thumb is the first finger to the left, and then the next two fingers, if you sort of intertwined them... That's your fingers crossed. Cross your fingers and keep your fingers crossed, because... Let's say, tomorrow I have my English exam and I've studied so hard, and I'm hoping (that) I'm going to do really well. Please keep your fingers crossed. I have to get a good grade on my English exam.

That's basically what keep your fingers crossed means. It's like a lucky... It's as though if people keep their fingers crossed for you, that is somehow going to help you. I guess that's a symbol of their good wishes or maybe good vibes, I don't know... But people say to each other "I'm trying to do this thing tomorrow that I really want to be successful. Keep your fingers crossed".

I did a search on the Inglês Online blog and then I found this old article that I wrote with two idioms. One is "high five" and the other one is "keep your fingers crossed". Actually I had already written about it!... but it doesn't have any audio.

Here are some of the examples I included in this article (and you're going to find the link at the bottom of the podcast episode page). One example was Jane said "I have a job interview tomorrow finally". And then her friend Tom says That's awesome. Do you feel ready? And she says I've been practicing my interview skills or questions. And Tom says Great, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Another example that I used in the article was about Mary saying that her driving test is tomorrow and then she says Fingers crossed! After all, she has failed the exam three times already. Hey third time's a charm! Fingers crossed. "Please root for me"... Which is a bit funny - it is a funny thing to say, because I don't know what crossing your fingers will do for the outcome of the situation that you're going to go through.

I haven't really looked into the origin of this idiom, but I bet it's pretty interesting. If you know what the origin of this is... If you know why people say "fingers crossed", "Please keep your fingers crossed for me"... If you know why they say that and why it means that maybe there's a bigger chance of what you're going to do being successful, let me know.

Tell me: What is the last time that you asked someone to keep their fingers crossed, maybe in Brazil... Using, obviously, a Brazilian expression? Can you let me know? Can you give me an example?

Let me know and talk to you next time.

Article: Keep your fingers crossed

Key expressions

* Keep your fingers crossed

Vocabulary

intertwined = entrelaçou

third time's a charm = Agora vai, da terceira não passa

root for me = torça por mim

outcome of the situation = resultado/desfecho/consequência da situação

Hey, you! No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre o idiom let alone, que é suuuuper comum na língua inglesa. Ouvindo os vários exemplos do pod, você vai se familiarizar bastante com esta expressão e chegar bem mais perto do ponto onde é só abrir a boca que as palavras saem (se é que você já não está lá). Ouça, re-ouça e depois deixe seu exemplo nos comentários. Abraço - Ana!
Transcrição
Hello, what's up? How are you doing? What did you have for lunch? How did you sleep last night?

Anyway, welcome to a new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Today I have a really good expression for you. It's a phrase... very, very common. And if you're a listener of, of other podcasts, if you watch a lot of American TV or British TV, if you're into movies and TV shows I guarantee you have already heard this expression before. But- is it rolling off your tongue? Is it something that comes to your mind when you want to express that idea? That's the big question. I'm going to give you many examples today.

This phrase is let alone. Does it ring a bell? Sound familiar? Picture this: there's this little guy, Tommy, who's in school and his mother is talking about him, let's say to the neighbor. Tommy's mother says: Tommy never eats fruit, let alone vegetables.

He never eats fruit, let alone vegetables. Now, what is being said here? The first piece is Tommy never eats fruit, never! He never does it. Now, most kids would probably choose fruit over veggies if they had to pick one. My guess is, it's easier to get a kid to eat mangoes and bananas than broccoli and eggplant.

Tommy won't even eat fruit, which, let's say, is the nicer option. Can you imagine when it comes time to eat vegetables? He just runs in the other direction - he wants nothing to do with vegetables. With fruit, he's still in the room. But if you try to get him to eat broccoli he'll get out of the room. That's why his mother is saying, Tommy never eats fruit, let alone vegetables. No, no, no chance, no chance for Tommy.

Here's another word, imagine that there's this girl, Sally. She lives on her own but she doesn't cook. She can't even fry an egg. She can't even fry an egg, let alone bake a cake. Again, what's more work? Fry an egg or bake a cake? Or what's the level of difficulty of these two things? I think we can all agree... Baking cakes is probably a bit harder, it's probably a bit more work, a bit more complex than frying an egg. Sally can't even fry an egg. She doesn't have the ability to fry an egg, she just can't do it, let alone bake a cake. I mean, she can't even do something that is relatively easy like frying an egg. Do you think she can do something that is more complex like baking a cake? Nope, no chance, she can't do it. Sally can't even fry an egg let alone bake a cake.

Here's an example with me. I can barely understand Japanese, let alone write in Japanese. Actually in this example, I'm actually exaggerating my abilities a little bit... Because when I say I can barely understand Japanese it kind of communicates that I can understand something in Japanese, but that isn't even true. I can't even understand the basics of Japanese, let alone write in Japanese. Come on... I guess what I'm saying here is writing in Japanese is a lot more complex than understanding Japanese. I can't even understand it, let alone write it.

Let's wrap it up with a final example. Mark never remembers his own birthday. I mean, he forgets his own birthday. Have you ever met someone like that? That forgets their own birthday? Mark never remembers his own birthday, let alone his friends' birthdays. He can't even remember his own, let alone his friends'. Nope, not a chance.

Tell me, can you think of an example from your own life? Something that is real for you, maybe it's about you, maybe it's about someone you know. Leave it in the comments, I'm curious.

What's going on? Gravei o episódio de hoje enquanto fazia compra em um supermercado online. Você usa esse tipo de site no Brasil? Conte. Mas primeiro, ouça e enjoy :)

Fique de orelha em pé para as pronúncias destas palavras (que muita gente erra!): AISLE, CUPBOARD e BISCUIT
Transcrição
Hello. How have you been? All good? So, so? Whatever is going on and however you are, right now you're here listening to the podcast... to the Inglês Online podcast. That is a good thing. I hope overall everything is going well.

Today we have a new episode, and I was just browsing a website for... It's a supermarket that has this online delivery service and I was browsing the pages and seeing how it works. Obviously we're now in coronavirus lockdown. I live in the UK, in the United Kingdom, if this is your first time listening to the podcast. Things here are a bit stricter than in Brazil from what I've heard when talking to people in Brazil.

Here, we can only leave the house... We're self distancing - we can only leave the house to actually go buy food, to go to the hospital or see a doctor, and exercise once a day. Oh... and if we're... what they call 'essential workers', we can leave the house and go to work. For example, people who work in basic transportation services, like trains and the tube. Or if I'm a hospital worker - obviously I can leave the house to go to the hospital.

I was looking at this website... It's an online delivery service of groceries, or everything that you would find in a really good supermarket. There's a bit of electronics, there's a bit of clothing, things for your kitchen, for dining, cutlery, plates, small appliances... Here in the United Kingdom lots and lots and lots of people who didn't use to order groceries online, are doing so for obvious reasons right now. But I imagine that the same happened in Brazil: online delivery services of every kind have probably seen an increase in demand.

I'm looking here at the website and just sort of thinking back... When all I used to see in front of me was American English, mostly, and just noticing tiny differences here and there. For example, you know when you shop online and they call it 'shopping cart'? It's the place... when you click on an item. I want to buy this item, it gets placed in the shopping cart or the shopping basket and here in the supermarket they call it trolley, which is a very common word here in the UK. People rarely use the word 'cart' in that sense.

And I'm looking at the aisles - when you walk the aisles of a physical supermarket, you look to your right and you see the shelves. Let's say, with tons of biscuits, and sliced bread, confectionery, candy... That's the aisle with everything that is sweet, let's say, sweet snacks. Then you go around that aisle and you see a different aisle with flours: wheat flour, almond flour, or ingredients for cooking - sugar, eggs and things like that. That's a different aisle.

In the online supermarket website, we see the aisles as what... They call it aisles, although obviously they're virtual aisles. I see Fresh, I see Food cupboard - notice the pronunciation of this word, 'cupboard'. It's an interesting pronunciation. And then I see Bakery, Frozen, Baby and child, Toiletries, Household and so on.

I'm clicking on the Food cupboard aisle now. And then I clicked again, because it's... It's got different groups of things under it. I clicked again on Biscuits and I'm seeing all kinds of energy bars and fruit bars, and there's something called energy ball. These little balls... It's like an energy bar, but it's just a ball. It's obviously smaller, it's a bit cheaper - but still expensive, because it's supposed to give you a lot of energy. I don't know... What do you guys think? Do you eat energy bars? And do you think it makes any difference?

Here's another thing that I can see in the Biscu...

Tudo bem por aí? No episódio de hoje, eu te faço uma pergunta. Para responder, é só escolher e clicar em uma alternativa ao fim do texto abaixo. Ouça o podcast e me diga o que você acha... Enjoy.
Transcrição
Hi, everyone. How's it going? How have you been? This is Ana with another episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Here we go. Today I have a question for you, especially if you're sort of a long time listener of this podcast - but also if you're new. If this is one of the first times listening to this podcast that is fine... I want to know your opinion as well. But if you're a long-time listener, you know that sometimes when I do the podcast I speak a bit more slowly. Usually when I'm explaining English expressions, when I'm talking about idioms and giving examples... Usually I tend to speak a bit more slowly.

On the other hand, when I do sort of a free-form kind of episode where I just talk about my life, and I just go on and on sort of telling a story... You know that sometimes I can speed it up a little bit and talk a bit faster.

I have had requests - from some of you - both ways. Some people asking me to do more podcasts speaking more naturally, faster and other people asking me to slow down a little bit. Lately, though, I have to say... I think I have had a little bit more of the latter, which is... more people asking me to record podcasts speaking a bit more slowly. Instead of going one way or the other, I decided to ask you to tell me which one you prefer.

In this podcast - obviously, not in the audio... but if you visit the podcast page, this episode's page on the website, you will see a little... This little sort of quiz embedded in the post, in the page... And all you have to do is click on it and you'll see the question What would you like me to do?

Would you like me to do more episodes speaking slowly? Would you like me to do more episodes speaking faster? Or do you think a balance is best? Let's say 50% more slowly, 50% quicker... or something like that. All you have to do is click and choose the option. And I'm very interested in what you guys are going to go for - which alternative is going to be number one.

I can do both - I'm happy to do both. As you guys know, especially, again -  if you've been listening for a while, I have started to do more episodes without a lot of planning. There's a lot more spontaneous talk... But anyway, I really enjoy doing the kind of episode where I pick a couple of expressions and give you examples, and repeat the expression a lot. And I also like telling you guys about some... some interesting experiences that I go through because I think that it really helps. Like some real life experiences, where I tell you what other people that I run into every day, say. They talk about their lives... it's like different situations, everyday experiences... I think that's interesting as well, and in those kinds of episodes I usually speak a little bit faster.

I'm curious to see what your choice is. Feel free, after you select your choice, to leave a comment as well. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

Talk to you soon. Bye!

[tqb_quiz id='28068']

Vocabulary

speed it up = acelerar, ir mais rápido

the latter = ultimo ou segunda coisa a ser mencionada

run into something/somebody = se deparar, encontrar ou esbarrar com algo ou alguém

feel free to = fique à vontade para

How are you? No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre coisas assim: I do watch this show. I did study. She does like you. They do have a dog. Só que concentro os exemplos na primeira pessoa do singular ("I") para simplificar. Está vendo ali - o do, o did, o does? Essa é uma maneira pra lá de comum de usar os auxiliares, e é uma daquelas coisas que a gente só pega (e começa a falar) com muito listening. Então vamos ao listening!

Clique no player e ouça já!
Transcrição
Hello. How's it going? What have you been up to? Are you social-distancing or are you self-isolating? Here where I am we are all social-distancing, we're talking online, we're meeting online to chat... You know the drill.

Today I'm not going to talk about coronavirus, thank God. I've got something really, really cool, really interesting that people do with the English language, that the native speakers do... And I think I've touched on it on the website. I think we have an article about it but I don't think I've ever addressed this on a podcast episode.

Here we go. Listen to this little example: let's say your cousin Marilyn gave you a skirt. Let's say you're a girl... Your cousin Marilyn gave you a skirt on your birthday, and the skirt is orange in the front - and green in the back. It's an unusual skirt. The funny thing is, you have a shirt that is also orange in the front and green in the back. They were made for each other - the shirt and the skirt. Obviously, you think that the shirt will be perfect with that skirt. They will match completely, but you're saving this ensemble for a costume party because you know the colors are so strong... You don't really want to wear the skirt and the shirt every day. Orange in the front, green in the back... It looks more like a, like some sort of costume, maybe for carnival.

Let's say your friend Marilyn gave you that skirt in March and now it's June, and she realizes she has never seen you wearing that skirt. She asks Hey, I've never seen you wear the skirt that I gave you. What is it? Do you not like it? And you say: No, Marilyn. I do like it! I do like it, but it's so unusual. It's such an unusual color combination... I'm really waiting for the right occasion to wear it. It goes with my shirt. But I do like it! And you're being honest, you do like it but it's not a skirt to be worn every day.

Here's another little story. You had a Math test last week and you got a four out of ten. Your teacher graded your test and you got a 4. Your friend Marcy says Hey, you didn't study for the test, did you? I thought you were going to study so hard for this. I thought you needed a good grade. Where were you? Why didn't you study? And you tell Marcy Wait... actually, I did study but I had a cold the week before the test and that really got in the way of my studying. I was feeling really sick and I was in bed most of the time. I tried to study but it didn't go very well. Yeah, I did study.

Did you notice that in these two little stories I said 'I do like it', 'I do like the skirt' and 'I did study'? 'I did study'. I said, 'I do like it' instead of 'I like it' and I said 'I did study' instead of 'I studied'. When you do that, you're emphasizing the action. You say that when you want to really emphasize to the other person that you are doing that action or that you did that action or that you really like something. They're thinking that maybe you don't like it, maybe you didn't do something, maybe you didn't do that action... But then you say No... I do like it. I did study.

"No... I did see you at the movie theater, but you know... I was with my friend who doesn't really like you, I didn't want to upset her - that's why I didn't wave! But yes, I did see you at the movie theater." "Yes, I did like the food, but I had a stomach ache and... that's why I didn't eat much."

In all of these situations,

Hello! How’s it going? Hoje o podcast é sobre... o que mais poderia ser? Sim, o coronavírus - mas com um twist voltado ao entretenimento, ou, pelo menos, ao bom uso do tempo para aqueles que estão fazendo social distancing, self-isolation ou quarantine.
Transcrição
Hi, everyone. How are you guys? This is Ana Luiza of Inglês Online with a new podcast episode, and... We're in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and it's all everyone talks about. Everywhere you look it's coronavirus... There is no news anymore, there's nothing else that people talk about now. It's like the world has been brought to a halt and coronavirus is the only thing going on.

If you're sick, if you're at home... Especially if you're sick, I wish you all the best. I hope you're doing better and taking care of yourself and I hope you get all the help you need and that you have a good rest, and that you fully recover.

I wanted to give us all a break and instead of talking about all the problems and issues, and the suffering that has been brought on by coronavirus, I thought I would just talk a little bit about what I'm doing and what some people I know are doing while we self-isolate... Because from what I understand, you guys in Brazil are doing the same: self-isolating. Some people are probably in quarantine depending whether you tested positive for the virus or not... So I thought it would be just a good topic.

This morning I had a conversation with some people that I know. There were some people there that I've worked with in the past and one of the people present has had coronavirus. And he is someone that had very mild symptoms, but his partner got it bad and was very sick for a couple of weeks and they're both now fine... But anyway, one of the things that I've been doing with this amount of free time that I have now is watching old comedies and one of the comedies I watched was Mrs. Doubtfire with Robin Williams. It's a super old movie - I think it's from the 90s or from the early 2000s. I don't remember, but it's old!

I remember watching it a long time ago and I remember that I liked it and you know what? It holds up! When I watched it last week I had a good time. It was fun, I laughed. I'm kind of now going through a list of, sort of older comedies because my favorites are comedies. I don't want to watch drama or violent movies or even adventure. I'll just pass for now - I really want to go for the comedies.

I'm going through a list of the best, most popular comedies from the 90s, from the early 2000s... And I'm going to watch some of those again. And I'm having a good time! Other people in this group that I talked to today... They said they're doing the same thing. They're watching reruns of old TV shows... Someone said they were watching Friends, others said that they're taking the time to really clean their house or organize their drawers, clean out the closet, donate some clothes, stuff like that.

And cleaning my house is something that I'm really going to do, because I've been keeping my house relatively clean. But I have to say... with all this free time that I have now I think it's time for a spring cleaning. I'm really going to go for it.

Let me know, please let me know: What are you doing? What is your family doing? What are the people you know doing in this strange, unprecedented situation that we're going through? Let me know in the comments - I'd like to hear from you. Talk to you soon. Bye!

Vocabulary

in the midst of = no meio de/da

the world has been brought to a halt = o mundo foi paralisado/interrompido

mild symptoms = sintomas leves/moderados

it holds up = continua bom, ainda dá para o gasto

reruns = reprises

Hi. What’s up? Tudo bem? O episódio de hoje é sobre aquela situação onde a pessoa acha melhor ficar quietinha, não falar nada, não criar caso... pois há o risco de dar problema se ela disser alguma coisa. Em outras palavras - um ambiente bem chato... Por outro lado, bom assunto para o pod :-) Ouça já!
Transcrição
Hi. How are you? This is Ana Luiza with a new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. It's a beautiful day here where I am. Pretty nice day to be recording a podcast.

Today I was thinking that... I had a chat with someone last week about their workplace, and this person was telling me about this company that he works for, and... It's pretty interesting, I mean... It's not great because he doesn't like the environment too much, but pretty interesting in terms of English vocabulary. I thought of a few expressions to describe my friend's workplace.

Here's what it's like. It's very hierarchical, meaning... you have your boss, then you have your boss' manager and then you have the director, and then you have the VP... Whatever they say has to be done: there's no discussion, there's no arguing, there's no challenging. What does that mean?

When you challenge someone's opinion, and that's something that I guess we do to different degrees all the time... If someone tells you that soccer team XYZ is the best soccer team in the world, you can challenge their opinion by saying: No, they're not and I'm going to show you why. Actually, team ABC is the best team in the world. You can challenge someone's opinion by actually showing them that they're incorrect and explaining to them why you disagree with what they said. That's what challenging someone's opinion means.

In my friend's workplace no one can really challenge anything. If a director or if even your boss says that you have to do this or that, you sort of have to keep your head down and just get on with it. No one challenges anything that comes from above. It's a very hierarchical environment where people have to just be quiet and the managers and directors and VPs... They will tell employees what they have to do and everyone has basically to keep quiet and just do it.

Here's an interesting expression that fits the context: make waves. What happens in that environment in my friend's workplace... People try not to make any waves, they try not to speak up too much, they don't give many opinions, they don't disagree, they kind of pretend to like everything, they don't make any waves...

They don't want to make any waves, because if you start making waves, if you start voicing your opinion and criticizing, and maybe even coming up with new ideas... My friend said that you will be seen as a troublemaker. It's really that kind of environment. The bosses... They don't really want people challenging them very much. If you work in that place and you don't want to lose your job, you don't make any waves.

My question for you is: Have you ever worked in a place like that? Maybe you work in a place like that right now! Maybe it's the place where you feel that in order to keep your job, you'd better not make any waves. Don't disagree too much, don't have any bright ideas, just follow orders and do what you're told.

Is that the kind of place that you work in? Or is it very different? Is it a place that is very open to your ideas and your boss wants to listen to you and you can give your opinions... You can challenge what your boss says and your boss is okay with it?

Let me know. See you next time, bye.

Key expressions

* Challenge someone's opinions / challenge someone
* Make waves

Vocabulary

VP (Vice president) = Vice presidente

get on with it = continuar ou seguir em frente com algo

troublemaker = pessoa que frequentemente cria problema

How are you? Hoje voltamos ao "básico" para você ouvir um pouco mais as expressões get used to e be used to sendo usadas. Enjoy!
Transcrição
Hello, everyone. How's it going? How are you? This is a new episode of our podcast our Inglês Online Podcast. Hope everything is going fine with you and that you're having a good week.

All right. Here's what I'm going to talk about today... I'm going to use the expression used to in two different ways: be used to something and get used to something.

I'm going to keep things simple for this podcast. All the examples that I will give you will be... "be used to", for example, "the heat". Or "get used to cold weather". In other words, I'm not going to be adding a second verb form to the examples. The only verbs we're going to be dealing with are be and get.

Let me start with this example: six years ago I moved to the UK and I was not used to the cold... the cold weather. I lived most of my life in Brazil - obviously I was used to hot weather.

What does that mean? I was used to hot weather, I was not used to cold weather. That means I was familiar with hot weather; I was accustomed to hot weather; I lived in the hot weather... Of course hot weather wasn't a strange thing to me. I was used to hot weather, and you know what happened after a few years in a colder country?

I think I am not used to hot weather anymore. I am not used to hot weather anymore but on the other hand... I'm used to cold weather now. What does that mean? That means I'm very familiar with the cold weather here where I live. I don't think it's too different anymore; I don't think it's strange. I don't suffer a lot anymore. I'm very used to cold weather now. Seriously, I don't even wear that many jackets anymore when I go out! I'm so used to the cold weather now, guys... You have no idea.

I wasn't... I wasn't in the past; I wasn't used to cold weather... but now I am! I'm familiar with it --- it's fine. I think it's fine and, to be honest with you, England is not the European country with the coldest weather. There are other countries where it gets a lot colder than England. It's not that bad, but still... For us Brazilians...

When I got here, I remember one day I went out and I had only a light jacket on. You guys, I thought I was going to die. I was shaking and I remember it wasn't even that cold by UK standards but I just wasn't used to cold weather back then.

Now, I am. I'm used to cold weather. What happened? Well... what happened was that I got used to cold weather. It was a process; I became gradually more accustomed to cold weather. I got used to cold weather over time. When I got here 6 years ago I wasn't; I wasn't used to it. Now, I am. (In) the past 6 years I gradually and increasingly got more and more used to the cold. That's it! I got used to it.

Did you see the difference? We use be or, for example, I am used... I am used to this; I am used to that; I'm not used to this... to say what you are or are not used to right now.

On the other hand, get used to... That describes a process. The past 6 years I got used to the cold. You guys, if you listen to a podcast that I did a few weeks ago... I don't know, I think it was... maybe a couple of months ago, where I talked about the spiders... I even got used to spiders, I kid you not. I even got used to spiders! If you don't know what I'm talking about click the link and listen to my episode about spiders.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast and talk to you soon. Bye!

Key expressions

* Be or get used to

Vocabulary

on the other hand = por outro lado

that many jackets = tantas jaquetas/casacos assim

back then = naquela época

How have you been? Hoje o episódio é sobre duas expressões fáceis, fáceis.

Veja só como são fáceis: You got it! e You got this. Né?

Mas minha pergunta a você é sempre essa: Você já usa estes idioms sem pensar?

Se a resposta for não, você precisa ouvi-los mais vezes... Simples. Enjoy!
Transcrição
Hello. How are you? What's going on? How have you been? Well... Today we have a new episode of the Inglês Onlines podcast, obviously. This is Ana, as you know. Unless this is your first time listening to the podcast, but here we go.

Today, I have two really quick and really nice expressions. Both of them with the verb 'get', but in the past - 'got'. These are really, really informal. If you watch any shows at all... If you have the habit of watching TV or movies, American sitcoms... You have definitely heard these before, both of them. But my goal is always enough input that these expressions actually get in your head - because the more input you have, the more you will become acquainted, or... used to these expressions.

And as you know, there's a tipping point. After that tipping point, that expression just starts coming to your mind whenever you want to express that idea.

Here you go. First one is you got it. This simply means someone is telling you that you will get what you want. Let's say you have a friend who owns a company, and your friend really likes you and trusts you. And let's say it's a guy. This guy has been asking you forever to join his company and to work with him, let's say as a salesperson.

And you're finally willing to work with him. You're finally at a place where you're saying: Ok, yes, I'll join your company, I'll work for you. However, you say to your friend: Ok, I'll take the job if I get a company car. And what does your friend say? Your friend really wants you. He says: You got it! You got it. You got the car. Ok, you got it, it's yours. You want the car, you got it.

Next example. Let's say your neighbor asks you to move his furniture. Let's say it's a girl. she's asking you to help: "Oh, can you please help me move my furniture? It's a lot of stuff. It's kind of heavy. Please help". And you know that she has a bike, and you don't... And you want to ride somewhere on the weekend and you need a bike. So you tell your neighbor: Ok, I'll help you move the furniture if you loan me your bike for the weekend.

And she says: You got it! You got it. The bike is yours for the weekend... You got it. Third example: Let's say your friend Jack got two tickets to a theater play and for some reason he's not going anymore. You and your girlfriend really want to see that play. You say to Jack: Hey, if you're not going to use those tickets - can I have them? And Jack is a really generous guy. He says: You got them! You got them. Notice that I'm using "them" right? I'm talking about two tickets. He just says: You got them.

Okay, guys. Now, the second expression is actually one of my favorites because it's an expression of encouragement. It's really nice when someone says that to you. Let's say you're talking to a colleague, and you're talking about this presentation that you have tomorrow... And you've been preparing, you've been working really hard because you're going to... present, let's say, to a client.

And your colleague has been listening to you talk about the presentation and he says: You know what? You got this. You got this. That means your colleague believes you're completely capable of doing this. You will have no problem being a success. He believes you will be a success. "You got this". Notice the emphasis on the word 'got'.

Let's say you're on a phone call with your boss, and you're just about to step into a sales meeting with a big client. And your boss, who trusts you, says: "Hey, good luck. You got this. You got this.

How’s it going? No episódio desta semana do podcast, eu comento as últimas da família real britânica. Se você é uma pessoa que não tem muito interesse nesse assunto, não se preocupe: eu também não. Mas o bafafá foi tanto por aqui no último mês que eu tinha que falar alguma coisa!

Ouça o meu resumo, pois ele tem tudo que você precisa saber. Enjoy, e passe pelo iTunes (ou a plataforma que você usa) e deixe uma review para o podcast - muita gente entra em contado comigo para dizer obrigado/a pelo pod, e essa é uma das melhores maneiras de agradecer :-) Adorei ler as mais recentes.

Nota: a imagem deste post é uma foto tirada por mim da capa da revista satírica Private Eye deste mês.
Transcrição
Hi! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. How are you doing? How have you been?

Today I thought I would talk about something that is kind of old news by now, and that is -- everything that's been going on with the royal family here in the UK. And let me tell you, I was never someone who was interested in royal news. I knew the very basic... You have the queen, Queen Elizabeth and then you have Charles and Andrew. Prince Andrew was involved in a scandal recently -- he was friends with a pedophile and he gave this car crash of an interview that turned out to be worse than if he hadn't done the interview.

I don't know if you guys heard about it in Brazil, but then, more recently... Prince Harry and his wife Meghan decided to distance themselves from the royal family. And I mean... I've been living in the UK for six years now and I have the habit of... having a look at the newspapers -- at least at the headlines sometimes -- usually once a week. It was impossible to avoid. I ended up reading several articles about what was going on. I don't know exactly what the Brazilian newspapers told you guys but here's a summary of what I read.

Prince Harry is the son of the late Princess Diana, and Prince Charles. He's the younger brother of William, who's married to Kate. And Prince Harry, a couple years ago, I think... Got married to an American actress, Meghan Markle. She used to have a role in Suits, but she doesn't anymore... She started dating Prince Harry and I think in less than a year they decided to get married. And they got married and it was a huge royal wedding... And then after a few months she got pregnant, she had a baby, and finally, a few weeks ago... They decided to tell the press that they were stepping back from the royal family and from the royal duties.

Being a royal in the UK is like having a full-time job. You represent the country in all kinds of official and governmental situations and events... And obviously you receive funding to do that, which comes from taxpayer money. But the thing that sparked a lot of controversy here in the UK is that... Number one: they released their announcement to the press before they had ironed out all the details with the queen, and... Most British people were not happy about that because actually they care a lot about respecting the queen, and people get really angry here if they think that their queen has been disrespected. That was the first thing.

And then the second thing that people didn't seem to like very much was that their announcement to the press was kind of unclear. They said that they were stepping back from royal duties, but they kind of implied that they were going to keep some benefits like the really expensive mansion where they used to live -- which obviously is also funded by taxpayer money...

That was a bit strange, and apparently the queen was very upset that their announcement went to the press first, before she and Harry, or she and Harry and Meghan had enough time to talk through all the details and agree on what kind of arrangement they were going to have.

Anyway, those were the two major points of discontent, I would say,

Hello!! How’s it going? Hoje eu falo sobre uma Uber ride que fiz recentemente no podcast, e aproveito essa historinha para ilustrar o idiom grab the bull by the horns... Uma expressão bem bacana e comum.

Obrigada a quem deixou as novas reviews no iTunes - é sempre muito gratificante saber que o podcast ajuda no aprendizado de novas expressões em particular, e do inglês no geral. :-)
Transcrição
Hello, how are you doing? This is Ana and I'm back with another episode of the Inglês Online podcast - our second episode of 2020!

Have you listened to the first one? If you haven't, go back and listen. Better yet, go back and look at our archive of episodes and download them all... I mean, these are five-minute long English bites that you can have throughout the day... A little bit every day. Why not? By now, we have a huge archive with hundreds and hundreds of episodes and the great thing is... I try not to repeat any idioms - I always try to center the episode around an idiom, or a couple of idioms, that I haven't really examined before... or I haven't really explained before to you guys. It's always a different theme.

All right. Now back to today's episode: today I'm going to tell you about a recent Uber trip that I had - because the Uber driver told me... He talked about something that's really interesting to me, which is, how he learned English. And that story is going to be a good illustration of this idiom, grab the bull by the horns or take the bull by the horns.

Picture a bull. Now picture its horns. Now imagine yourself grabbing that bull by the horns. I think you can get an idea of what the idiom means. You have a challenging situation in front of you, or a difficult situation, and you face it head-on... And you solve a problem, or you go through that difficult situation and come out (on) the other side, but... In any case, whatever the challenging situation is, you are facing it, you're not running away. You're grabbing the bull by the horns.

This Uber driver... He was very chatty so I started asking him How long have you been working with Uber? Do you always work in this area? What's the traffic like today? You know. And I noticed that he spoke really good English but he had a slight accent. I could tell that he had learned British English, but he had a slight accent and then I asked him Where are you from? And how did you learn English? And he said: Well, I'm from Iran and I've been here in the UK for 10 years, and... When I moved to the UK I spoke exactly zero English.

And this is a guy - he's probably close to 40 years old - it's not like he moved here when he was a child. When he said to me I learned it on my own. And I could hear his English - very good English... Obviously I was curious, as I always am, so I asked him What did you do to learn English? And he said Well, I spent some time studying grammar, studying vocabulary... but most of all, I used to just watch TV and pay attention to what people were saying and just try to repeat it. And, you guys, you probably know that his native language... I think it's called farsi. It's one of those languages that has nothing to do with English. This guy was really learning a completely different thing, a completely different language from scratch. It was, for him... It was a language that didn't make any sense - he couldn't make any connections with his native language.

He said he just persisted by watching TV and just listening to the sounds that people were saying and he was probably, as he watched... I imagine that he was making that connection: these are the sounds these people are saying, and this is what they're doing. That sound must have something to do with what they just did right now... Let's say they're at a restaurant and this woman is talking to the waitress. OK, so that means she's ordering something... something like that.

Hi, there! How have you been?


Veja/ouça no episódio de hoje um idiom super especial: of all people! No Brasil, expressamos essa ideia dizendo Justo você vem me dizer que não posso fazer tal coisa - e também pode valer para Olha quem fala! Ouça o episódio para entender o que eu quero dizer - se é que você já não conhece essa expressãozinha....

Quem é que não tem um exemplo de situação onde poderia ter dito algo assim? Pois é, é comum em qualquer língua. Enjoy.
Transcrição
Hello, how are you? Did you have a good end of 2019? How's it going so far? Have you rested? Did you go traveling? Anyway, the Inglês Online podcast is back and this is our first episode of 2020.

I'm very happy to be back and for our first episode this year, I have chosen a really great expression. Really nice idiom, and if you read the title of this episode you know which idiom I'm talking about - and you know that in Portuguese that expression will change, depending on who we're talking about. I know that some people don't like it when I speak Portuguese in these episodes, but sometimes I just think that it's helpful and this is one of those times.

For example, in Portuguese we say: justo você or justo ela, justo a Maria. In English, the corresponding expression is always the same - it doesn't change. In English we can say: of all people, of all people. Let me give you an example: let's say you go shopping with a friend... Let's say your friend's name is Tom. You and Tom go shopping and... Let's say you're a girl. You're shopping for clothes. Let's say you have to buy a dress and you go to the shopping mall... and Tom is really patient. You go to shop after shop after shop and you try on a load of dresses.

Every single time, you go into a shop and you have a look at their selection of dresses, and you pick out the ones that you like and then, obviously, you talk to the shop clerk, or the shop attendant, and you ask that person Can I have these dresses in my size?

And when you get the dresses, you go into the fitting room and you try them on. You have your shoulder bag with you, you have your wallet in your shoulder bag... obviously! Because when you finally settle on a dress you will have to pay for it - when you buy it.

You and Tom have been looking at dresses for a couple of hours now and you finally find a dress that you love. You have just tried it on... It looks great on you... You asked Tom's opinion and he complimented you - he said: Oh, you look great. Good! You're happy.

When you go pay for the dress, however, you look in your bag and you can't find the wallet. You realize that you must have left your wallet in one of the fitting rooms. Now you have to go back. You and Tom go back to all the shops to look for your wallet and Tom... is kind of giving you an earful. He's saying How can you let this happen? You have to be mindful of your wallet. Your wallet has all your documents - it has all your credit cards! You always have to know where your wallet is, you have to keep checking your bag for your wallet. You have to make sure that your wallet is always in your bag!!

And you look at Tom and you say, Tom... Really? Of all people, you're giving me a hard time, because I lost my wallet, really? I mean, you've been friends with Tom for a while, you know that he keeps misplacing his keys - and sometimes he loses his keys! In the past year alone you've heard Tom say  he misplaced his keys at least five times. He eventually found the keys but before he found them, he would always give you a call and say: Oh... you don't know what happened, I misplaced my keys - I can't find them! I hope I haven't lost them.

I mean, of all people... Of all people Tom is now giving you a hard time because you can't find your wallet and you probably left it at one of the shops. You cannot believe it.

Hi. What's up? No episódio de hoje, falo um pouco sobre como foi o ano de 2019 aqui no Inglês Online, assim como o que vem por aí. Enjoy!
Transcrição
Hello, listener. How are you? This is the new episode of our podcast. Thank you to everyone who has left a review! If you're a listener - if you are especially a regular listener of the Inglês Online podcast and if you can spare a minute or two, please head over to the Podcasts app on your iPhone or Android phone and leave a review. I really appreciate it. Thank you!

So this is the last episode for 2019. The podcast is coming back in January - the plan is first week of January but before we wrap 2019, I just wanted to say that this has been a special year. First of all, because I relaunched our Curso Básico, and you guys... It's better than ever. I've had a great group -people are making a lot of progress in their English and we will have the pre-intermediate coming up... And obviously new groups for the Curso Básico, which is the first module, right? It's really the elementary level.

And before I launched the course earlier this year, I made a series of three video classes teaching you a bit of English. Do you remember the classes? Did you watch them? I talked a lot about the 'possessive pronouns' hers, theirs and mine. And anyone who watched those classes got a lot of exposure to those.

These little words are some of my absolute favourite things to teach because I know that people go through years and years of English so-called 'learning', and they come out of it not knowing these words, let alone speaking them naturally.

I love teaching all those little words that sort of appear here and there in English lessons when you are going to English school and doing a course. But they're never... you never hear them enough if you're doing only the English classes. If all your exposure to English comes from going to English classes twice a week, you never get enough exposure to really absorb these little words. That's why I really enjoy focusing on them, because I know that people listening to these classes and watching these classes are going to get a lot out of it.

Anyway, I hope you had the chance to catch those video classes while they were still up on the website and I hope you've continued to listen to English. I guess you have - if you're listening to this podcast right now. And by the way, our podcast has come back full force this year, after a break. I'm doing it in a different way now: before, I used to write the podcast and prepare, and revise before I recorded it...

Whereas now, I'm doing it in much more of a... impromptu way, that is - just sort of winging it. It's not true that I wing it a hundred percent of the time. Sometimes I scribble down some thoughts before I record the episode but overall it's a lot more spontaneous than it used to be. As a result, I think the speed has been going up and down. Sometimes I talk a bit more slowly but there have been times where I talked a lot faster. You let me know what you think - you let me know if you think I'm talking too fast or if the speed is okay for you.

One other really cool thing this year is.. our collection of basic English tips has expanded like crazy . Actually it has been expanding for the past few years thanks to the amazing work of professor Marcelo, who's part of the Inglês Online team. I know this is the podcast, I know that you're probably not a basic English learner anymore, but hey - if you'd like to have a review about basic vocabulary just head over to the Inglês Básico section of the website and you'll see some pretty cool tips. And most of them have audio as well.

This is it you guys. Just wanted to do a little recap and let you guys know that the podcast is coming back early January... And thank you all for listening and for sharing, and for letting me know what you think,

How have you been? No podcast Inglês Online de hoje, falo sobre os serviços de entrega online, os chamados delivery services - nome que também usamos no Brasil. Enjoy...
Transcrição
Hello, everyone, what is up? How have you been? I'd like to start by thanking everyone who has left a new review for the podcast in the past couple of weeks. Thank you very much! It's much appreciated. And I'd like to ask you - if you've been a listener for a while and you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review either on Apple Podcasts or iTunes or if you're a Google Podcasts listener, that's great too. Thanks.

Today I was looking at this website that we have here in the UK, called 'Deliveroo', deliveroo.co.uk... because that's how the URLs go here in the UK. In American websites you have .com - and in the UK you have .co.uk. This is the most famous service, I guess, or delivery service aggregator, I would say, in the UK. And this is a website where you register, or you sign up, and depending on where you live you have a choice of lots and lots of different restaurants.

It's very easy, obviously, it makes it very practical, because you look at the list of restaurants and they are categorized by cuisine or type of food. And you can look at their menu and choose whatever you want, and then you pay on the spot using your credit card. And then, because you have already signed up, the website has your address. All you have to do is click 'go' or 'pay' and when you finish your payment, you just wait until the delivery person gets to your place with your order. It's super, super simple and I know that in Brazil there are a few services that do that as well.

But here in the UK... I've been living here for six years and Deliveroo... I think Deliveroo is relatively new because I don't remember seeing this or hearing about it four years ago. Now there's Deliveroo and there's 'Uber eats' as well, which is connected to Uber somehow. I've never used it, I don't think, but Deliveroo... I use it all the time and it's really good.

And the thing that I love about it is that not only you don't have to deal with cash, which is the same as Uber... With Deliveroo you just use your credit card and once you place your order, it's done. And the second thing that I love about it is that they tell you exactly where the restaurant is at, in terms of progress in preparing your order. You can see if the restaurant is still cooking your food or when they're done... And then this little app on the website tells you "Now the delivery person has just picked up your order", "They just left the restaurant, they're heading over to your place"

And then they show you a map. And it's this dynamic map that actually shows the delivery person moving on the streets. It's pretty cool - you know exactly how far or how close they are... it's pretty cool It's very, very convenient and it makes it really easy.

Tell me what it's like in Brazil, because I know that there are similar services in Brazil. I think there's a website called - ifood.com.br - I don't know if that's just for São Paulo or if it's present in other cities as well. I don't know.

I'm looking here at a page from Deliveroo which is for this restaurant called - Gourmet Burger Kitchen - which has pretty nice hamburgers... and I've ordered from them in the past, They always have meal deals - I mean, if you go to McDonald's you know what a meal deal is, probably... It's when you buy three things: you buy a burger, you buy a side order of potato chips - which is what we call them in the UK; in the US you would say french fries - and then you order a beverage and you get a discount. That's a meal deal.

And then they show me my recent orders, they show the specials of the day and then beef, chicken, veggie and vegan... They have a section with veggie and vegan burgers, which is cool, obviously,

Hi, what's up? 

Hoje eu falo sobre alguns idioms em inglês com a palavra God.


Transcrição
Hi, what's up? You're listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast, and today we're looking into idioms with the word God.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

"Thank God it's Friday" Photo by bark / Creative Commons

I guess one of the most commonly heard expressions with God is Thank God! We say basically the same thing in Brazil - thank God is what we say when we're relieved that something happened or didn't happen, and so on. "Thank God you got here on time! No one can get in after the gates have been closed." Reminds me of Vestibular in Brazil every year...

"Thank God they have my size in blue." Thank God we were able to find a place to eat. Thank God it didn't rain last weekend. Thank God we have the Internet. Thank God it's still sunny outside... and so on and so forth. Oh, this one: TGIF - thank God it's Friday. Most of you listening to this episode are probably pretty familiar with Thank God. So please leave an example in the comments - how would you use this idiom today?

Now check this out - "My friend is ill and I am going to see her in three weeks, God willing." God willing literally means if God wants it to happen. Of course, nowadays even people who are not religious and do not believe in God use that idiom. It just means something like "hopefully."

Here's one I found on Twitter: "God willing, one day I'll write a book about my career." My next vacation I'm going to a beach, God willing. Someone else said "God willing eight months from now I hope to be living in my new house."

And how about this one - for God's sake! Also, for God's sakes. This one's considered a bit rude over here - why? Because you say that when you're annoyed and, everyone, I can tell you that people in this country - the UK - are very discreet about showing annoyance. Basically, they don't. You can hardly ever tell when an English person is annoyed or angry. So when someone blurts out "For God's sakes!", you know they're mad.

And here's another way to vouch for your sincerity - say honest to God. "Honest to God, I didn't see that car coming and before I knew it, it was too late." What you're doing here is saying that this is really true. Here are a few nice quotes from Twitter: I honest to God don't know what's going on with my hair today. I am truly and honest to God shaken at the Brad and Angelina divorce news. I am not fibbing when I say I get at least four mosquito bites every day. Like honest to God, every day. And one more: Honest to God I almost threw up now from laughing so hard. OK.

So these are all expressions that we also use in Brazil, in Portuguese obviously. We say these things every single day so please leave your own examples in the comments, and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

* thank God
* God willing
* for God's sakes
* honest to God

Vocabulary

blurts out = fala sem pensar

fibbing = inventando, contando uma mentira.

How are you doing?  Hoje eu falo sobre as palavras fancy e posh. "Fancy" é comum tanto nos EUA quando no Reino Unido, mas com um significado diferente em cada país. Já "posh" é bem mais comum no Reino Unido. Confira!


Transcrição
a posh / a fancy restaurant

How are you doing? You're listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast, and today I'm talking about two little words that I hear a lot here in the UK - posh and fancy.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

Today I'm talking about a topic that always seems to attract a lot of interest from English learners: differences between American and British English. My focus is on the words posh and fancy. So let me start out by saying that before I moved to the United Kingdom, I hadn't heard the word "posh" that many times. And why is that? Well, that's because I was used to listening to, almost exclusively, American English - really, like, almost 100% of the time.

In fact, I knew of the word "posh" only because I knew that British girlband Spice Girls, and one of the members was nicknamed Posh Spice. In all my years hearing American English I don't think I've heard the word 'posh' once, except to refer to that artist. Now, the United Kingdom is a different story (for those of you who don't know, by the way, the United Kingdom is a country comprised of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). The word posh is used here all the time - for example, if someone has a posh accent, that means they speak the way rich people or upper class people speak.

That's what "posh" means, in general: anything related to the upper classes, or anything luxurious, sophisticated - whatever it is, it's about something that upper class people, or at least wealthy people would do, have or be. Now, that's not what people say in the United States. Americans use the word "fancy" instead. If you tell an American that you're going on a five-star cruise to the Greek islands, they might say "Oooh, fancy!". That's pretty much the same as our "Que chique!" in Brazil.

So in the US you will often hear people refer to a fancy restaurant, a fancy hotel and a fancy car; whereas in the UK you'll hear people talk about posh people, posh places, posh accents and so on. As I said before, though, you don't hear the word "posh" that often in American English. That's not the case for the word "fancy" in the UK, however. You do hear it a whole lot, but with a different meaning.

To fancy, in the United Kingdom, means to like, to have a desire for something... or someone. As soon as I moved to the UK I started hearing things like "Fancy a beer?" or "Let's get something to eat. What do you fancy?" In these questions, fancy is used with the same meaning as "feel like" as in "Do you feel like having a beer?" and "What do you feel like having for dinner?"

I still say "feel like" or "want" instead of fancy, but I'll admit I quite like this word - it sounds kinda nice :-) Also, the simplest way to say that you're attracted to someone or that you like them in a romantic way here in the United Kingdom is to say "I fancy him" or "I fancy her". It's rare to hear "I have a crush" but if you say you fancy someone, everyone will know you're romantically interested in that person. So, tell me: who do you fancy at the moment?

That's it for today. Let me know if the words posh and fancy are new to you and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* posh
* fancy

Vocabulary

What's up?  Hoje eu falo sobre combinações perfeitas entre advérbios e adjetivos, usadas pelos nativos todos os dias.

Confira!


Transcrição
What's up? You're listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast, and today I'm talking about adverbs that go really well with adjectives, also known as adverb-adjective collocations.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

So today I'm talking about adverb-adjective collocations... ugh. Kidding, it's not boring, really, 'cause it's not a grammar lesson. I only mentioned "adverb-adjective" so you have a reference for what the general topic is for this episode. Let's get right into it with the first example: instead of saying someone was aware of something, you can say that person was fully aware of what was going on. Let's say we're talking about a guy named Jack here.

So Jack wasn't just aware. Jack was fully aware of, let's say, the sales meeting that happened this morning. It's not like he just heard something about the meeting in passing. No, he had all the details. He got an in invitation to the meeting, and RSVP'ed yes. Jack was fully aware of the sales meeting this morning.

Fully aware is used instead of just "aware" when, obviously, you want to emphasise that someone knew full well that something was going to happen and so on. It's a handy expression when people are trying to avoid taking responsibility for something or when they want to pretend they had no idea something was going on. In those cases you say "Nope, you were fully aware this was going on."

And that's why "fully aware" is a collocation. That's how people speak. That's the combination of words native speakers use. They don't say, for example, "You are wholly aware" or "entirely aware". Are these wrong? Nope. People will get it, they just don't use them - at least not often.

Here's another one: if you think Inglês Online is going anywhere, you are sadly mistaken. That means, you are completely mistaken. You think English is impossible to learn? You're sadly mistaken. It's just that you haven't been trying to learn it the right way. If you think we don't have sunny days in London you're sadly mistaken. We have plenty of sunny days out here.

And how about when someone's really shy? We can say he or she is painfully shy. Tony can't speak to a room full of people. He gets very uncomfortable at a party - he's painfully shy. I found this example on Twitter - a girl wrote "I hate how sometimes I am incredibly outgoing then sometimes I am painfully shy". Can you relate?

Let me talk about the word 'unusual' now. I like this word. Instead of saying that something is strange, you can just say it's unusual. That means it's something that doesn't happen very often, it's unexpected and so on. You can emphasise that, saying something is highly unusual. You hear this often in movies and TV shows when someone's sort of apologising or trying to explain why something didn't go as planned. They might say "Everything seemed to be under control and then, all of a sudden, the engine exploded. That is highly unusual." You know what else is highly unusual? How hot it is today here in London. The windows are open and I'm sweating, people.

So here's the last one to wrap up this episode: a nice way to say that something costs an arm and a leg. Here's my example: sometimes I go to the supermar...

Hey, everyone.  Hoje eu falo sobre alguns idioms do inglês com a palavra gold. Confira!


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This episode of the Inglês Online podcast is brought to you by iTalki, the convenient, affordable way to get personalised instruction with a native teacher. Click the link on this episode's page to buy one class for your specific learning needs and get another one free.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

So today we have a few idioms with the word gold. I remember that, a number of years ago, someone referred me to a web developer and said, "He's gold." That's quite a compliment. My friend said that the web developer was gold. That means he thinks the guy is great, has lots of qualities - he is gold.

So that one's very easy. Here's another idiom that you'll hear a lot when you watch American movies and TV shows: gold digger. Gold digger. It's usually applied to women, but it could be said of anyone, really, who gets in a relationship with someone wealthy, so that they'll benefit from all that wealth.

We see that a lot in movies, don't we? And sometimes in real life as well. A girl starts dating a very rich man that she wouldn't otherwise date. The guy's rich, showers her with presents, takes her to expensive restaurants and boat cruises, gives her a lot of jewellery and so on. A lot of people would call that lady a gold digger because, for them, it's obvious that she would not be with that man if it weren't for his wealth. So that's a gold digger.

Let's change the tune a little bit - our next idiom is strike gold. When someone strikes gold, that means something great has happened to that person. Their life has become better in some way. Maybe they hired a new employee for their company and struck gold. Why? Because that new employee turned out to be amazing and your business is doing much better now that you have them on board. You struck gold with this new employee.

Or maybe your friend Jennie bought a second hand car last year and everyone knows by now that she struck gold. She stopped having car troubles when she bought that car. It's super efficient, reliable, safe, requires little maintenance, easy to park and manoeuvre... Jennie really struck gold with that car.

And let's wrap up the episode with one more "gold" idiom: a heart of gold. We say that in Brazil, don't we? It means the same in English. We all know people who have a heart of gold. They're just good people: generous, caring, giving. Someone with a heart of gold is usually someone who will do good things for others without expecting things in return. They just do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts. When you hear this idiom - heart of gold - is there someone who immediately comes to your mind? Is there someone close to you, or maybe someone you've worked with at the same office, who has a heart of gold?

And here's something else I wanna know - when have you struck gold in your life? Maybe you met someone special a while ago - for a romantic relationship, or simply a friendship - and when you think of that person you feel you've struck gold. I certainly feel that way about some people in my life! I wanna hear your stories - let me know, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* gold (adjective)

Hi, everybody.  Hoje eu falo sobre os idioms do inglês cool as a cucumber, free as a bird, hot as fire e mais.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This episode of the Inglês Online podcast is brought to you by iTalki, the convenient, affordable way to get personalised instruction with a native teacher. Click the link on this episode's page to buy one class for your specific learning needs and get another one free.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

Today let's take a look at a number of expressions that use an object or an animal to emphasise a quality. For example, cool as a cucumber. "Cool" here means cool-headed, or someone who can keep their cool even when they're under a bit of pressure, or stress. I like this idiom; I find it funny - I mean, it says that someone is cool as a... cucumber. And of course, I get it, cucumbers feel pretty fresh and cool, but it still sounds funny. So, for example, you might say that, to your surprise, your friend Annie was cool as a cucumber before her job interview. Are you usually cool as a cucumber?

And here's one I hear a lot: free as a bird. Are you busy Friday night? Nope, free as a bird. There's a Supertramp song titled 'Free as a bird'; go ahead and take a listen. It's a great song. Anyway, if your English-speaking friend says "I've got two tickets to see Rihanna. What are you doing tonight?" you can say "I'm free as a bird."

And here's another one that's pretty straightforward: hot as fire. As you may or may not know, the word hot is used to describe someone who's very attractive, so you'll see and hear hot as fire being used to describe people very often. Or you can say it about the weather: "It's hot as fire outside... thirty three degrees." Or you could use hot as fire for really spicy food, like a mustard sauce that tastes a bit sweet, but is hot as fire.

And how about this one - blind as a bat? Well, I did a little bit of research and it turns out that bats are not really blind; like the rest of us they can't see in complete darkness so they have a special trick for finding their way in the dark. That's how the expression goes, though - blind as a bat. One woman tweeted "I just realised that I can no longer sit in the back row of a college lecture hall... I'm blind as a bat." Obviously she's exaggerating - she's not completely blind. Another one said "My grandma used to tell me to eat my carrots because they were good for my eyes but here I am years later, blind as a bat." I got the same piece of advice when I was a kid - you should eat carrots 'cause they're good for your eye sight. Hmm... Not sure that's true.

There are many more idioms like these in the English language. Brave as a lion, busy as a bee, sly as a fox. Which one is your favourite?  Are you blind as a bat when you're not wearing your glasses? Are you in a relationship now, or are you free as a bird to go out and date? Are you cool as a cucumber when you're under pressure? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* cool as a cucumber
* free as a bird
* hot as fire
* blind as a bat

Vocabulary

What's up, everyone?  Hoje eu falo sobre como dizer as expressões "passar no farol vermelho" e "com uma condição" em inglês.


Transcrição
What's up, everyone? This episode of the Inglês Online podcast is brought to you by iTalki, the convenient, affordable way to get personalised instruction with a native teacher. Click the link on this episode's page to buy one class for your specific learning needs and get another one free.

Please download our Android app or leave a comment about this podcast at the iTunes store. Thank you very much and enjoy the podcast!

So let me present you this week with a couple of idioms that are, as always, very common and... I heard both of them this week, I don't remember where. Probably on some TV show or a podcast. And the reason they stuck with me is, we say the exact same thing in Brazil, but with slightly different words. So if we haven't heard or read these expressions enough and internalised them, guess what... It's our instinct to kind of translate the words we use in Brazil directly into English, which will basically sound a little off.

So first up we have an expression related to driving, traffic, cars or motorcycles, or other vehicles. It's a traffic infraction: run a red light. Listen again: someone ran a red light. You know what we're supposed to do as drivers when we come across a red light: we're supposed to stop. So when you run a red light, obviously you could cause an accident. And you could get a traffic ticket.

I have run a red light a couple of times in my life, I guess, but I haven't had a car in a while now so if I were to start driving regularly again I would probably be very careful to not run any red lights. Now, are you a driver? Do you drive every day? Be honest with me: when's the last time you ran a red light? Did anyone see it? Did you get caught? Did you get a ticket?

Now listen to this: you ask your brother to borrow his car for the afternoon. Your brother says "You can have my car for the afternoon on one condition: return it to me with a full tank of gas." Did you catch the phrase 'on one condition'? Notice that in Brazil we say something like "with one condition"... So, forget that and listen again: You can have my car for the afternoon on one condition: return it to me with a full tank of gas.

If you have a daughter, for example, and she asks if she can go to a slumber party at her friend's house, you could say "You can go on one condition: do your homework first." And here's another example: your friend Joe has just done you a big favor. It doesn't matter what it was; let's just say he basically made your life a whole lot easier. Joe then gives you a call and invites you to lunch. You say "I'll go on one condition: this one is my treat." Listen again: I will go on one condition: it's my treat.

What are your examples? Talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* on one condition
* run a red light

 

Vocabulary

(something) sounds a little off = (algo) soa meio estranho

if I were to do something = se eu fosse fazer algo

Did you get a ticket? = Você foi multado/a?

a slumber party = quando várias amigas dormem na casa de uma delas

How's it going, everyone?  Hoje eu falo sobre algo que aconteceu comigo ontem - e que terminou bem de maneira inesperada.


Transcrição
How's it going, everyone? This episode of the Inglês Online podcast is brought to you by iTalki, the convenient, affordable way to get personalised instruction with a native teacher. Click the link on this episode's page to buy one class for your specific learning needs and get another one free.

It was a huge box

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app. Thank you for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's begin with the phrase turn of events - what does that mean? This phrase is commonly used to express some kind of change in a situation. So we can say, for example, that there was an unexpected turn of events - that's quite common. Or, an unfortunate turn of events - a situation took a turn for the worse.

That's not the case for the story I'm gonna tell you, though. It happened just yesterday, and it was certainly an unexpected turn of events, but it was a fortunate one. So what happened was - I just moved into a new place and had to buy a desk and an office chair for my new place. They were supposed to deliver the chair yesterday during work hours, but I didn't want to stay in all day waiting for the delivery - so I provided instructions to the delivery company: "Please leave the package in the parking lot at the back of the building."

So I left home in the morning, as I usually do, sat down at a coffee shop and started some work. A couple of hours later I got a text message from the delivery company saying they had made the delivery - and someone at my building had received it and signed for it. The name of the person didn't really ring a bell - it looked like it had been abbreviated. I thought "Great. I told them to just leave the package at the parking lot, and now someone's signed for it." I got immediately suspicious - I don't know why, but I did. I just could not understand why they needed someone's signature. I was now fearing that my chair had been stolen and I was gonna have to call up the company and make a complain and all that.

So I decided I'd head over to my place right then since I was a bit worried anyway. When I got there, I thought I'd check the parking lot right away. I'll admit I feared I'd find no packages whatsoever awaiting. Well, that was my first pleasant surprise: there was a big package right where I had instructed them to leave it. I tried to lift it off the floor but it was too heavy, so I just dragged it along the pavement around my building until I reached the front door.

Now, I live in a building with no elevators - on the first floor, but still... It wasn't going to be too easy to carry that package over to my place. And that's when the second unexpected turn of events happened: this nice lady who lives in my building, who I'd never seen before, was just coming out the front door and offered to help me with the package.

It took us about thirty seconds to get to my door.

Hi, all!  Hoje eu falo sobre idioms com as palavras joke e laugh.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Are you able to take a joke? When your friends are having a good laugh at your expense, are you able to join them and have a good laugh yourself? Let's be frank here: some people are and some people aren't. Some people are great at taking a joke. They're able to laugh it off and go on with their business, and not hold a grudge.

There are people, however, that don't do so well. Maybe because they're more sensitive, or because of the environment they grew up in, they're not so great at taking a joke. Some people feel hurt, and it's best not to make them the butt of any more jokes.

OK - so I've just used lots of idioms and collocations related to joking. Let's break this down and take a closer look at a few of them. My initial question was "Are you able to take a joke?" I'm actually curious and I would like to hear from you guys if you're usually able to take jokes. That means, in general, that when you're the butt of a joke, you don't really care that much.  That's the expression: butt of the joke.

As you may or may not know, 'butt' is a body part. It is our posterior, our derrière (that's a French word), or, as people say in the UK, our bottom. When someone is the butt of a joke, that means that they're the object of ridicule with that joke. Whoever told that joke is making fun of that person; that person is the butt of the joke.

So if that person can, in general, take a joke, he or she will be able to laugh it off. Of course, there are jokes and jokes. Some jokes can go too far and sometimes they are truly insults disguised as jokes. However, let's say we're talking about a good-natured joke. Let's say your friend John is the butt of the joke. And let's say that John is the kind of guy who can take a joke. He's pretty chilled and has a great sense of humour.

So when your other friends make a joke at John's expense, he doesn't care. In fact, he joins in and even laughs with them. John doesn't mind being the butt of the joke. He can take a bit of ridicule from his friends. The truth is, John knows his friends can take a joke as well.

So when one of you makes a joke at John's expense, or in other words - when John is the butt of the joke, he just laughs it off. When you laugh something off, that means you're sort of treating a problem, or an unpleasant situation, as something unimportant... and you're showing that it's not that important by laughing at it.

Now, tell me the truth: can you take a joke? Do you get hurt every time you're the butt of the joke? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* take a joke
* butt of the joke
* laugh it off

Vocabulary

at someone's expense = às custas de alguém

hold a grudge = guardar rancor

Hey, everybody.  Hoje eu falo sobre idioms do inglês com a palavra fire.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today we start with the English saying "where there's smoke, there's fire." We say the exact same thing in Brazil. Where there's smoke, there's fire. That's what we think when it looks like something's wrong, or when we hear a rumour about something and we're not able to tell a hundred percent whether it's true or not... but we do tend to believe that there's something there.

Most people do become suspicious when they hear a rumour, I guess. They say 'where there's smoke, there's fire'. That's why a well-known strategy by some politicians is to create rumours about opponents and spread them, because even though they're false people will usually think that there's at least a grain of truth in them. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Let's move on to another idiom with the word fire - again, we say basically the exact same thing in Brazil. Very, very common to hear people who work in offices and are very busy with their daily attributions, and when you ask them "How's it going?" they'll answer "Oh, you know. Putting out fires all they long." Listen again: I'm putting out fires.

If you've ever worked in an office in Brazil, I'm sure you've heard people say the Portuguese version of that. When you have to deal with emergencies or things that are urgent, rather than your daily tasks, you're putting out fires. This could be you! I mean, what did you do in the office yesterday?

Did you have to handle last minute, urgent requests from your boss? Did you spend considerable time trying to fix some kind of unexpected issue with a client, a supplier, your computer? Did you spend so much time putting out fires that you didn't even have a chance to read your e-mails? I think everyone can relate. I mean, I'm self-employed - I work for myself, and some days I spend hours putting out fires.

I remember one day, a couple of years ago. I was getting ready to write a few blog posts when I started to get messages from readers telling me my website was down. So this wasn't just any small fire I had to put out, it was a big one. I remember it took me a few days to get the situation under control - in the end I had to find a different hosting service for Inglês Online and until I got that sorted I simply could not get ahead with any writing. Getting the website back up and working properly was way more urgent than getting a new blog post out - so that meant I spent those few days putting out a big fire rather than doing what I do every week, which is write new content.

I'm curious: what's the last time you had to put out a fire at the office? Or maybe you do that regularly at home (hopefully not literally)? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* where there's smoke, there's fire
* put out fires

Hi, all.  Hoje eu falo sobre provérbios e idioms  do inglês com a palavra apple.


Transcrição
Hi, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So, you know how 'health' has been a hot topic for years, right? On TV shows, magazines, books, websites, everywhere you look there's a new study or piece of advice regarding how to keep healthy. Over the years I've heard the following saying quite a few times: One apple a day keeps the doctor away. Some people say that because, apparently, apples are so nutritious that if you eat an apple every day, you will never need to go to a doctor.

I mean, obviously that is not completely true. Sure, apples are nutritious, as are all kinds of fruit, I guess. I wish it was that easy, though, right? I don't know about your apple consumption, but apples are actually not my favourite fruit and I rarely eat one. I do, however, have a bit of apple juice almost every day and that's because I love a good smoothie. I use apple juice as the base and then I add a banana, some frozen berries, a bit of spinach and flaxseed, and then I blend it all up.

Does that count? I haven't been sick in a while so I'm gonna say yes. Where do you stand on this piece of advice - one apple a day keeps the doctor away? I sure wish it was mango instead of apple. Back when I lived in Brazil I used to eat mango every single day. Some days I would have as many as three mangoes, I kid you not. Anyway... I don't think we have a similar saying in Brazil, so there you go - one apple a day keeps the doctor away. Let me know if you think it's true or not.

And here's another saying with 'apple': the apple does not fall far from the tree. Have you heard this one? We've got a similar one in Brazil but I'm not gonna say it because the words we use are different. So we say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree when someone behaves the same way as their relatives, especially their father or mother.

So let's say your father is a very well-organised man. He makes lists, he knows where everything is and when you need an old document, you can count on him to still have a copy of that old document in one of his desk drawers. And your brother happens to be the exact same. Very organised. His desk is never messy. Keeps copies of old bills. The documents in his folders are alphabetically sorted. What can you say? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Your mom loves make-up and has a huge collection of make-up items. Your sister is the same - loves putting on make-up and watching YouTube videos to learn new techniques. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

So tell me: can you apply this saying to... maybe one of your parents and you? Are you just like your mom when it comes to hobbies, or studying, or something? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* One apple a day keeps the doctor away
* The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

Vocabulary

I kid you not = fora de brincadeira

Hello, you guys.  Hoje eu falo sobre vocabulário de imposto de renda em inglês.


Transcrição
Hello, you guys. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So did you file a tax return earlier this year? I did, on the 29th of April - the final deadline for online tax returns in Brazil. Listen again: file a tax return. A tax return is a form - and it can be a paper form, or an online form - where you, the taxpayer, state your income and other information about your life, every year. That's the way people talk about this - in other words, that's the collocation: file a tax return.

Then, after you've filled out that form with your information, you submit it to the tax authorities and then, you either have to pay taxes, or you get a tax refund in case you've already paid in excess. If you're an employee at a company, you probably have part of your salary deducted every month, and that goes to the government, right? That's called withholding tax.

So when you finally file your tax return, you may actually realise that the amount of withholding tax you've already paid is higher than the amount you actually owe the government. So that is one example of a situation where you would get a tax refund.

This year, in the United States, the tax deadline fell on April 18th. That was the deadline to file tax returns with the IRS, or Internal Revenue Service. The IRS would be equivalent to Receita Federal in Brazil. In the United Kingdom, depending on how you choose to submit your tax return,  the deadline for submitting it will be different. Paper tax returns need to be filed by October 31st, whereas the deadline for filing online is three months later - January 31st.

In Brazil we have the exact same options, right? We can file our tax returns online or in paper form. I don't remember ever filing paper tax returns. I've always submitted online returns, usually on or one day before the deadline... What about you? Have you been filing paper tax returns for years and refuse to do it online?

I remember when I was a regular employee at a company and every year, after doing my taxes, I would get a refund. That was because of all the withholding tax that had been deducted from my monthly paychecks. Now that I work for myself, it's a different story. I'm always paying taxes - no refund.

So what's it like for you? Are you an employee who gets a refund every year? Are you self-employed and you end up paying taxes every month, or every year? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* file a tax return
* taxpayer
* tax refund
* withholding tax

Hey, everyone.  Hoje eu falo sobre collocations comuns com a palavra law.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So here's a very common way to use the word 'law': when someone breaks the law. Obviously, if you fail to obey a law; if you do something against the law, then you're breaking the law. For example, shoplifting is against the law. What is shoplifting? That's taking merchandise from a shop without paying for it. That is against the law and if you've done it, you've broken the law.

So I did a search on Twitter and the first thing that popped up was the question "Did the Obama administration knowingly break the law?" Knowingly is an adverb and it would mean that if the Obama administration broke the law, they did so aware that they were breaking the law. I didn't follow the link to the article so I don't know exactly what the Obama administration might have done that was against the law, but there you go. It's true, though, isn't it, that some people break the law because they think they're above the law.


Some people think they're immune to the law. In theory, however, no one is above the law, or no one should be. I know people who think they're above the law, or at least above the rules. It's kinda sad, 'cause I don't wanna be near those people.



Now, I've been talking about the law and breaking it, and being against it, and being above it, and that reminded me of another great idiom: take matters into your own hands. When you take matters into your own hands you're going ahead and dealing with something that needs to be dealt with. And that usually happens because the people who should have dealt with it... didn't, or they didn't do it in a way that was satisfactory to you. So you decide to do something yourself. You decide to take matters into your own hands.
We see that a whole lot on TV shows, right? People who are not happy about the way the police have been dealing with a crime, for example. They think the police have been too slow or haven't been doing enough... And they decide to take matters into their own hands and conduct their own investigation, and find information and uncover evidence themselves, and sometimes even deal with the criminal themselves! They really take matters into their own hands instead of just waiting for the police to do something.

If you watch TV shows regularly, can you give me an example of a recent episode where a character took matters into their own hands? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* break the law
* above the law
* against the law
* take matters into your own hands

Hi, everyone!  Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms muito comuns com a palavra rich.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's focus on the word rich for a bit. Here's our first idiom: get-rich-quick. It's actually a phrase, right? Get rich quick. And it is very commonly used as an adjective - for example, a get-rich-quick scheme. Notice that when a phrase becomes an adjective, it gets hyphenated - check out the transcript and you'll see it.

So I'm sure you can imagine what a get-rich-quick scheme is. I used to get emails all the time - I mean, nowadays they all go straight to the junk folder... Mostly I still see these ads, depending on the website I'm looking at, that say... John makes a thousand dollars a week without leaving his home. Click here and you'll learn what to do in order to make the same amount of money from home.

That's a typical get-rich-quick scheme, where you basically don't have to do any work and you still make a ton of money. And the thing is, if there are people still placing ads like these that means they still get results - in other words, there are people clicking because they wanna know how to... get rich quick.

Look what I found on Twitter: one guy said "I've met so many kids over the past three months who think this whole music and art thing is a get-rich-quick scheme." So this guy has met young people who think that getting into music is a way to become rich and famous without putting a lot of effort into it.

I think that a lot of young people actually believe that to be true. They don't know about all the hours artists put in working, exercising and rehearsing; how early in the morning they have to be up and so on. I don't think making money with music is a get-rich-quick scheme at all. What do you think?

And here's another idiom, or rather, more of a collocation in English. A collocation is the way native speakers combine words together to express an idea. For example, in Brazil we say someone is "podre de rico" when they're very, very rich. Why do we use the word "podre"? I don't know, but that's what we use.

In English, on the other hand, one of the words we use in a similar expression is filthy. We say someone is filthy rich, which means they're very, very wealthy. By the way, the word filthy alone means disgustingly dirty, like very dirty. So there you go - there are things that only the filthy rich can afford, such as buying a Ferrari, or owning ten different mansions around the world.

Interestingly enough, the expression for someone who's very, very poor is dirt poor. Dirt is that thing that gets on your clothes when you've been working outside on your garden all day. It's like dust or mud. Some artists started out in life dirt poor and worked really hard to become filthy rich. Like I said, I don't think music is a get-rich-quick scheme...

So what do you think of our expressions today? Do you know people who were born dirt poor and then became filthy rich? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* get-rich-quick
* filthy rich
* dirt poor

Hello, you guys.  Hoje eu falo sobre um programa de TV que tem feito um certo sucesso aqui no Reino Unido: o reality 'First Dates".


Transcrição
Hello, you guys. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'm going to tell you about this reality show that I've been watching called "First Dates". By the way, if you're new to the Inglês Online podcast and you know nothing about me, here it goes: I moved to London three years ago so every once in a while I talk about life here or some cultural aspect...

And I've begun to introduce more and more idioms that are typically British to the podcast. Makes sense, right? Since now I hear them a lot and I'm actually learning them. Back when I used to live in Brazil, the English I consumed was literally a hundred percent American. I've talked a little bit before about differences between American and British English; I mentioned that understanding different accents was a bit of a struggle in the beginning...

For starters, I really had no idea there were so many different accents in the United Kingdom. In London alone, at least three or four. Fortunately overtime I've gotten better at comprehending what people say in different accents - watching lots of British shows has helped a lot, as well as just simply getting into a more relaxed frame of mind about this.

So anyway - back to 'First Dates'. This is sort of a reality show on Channel Four here in the UK. I've included the link to their YouTube channel at the end of this post so maybe you can check out a few scenes if you like. So it's a bit random for me to watch a dating show, so to speak. By the way - if you need a refresher on dating vocabulary, check out this episode of our podcast.

Anyway - I'm usually not very interested in dating shows, but my housemate had mentioned this show a couple of times saying that it was kind of sweet. Then a couple of weeks later a friend of mine said the same thing and I thought "Ok, that's it. I have to watch it."

The premise of the show is simple: if you're a single person and are interested in dating... And you don't mind being on a blind date that is being televised, then you get in touch with them and if you're selected they'll ask you about your preferences and hopefully match you up with someone. Then the both of you will meet up at a restaurant in central London and your whole encounter will be broadcast on TV! Standard.

So I went ahead and watched a whole season and I have to say, it really was entertaining and kinda nice to see two strangers hitting it off and having a good time. And it's all ages, backgrounds, physical types, nationalities, everything.

Would you believe me if I told you that some people who first met on the show have decided to get married or live together? Well, it's true. Now, would you be able to go on a blind date on TV? I wouldn't. No way! What do you think of the premise of the show - and is there anything similar in Brazil at the moment? What's it called?

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

Vocabulário

Hi, everybody.  Hoje eu falo sobre idioms super comuns do inglês com a palavra way.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so. The more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So, you know when you ask for someone's help and you can tell that person went beyond the basics and actually put in some effort in order to help you? We say that this person went out of his or her way to help you. Let's say you talk to Shelly, who works in your office. You need her help to find a document, but deep down you don't really believe she'll be able to find it.

A couple of days later Shelly gets back to you and says she's found it. She made a few phone calls, tracked down someone who had kept an old copy with them, and when she finally got her hands on it, she scanned it and emailed it to you. This is way beyond Shelly's job description. She didn't really need to go through all that trouble.

Shelly went out of her way to get that document for you. She went out of her way. You had initially asked her whether she had a copy and she said no... And you thought that was the end of it. But she spent time making phone calls and tracking people down in order to get it for you. I think most people who work for a company know someone like that. There's always that person who will go out of their way to help others.

Imagine that you're driving one day and, all of a sudden, your car just stops and simply won't start again. You call your good friend Mark, who lives in that neighbourhood, and he comes to pick you up. He calls a tow truck for you. He then takes you home and you have dinner with his family. He offers to drive you back home after dinner. The next day he texts you, just to check on you and ask if you need anything. Mark is going out of his way to be helpful and to be there for you as a friend.

Now here's another popular expression with way. It's very simple, and very common. Let's say you're telling someone about how you and your brothers were raised by your aunt Maria after your parents passed away when you were kids. So you say "In a way, aunt Maria was a mother to us." She is not literally your mother, but she filled the role of mother for many years. She did most of the things a mother would do, so, in a way, she's like a mother to you and your brothers.

Your friend John is now telling you about this manager at the company he works for. The manager is a very authoritarian person who likes to boss people around and he'll even throw a tantrum if someone challenges him. John says "In a way, he's like a dictator who thinks our company is his country to run."

Yesterday I was late to catch a train and ended up missing it. As I waited for the next train, I had time to make a phone call and catch the person just when they were about to leave. So, in a way, it was a good thing I missed the train.

Now, I'm sure you know someone who goes out of their way to help others. Who is it? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* in a way
* go out of one's way

Vocabulário

deep down = lá no fundo

track someone/something down = conseguir encontrar ...

Hello, all.  Hoje falamos sobre dois idioms muito comuns no inglês com a palavra horse.


Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So here's an idiom I've been hearing quite a bit lately: I don't have a horse in this race. What does that mean? Basically it means that you're talking about something whose outcome doesn't affect you. People usually say that to mean, you know, that they can be impartial or unbiased regarding the topic they're talking about, as in "I don't have a horse in this race - whatever the outcome, it doesn't matter to me but here's my opinion..."

For example, let's say your friend is telling you about a new Italian restaurant that opened in his neighbourhood, and how it is much better than the old Italian restaurant near his flat. Your friend says that the new place is part of a chain and, no matter what you order, they'll get the food to your table in less than fifteen minutes. Your friend is raving about it and saying he will never go back to the old restaurant.

And then you say "Look, I don't even like Italian food so I don't have a horse in this race. I have to say, though, anything you order ready in under fifteen minutes... That doesn't sound very appetising to me. If I were you I wouldn't ditch the old place just yet."

Or let's say your friend is doing some course homework. You glance at one of the answers and you can tell he misused a word, which changes the meaning of the answer. You let him know but he insists you're wrong. You say "Look, I don't have a horse in this race; I'm just trying to help." It doesn't really affect you whether your friend misuses the word or not: you have no horse in this race.

So let's move on to our second idiom of today: straight from the horse's mouth. This is a very, very common one and if you regularly watch TV shows you've probably heard it before. Let's say your friend Jennifer has just told you she's moving to Poland. So later today you bump into your other friend Leslie, who's also friends with Jennifer, and you give her the news: Jennifer is moving to Poland.

Leslie is very surprised, and says "Where did you hear that?" and you say "Straight from the horse's mouth." The horse in this case is Jennifer, figuratively speaking, of course. Jennifer gave you the news herself. You heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

Your friend Kimmy missed class yesterday, so you phone her up to let her know you're all taking a test tomorrow. Kimmy says "Who told you that?" and you say "I was in class! Heard it straight from the horse's mouth." The horse, in this case, would be the teacher.

That's a very common situation, isn't it? You're telling someone a secret, a bit of gossip, news, and they say "Are you sure? Who told you that? Where did you hear that?" Well, now you know: every time you get your information from the source - the person who's moving to another country, who's been in an accident, or the decision-maker in the situation... You can say "I heard it straight from the horse's mouth."

Can you think of anything going on in your own life right now where you would say that? Let me know in the comments,

Hi, everyone.  Hoje falamos sobre idioms e provérbios em inglês com a palavrinha news.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Let's get started today with the phrase That's news to me. Yep: that is news to me. I love talking about the word news, because the way it agrees with the verb is counterintuitive to us Portuguese speakers, so the more we hear it used the correct way, the more familiar with it we'll get. In other words, news ends with an S and we Brazilians have this almost uncontrollable impulse to say "the news are...". Oh- that's a mistake.

We say 'the news is', 'the news was', 'What's the news?' and so on. News is singular. So our first term of today is "That's news to me". Very common to say that when someone tells you something and you're at least mildly surprised. Or maybe the other person thought you already knew and they expected you to have done something about it.

For example, you're at the office and your assistant says "The new sales manager just called and said you were supposed to meet with him a half hour ago." You say "That's news to me. Who scheduled this meeting? " So the sales manager thinks the two of you were supposed to meet..? That's news to you.

The office party has been canceled? That's news to me. Matt has a broken arm? That's news to me. Show da Xuxa is no longer on TV? That's news to me.

And here's a very common proverb with the word news - notice the verb: Bad news travels fast. Travels; bad news travels. Isn't that true, though? I guess it's the same everywhere. When something bad happens, it spreads like wildfire. Yeah, bad news usually spreads like wildfire anywhere.

So when you see someone who's been fired, for example, and you say "Sorry to hear you've been fired" and they express surprise and say "Wow, you've heard!", you can say "Yeah, bad news travels fast." Or when someone comes to you with bad news that you've already heard, you can say "Yeah, I know. Bad news travels fast."

What is your personal opinion about this one? Would you agree that bad news travels fast, especially when compared to good news?

So here's a saying with good news to wrap up the episode. No news is good news. Again, pay attention to the verb: is. No news is good news. That means that if you haven't had any news about something or someone, everything is fine. No news is good news. Obviously, this isn't always true. I think you'll agree with me.

However, I think most of the time it is true that no news is good news. If people you know go away on holiday and you don't hear from them, that's probably because they're busy having a good time. If your brother moves to another city to go to college and you don't hear from him for a while, he's probably getting on with his new life.

So give me your example. Tell me your most recent story where someone told you something and your reaction was "That's news to me". Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* That's news to me
* Bad news travels fast
* No news is good news

Vocabulário

Hi, everyone.  Hoje falamos sobre idioms super comuns no inglês com as palavras funny e comedy.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's just say you're on your way to see a play at the theatre with your friends Jay and Trey, and then Jay says "I've got a funny feeling about tonight." Now, what does Jay mean by "a funny feeling"? Let's hear it: Jay goes on to say that he thinks something's gonna go wrong tonight. There may be an accident with one of the actors; you may never get to the theatre because you'll get lost; maybe someone very tall will sit right in front of you and you won't be able to see a thing; maybe the snack bar will be out of your favourite snack and it just will not be the same without it.

Whatever it is, Jay can't say. He's just got a funny feeling about tonight. So a funny feeling is kind of an intuition. It's not a feeling about something being really funny in a comedic sense; it's more of a premonition. You have known Jay for years and you know that he's a little psychic, and... he's usually spot on. It turns out Jay was right once again. The theatre had to be evacuated halfway through the play due to a bomb threat!

So that's what it means when somebody says they've got a funny feeling about something. They don't mean funny ha-ha, they mean a weird feeling. An intuition. A comedy is funny... Right? What kind of funny? Funny ha-ha (hopefully). A circus clown is usually funny ha-ha. When your friend Jay says he's got a funny feeling, though, he doesn't mean funny ha-ha, he means the other kind of funny: funny peculiar; a weird feeling.

Here's something you will often hear from characters in movies or TV shows: "This feels funny." When a character says that, they usually don't mean that it feels funny, as in funny ha-ha. They mean that it feels funny as in, funny peculiar. In other words, whatever situation they're in, it feels a bit weird.

And here's another one before we wrap up: cut the comedy. You say this to someone when you want them to stop acting silly, horsing around and so on. Let's say you're having a meeting with your teammates. You're thirty minutes into the meeting and everyone is still babbling about the weekend, laughing and teasing each other. You, on the other hand, have to be somewhere after the meeting so you finally say "Ok everyone, let's cut the comedy and get to work, shall we?"

I wanna hear your example. Can you remember the last time you had a funny feeling about something? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* a funny feeling
* funny ha-ha
* cut the comedy

Vocabulário

you have known Jay for years = você conhece o Jay há anos

to be spot on = acertar na mosca

to horse around = ficar brincando, falando bobeira

you're (x) minutes into the meeting = já faz (x) minutos que começou a sua reunião

Shall we? = Vamos? (pode ser usada também ao final de uma sugestão, instrução, etc)

How's it going?  Hoje falamos sobre fazer cópias da chave e se trancar pra fora de casa em inglês!


Transcrição
a locksmith

How's it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's say you just moved into a new house and you would like a couple of people in your life to have the keys to your house. Yeah, they'll be able to come and go as they wish. Let's say it's your brother and your best pal John. He's like a brother to you, so basically you want your brothers - your bros - to have a copy of your house keys.

So what do you do? You go to a locksmith to have extra keys made for your bros. Well, not just for them. You know it's prudent to leave an extra key to the front door with your next-door neighbour, so you're going to the key shop to have three sets of keys made: one for your brother, one for John, and the third set for the neighbour.

So that's the first term I wanted to talk about today - have keys made. Or, if you're in the UK, the more common "have keys cut". For example - I've lost my house key so I'll pop by the locksmith's tomorrow and have a new one cut. I just read somewhere on Twitter that someone just had a key cut at their local shop here in the UK, and they paid £2.69 for a key to be cut. He was outraged. By the way, "p" is short for pence.

If you went to your local locksmith or key-cutting shop, how much would you pay to have a key cut? I remember once when I lived in São Paulo I got home and found out I had been locked out of my house. That means I didn't have my keys on me. When I left home earlier that day, my cleaning lady was there, and I thought she would still be there by the time I returned and she'd open the door for me. So I didn't take my keys with me when I left...

So when I came back she'd already left and I found myself locked out. It was around 6PM so I had to call a locksmith after regular business hours.. It took him a while to get to my place but eventually he got there and then he told me how much it was going to cost. It was ridiculously expensive. He took one look at the lock and said "Oh, this is going to be a lot of work - this lock can be particularly fiddly to open without a key." I thought "Good, at least you're gonna have to work hard to earn the fortune I'm about to pay you."

To my disappointment, it took him less than ten seconds to open the door. I think he was trying to justify his ridiculous price when he said that. Anyway... lesson learned. Never again did I leave my house without my keys.

Now, I'm sure many of you have stories about being locked out of the house. Have you ever locked yourself out because you left the house keys, I don't know, on your nightstand and then you left the house through the front door, the door locked behind you, and you had no way to get back in?

What's your emergency plan for when you lose your keys or get locked out - does your neighbour have a copy of your keys? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* locksmith
* a key made / a key cut
* locked out; lock yourself out

 

Vocabulário

Hey, all.  Hoje falamos sobre dois idioms super comuns do inglês com a palavra rule.


Transcrição
Hey, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Let's get started with our first term of today: rule something out. To rule something out means to stop considering something as a possibility. Example: when I was looking for a place to live, I visited several houses. One of them was too far away from the city centre. It was a nice house, but it would take me one hour and a half to get to the city centre if I started living there, so I ruled it out immediately. I didn't even consider that house a possibility after I visited it. I quickly ruled it out and kept searching.

I'm ruling HER out!

Imagine you're the boss at work and you're looking for a new assistant, so you start interviewing people from different areas since you'd like to hire someone who already works for the company. You need someone who's very patient - your assistant will need to deal with clients all day long and they need to be able to remain calm under pressure.

So you've just finished interviewing someone. She left your office a couple of minutes ago. You decide to get some coffee and as you open the door you see your last interviewee screaming into the phone. She's angrily reprimanding someone for forgetting to take a message for her. The moment you see that, you think "Well, that just rules her out". This woman is not an option anymore. You just simply cannot hire anyone for this position who would not remain calm when things go wrong. You're ruling her out.

Now, moving on to the next idiom... Have you ever heard the idiom ground rules? Ground rules are basic guidelines, basic procedures for... a project, a meeting, or any kind of endeavour or situation where people are gonna work together, or play a game and so on.

Let's say you're a celebrity and you're such a high-profile celebrity that you feel OK establishing a few ground rules at a press conference. In other words, there are some topics about your personal life that you'd rather not talk about and that's what your agent tells the reporters: "Here are the ground rules: no questions about the divorce, her plastic surgery and her dog Bernie." These are the ground rules for this press conference.

Ok, now imagine that you're at the beach with a group of people. It's a rainy day so everyone's staying in. Your friend Melissa suggests playing hide-and-seek so you guys can kill some time. Melissa then says "So these are the ground rules: everyone has ten seconds to hide and we all have to hide inside the house." So these are the rules everyone has to play by - the ground rules.

What's your example? When was the last time you were informed of the ground rules of a situation? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* rule something / someone out
* ground rules

Vocabulário

press conference = coletiva de imprensa

hide and seek = esconde-esconde

everyone is staying in = todo mundo vai ficar em casa

Hi, everybody.  Hoje falamos sobre o idiom not see the forest for the trees e o que ele significa em inglês.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today we'll tackle an idiom whose meaning wasn't obvious to me for a while until I looked for some clarification and then I finally got it. So picture this: you're in school and somehow you and your friend Ken have been chosen to organise the graduation party.

So Ken thinks the party should be at Grand Party Salon. Yeah, that's what it's called: Grand Party Salon, and your friend Ken has his heart set on the Salon. He thinks it's the perfect place: it's spacious, centrally located, nicely decorated and affordable.

So the two of you go ahead and try to book the Grand Party Salon for graduation night. Things start to get a bit complicated when the staff person says that there are a few restrictions for graduation parties, such as no one individual can have more than four drinks and also, there has to be an equal number of men and women sitting at every table.

Ken cannot believe it. He and you both know it would be impossible to control everyone's individual alcohol consumption or guarantee an equal number of men and women at every table. You start saying "Well, guess we'll just have to look for another place..." but Ken wants to fight for the Salon. He won't even consider other options; it's the Salon or nothing.

But the Salon people will just not budge; you feel Ken's wasting precious time as the graduation date approaches and you still have not locked down a location for the party. So one day you tell Ken it's time to drop the Salon and move on. You tell him that the Salon would be a great option but they're making unreasonable demands and there are other very nice options out there.

You tell Ken "You have to let the Grand Party Salon go. You've become so attached to the idea of having the party there, that you can't see the forest for the trees anymore. We're not gonna have a party if we don't secure a venue fast! It's less than two months away and all our planning depends on where the party is going to be!"

And then, somehow, Ken gets it. He says "Thank you, buddy! Thanks for opening my eyes. You're right - I lost sight of the forest." Ken got so involved with trying to negotiate the Salon that getting it became his major concern, and he totally lost sight of the fact that location, while important, is just one element of planning a party. There's a whole lot more involved and it was all being put on hold because he was so dead set on the Grand Salon.

So that's what "not being able to see the forest for the trees" means: you're so focused on details that you fail to understand, or lose sight of the larger situation. I can remember doing this in my own life a couple of times - for example, when I was starting out with Inglês Online and spent way too much time thinking about the appearance of my website, when, instead, and all things considered, I should have focused on writing more useful content for my audience. For a while, I couldn't see the forest for the trees and misplaced my efforts - but thankfully, in the end,

Hello, all.  Hoje falamos sobre um tipo muito comum de compound adjectives, ou adjetivos compostos em inglês - o tipo que termina com -ing.


Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today let me give you some examples of one type of compound adjectives. Don't mind the name compound adjective, it's not that important. Hear this: I live in an English-speaking country. The adjective here is "English-speaking". A country that speaks English, or a country whose people speak English, is an English-speaking country.

Now this one: I live in a block that is full of gym-going people. What does "gym-going people" mean? It means "people that go to the gym". They frequent the gym; they are gym-going people. Now, my favourite actor gives award-winning performances. Award-winning performances. That means that his performances will win this actor some awards. His talent will win him a few awards. He gives award-winning performances.

Look at the image on this post: there are several examples of the type of adjective I'm talking about here. Jaw-dropping, barn-storming, heart-breaking, show-stopping and award-winning - they're all used to describe an actress' performance in a musical.

So let's take a closer look at a few of them. Sometimes you see something that makes your jaw drop in amazement, or in shock. Something that makes your jaw drop is jaw-dropping. That actress' performance is jaw-dropping. A jaw-dropping performance.

If you're watching a movie and it moves you deeply to the point of tears, you could say the story is heartbreaking. It's a heartbreaking movie. Or it's a movie that tells a heartbreaking story. It just breaks your heart when you watch it. It's a heartbreaking story. So that actress' performance is also heartbreaking, according to the poster.

Here are other common examples: I saw some mouth-watering strawberries at the market this morning. They looked so ripe and tasty, they made my mouth water. Those strawberries were mouth-watering. In my personal opinion, there is a lot of mouth-watering food everywhere you look. Whenever I go to the market, my mouth waters. Seriously. Bread, cheese, some fruit, pizza and so on. All mouth-watering food.

Now think of a couple that has been in a long-lasting relationship. Their relationship has lasted for a long time. This is an extremely common adjective to describe not only relationships, but also partnerships or any other kind of agreement that started years ago and is still going. Are you in a long-lasting relationship?

So give me your example. What's the last film you watched that made your jaw drop? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

compound adjetives: jaw-dropping, long-lasting, heartbreaking, etc

Vocabulário

don't mind the name = não ligue para o nome

something that makes your jaw drop = algo que faz seu queixo cair

it moves you deeply = ele te emociona profundamente

breaks your heart = te emociona muito, te faz até chorar (geralmente de tristeza, etc)

made my mouth water = me fizeram saliva

Hey, everyone.  Hoje eu falo sobre vocabulário relacionado a um acidente de carro que aconteceu nos Estados Unidos um tempo atrás. Vamos ouvir maneiras de se dizer "o carro foi capotando montanha abaixo" e "a porta ficou balançando."


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So all of you listening to this podcast have probably got an intermediate or advanced level of English - have you ever had the experience of trying to describe an everyday situation in English and struggling to find the right words to do it?

Well, I was listening to a podcast the other day from the Adam Carolla show, and as I heard a bit where he described a car accident, I thought it contained some pretty interesting vocabulary for our episode. Adam speculates, about how a car accident went down. And this is an accident that happened to someone else, not Adam - a man was driving a car and lost control of the vehicle. So let's go ahead and listen to Adam as he makes his comments:

a barrel

I will speculate that he was not wearing a seat belt; I will speculate that the car started to barrel roll and as it rolled, perfectly, the door, from centrifugal force, flew open. And as it was going, as the door was flinging, as it was spinning, he was launched. And if he'd had a seat belt on he wouldn't have been launched from the car that barrel rolled as the door flung open as it went...

So Adam starts off by saying he thinks the man wasn't wearing a seat belt. So far, so good. His next guess is that the car started to barrel roll - so what does that mean? Well, picture a barrel and imagine the barrel rolling down a mountain.

That's what Carolla thinks happened with the car: it barrel rolled, or rolled like a barrel down a hill or a mountain. So I hope you remember this from school - when there's something rolling like that, or spinning on it axis, centrifugal force is generated. You know that machine that dries clothes that have just been washed - a clothes or tumble drier? It's able to dry clothes because of centrifugal force.

So Adam says that, because of centrifugal force generated as the car barrel rolled, the door flew open - a bit later on he uses the expression flung open, which basically means the same thing. Flung is the past tense of fling. So centrifugal force pushed the door open, or flung that door open; the door flew open or flung open because there was something forcing it to open.

So with the car barrel rolling down a hill, I guess, and the door flinging - or moving from one side to the other - the driver was launched from the car. The driver was launched, or ejected from the car. Then Adam finishes by saying that if the driver had had a seat belt on, he wouldn't have been launched from the car that barrel rolled as the door flung open.

Listen to his commentary once again: I will speculate that he was not wearing a seat belt; I will speculate that the car started to barrel roll and as it rolled, perfectly, the door, from centrifugal force, flew open. And as it was going, as the door was flinging, as it was spinning, he was launched. And if he'd had a seat belt on he wouldn't have been launc...

Hey, everyone.  Neste episódio do podcast eu falo sobre duas expressões super comuns do inglês com a palavra boat.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's get started with a great idiom: rock the boat. Here's how you'll usually hear people say it: I don't wanna rock the boat. Be careful when you give your opinion; you don't wanna rock the boat. Don't cause any trouble, don't mess with a good situation or even an OK situation, let's not ruffle any feathers, don't rock the boat.

So what exactly does rock mean here? Rock is a verb and it means moving something back and forth. Think of a rocking chair: you sit in it and you start rocking it back and forth. Sort of the same with a boat: you can get on it and start rocking it from side to side. So that is a metaphor that English people use, usually to express that they don't want to change things. They're not going to complain, they're not going to criticise anyone, they're just going to keep their heads down and do their job. They don't wanna rock the boat.

Someone told me recently that the company they work for does not have a culture of learning and exploring new ideas. They don't really appreciate suggestions or criticism coming from staff. As a result, employees have learned to, you know, bite their lip and keep their thoughts to themselves. They're actually afraid of losing their job if they say something that displeases management. The employees at this company just don't wanna rock the boat.

Another example: my friend went on a trip with a group of people and she noticed some strange behaviour by one of her travel companions. She decided not to say anything, especially given that she didn't know the person very well. Since this was a trip situation and she was going to be with this group twenty four hours a day for some time, she thought it would be better not to rock the boat.

Now here's another popular idiom, one that the students of my basic English course know well: we're in the same boat. If someone tells me they're in some kind of trouble, I will tell them "We're in the same boat" if I happen to be going through the same kind of situation. I know what you're going through, I feel you, I hear you... We're in the same boat, I know exactly what you're going through.

Now, the reason my students know this idiom isn't because they're having a hard time with the course - the reason is, I teach this idiom in the course, and by the end of it they know how to use it. Let's say your classmate Mary rings you up and tells you she's having a hard time with the Physics assignment. She's looking at question number one and she has no idea where to start. She feels lost and needs your help. You tell her "Bad luck... Can't help you. I'm just as lost as you are. We're in the same boat, Mary..."

Now, have you ever been in a situation where you didn't want to rock the boat? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* rock the boat
* be in the same boat

Vocabulário

ruffle (someone's) feathers = provocar uma pessoa

Hey, all.  Hoje falo sobre os mais conhecidos tipos de exercícios físicos - abdominais, polichinelos e flexões de braço e perna, em inglês.


Transcrição
Hey, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So back when I lived in Brazil, I didn't go to the gym at all. Sure, I signed up three or four times over the years but I never lasted longer than two months. I just didn't like going to the gym. I'm not really sure what changed, but a couple of years ago, when I was already living in London, I thought it would be nice to start exercising regularly and maybe get a little stronger.

a lunge

So that's how I became a gym-goer, and today I'm gonna talk about some very common kinds of exercises - I'm sure you will recognise all of them. In order to better understand which exercise I'm talking about, look at the corresponding picture as you listen.

First, there's the lunge. In order to do a lunge, you step forward, say with your left leg, and then you bend both your knees at the same time. Then you bring your leg back to the initial position and repeat the sequence with the right leg forward, and so on. Keep in mind that this is just a general description of the exercise, OK? If you've never done it, seek additional instruction before you try it ;-) So that's the lunge for you. By the way, I can't remember what we call a lunge in Brazil - please let me know in case you do.

a press-up

Now here's a very popular one: the press-up. Do you do press-ups? That's when you get down on the ground, with your face down, and then you raise yourself, as though you were trying to push the floor away from you. There are a few different types of press-ups - and by the way, they're also known as push-ups.

a jumping jack

And here's one that... it's probably the first exercise I ever learned: the jumping jack. To do a jumping jack, you start off standing up with your feet together and arms alongside your body and then, as you jump, you move your feet out and raise your arms at the same time. Then you bring your arms down and your feet back together, and repeat the sequence. Can you remember doing jumping jacks as a child, maybe in your P.E. classes?

doing a sit-up

And then we also have lots of exercises to work our abs - the abdominal muscles. People working out often do sit-ups - that's when you're lying on your back with your knees bent, and then you tighten your abs and raise your body up towards your knees.

Tell me - do you go to the gym and if so, do you ever do lunges, press-ups, jumping jacks and sit-ups? Which one do you find the hardest? For me, personally, lunges are the hardest - especially when the teacher asks us to do jumping lunges. Sit-ups are usually the least difficult ones for me. What about you? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* lunges
* press-ups
* jumping jacks
* sit-ups

Vocabulário

say, with your left leg... = digamos, com a sua perna esquerda

P.E. = physical education

How's it going?  Hoje falamos sobre as expressões usadas para dizer que alguém está em cima do muro a respeito de alguma coisa, ou... simplesmente não decidiu ainda.


Transcrição
How's it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'm gonna tell you about a very common idiom in the English language that is used to say that someone is neutral about something; or hesitant to choose a side in a discussion or competition. We say that person is sitting on the fence, or simply on the fence.

Let's say a new film is out and all your friends want to go see it. You, however, have read the synopsis and can tell that there's a lot of heavy drama in this film. You happen to not be a big fan of overly dramatic stories. What's more, this film has been rated R for violence. Yep, lots of blood and gore. You can't stand watching violent scenes. OK, I'm talking about myself - it's true. I basically don't go to the movies anymore except when it's a comedy. So much drama and violence!

Back to the example: so all your friends are excited and can't wait for Saturday to arrive. That's when they're going to the theatre. The film does sound amazing; the actors are outstanding and critics are raving about it. Also, hanging out with your friends is always fun. So there are pros and cons to this. If you go, you get to spend time with your buddies and watch what is supposed to be a wonderful film; however you'll have to endure some drama and cover your eyes when graphic scenes come up.

So when your good friend Sally rings you up wanting to know if you're joining the gang on Saturday, you tell her that you're still on the fence about watching this film. You're undecided, you're still hesitant to make a decision. "I'm still on the fence with this movie, Sally... Not sure it'll be worth watching all the blood."

You're on the fence about watching this movie. Last week you were on the fence about buying a new computer since your old computer was still functional. You decided to go ahead and buy a new one. Last month your father was on the fence about going on vacation. He ended up deciding to postpone the vacation until next year.

Here's another example:  you've been offered a new position in the company you work for. You've talked to your boss about it and he has been very understanding. You really like your current job; however, this new position pays better and is a bit more challenging. You're still on the fence, though. The offer was extended to you a week ago and you haven't decided yet. You're still on the fence. Your boss then says "You've got to make up your mind. You can't be sitting on the fence forever."

Now, notice that the meaning of "sit on the fence" isn't always exactly the same as ficar em cima do muro such as we use it in Brazil. When we say that in Portuguese, it usually communicates that someone doesn't want to make a decision because they lack the courage to do so; because they don't want to get in trouble and so on.

So in English, 'sitting on the fence' does not necessarily have such a negative connotation,

How's it going? Hoje eu falo pra vocês sobre uma pessoa que conheci no fim de semana: a black cab driver.


Transcrição
How's it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

a black cab in London

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today I'm gonna tell you about an acquaintance I made over the weekend. I went for a guided walk in central London, with a group, and as we waited for other people to arrive at the meeting point I struck up a conversation with this guy David.

He was born and raised in London, and now lives near Heathrow airport. He told me that he will soon be moving to a nice area further up north. I then asked him about what his commute was going to be like after he moved house, and he said that it doesn't really matter since he drives a black cab. So that's his occupation: he drives a black cab.

He told me that he had to pass a test in order to be qualified as a black cab driver. He studied for three years - yes, that's three years - to prepare for the exam. Just to give you an idea, David had to memorise over three hundred routes in London. Basically, you've got to know the map of London by heart, as well as all the important landmarks and buildings. Twenty-five thousand streets... How about that?

In London you have the choice of black cabs and mini-cabs. Black cabs are the more expensive option and now I understand why. The driver of a black cab is highly qualified and chances are better that, you know, you're not going to be ripped off or run into any sort of trouble. With that said, there are good reputable minicab firms as well - but it's a lot easier to become a minicab driver than it is to be licensed and qualified to be a black cab driver, so... It's just less risky to hop into a black cab than a minicab.

While we were walking, I told David where I live in London - it's an area called West Norwood which most people haven't heard of, but he obviously knew immediately where it was. Not only that, but he knew there was a somewhat famous cemetery in West Norwood, and he ended up giving me a few tips on local attractions that I could visit.

David then told me about his trip to the United States a while ago. I think he visited seven or eight cities, and his favourite one was New York, and the least favourite one was San Francisco.

So there you go: now you know a little bit about the life of a black cab driver in London. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

 

Vocabulário

a guided walk = uma caminhada com um(a) guia, que vai comentando os pontos de interesse durante o passeio

struck up a conversation = comecei a conversar

after he moved house = depois que ele mudasse de casa

commute = "viagem" ou trajeto, geralmente para o trabalho (e do trabalho para casa)

be ripped off = ser explorado

 

Hi, everybody.  Hoje falamos sobre I've had worse e I've seen better, expressões muito comuns no inglês


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today you're going to listen to several examples of a very common structure in English. Imagine that you're out with a friend and it's 8 PM and neither of you have properly eaten all day. Yeah, that's right, you've spent the day chatting and snacking on potato crisps and peanuts. You guys are starving and decide to look for a decent place to eat.

However, there's some kind of restaurant and bar strike going on and the only place where you can get food right now is a greasy joint that sells hamburgers. It does not look good but hey, you guys are hungry and out of options  so you decide to give it a try.

So you go in the joint and order a couple of burgers and, as you're eating yours you're surprised to realise that, while it's not the best burger you've ever had... It is actually far from being horrible. So you say "OK, this is actually not so bad. I've had worse."

So notice the use of the present perfect here: I've had worse. I have had worse. I have had worse burgers in my life. When did you have worse burgers? I don't know, it doesn't matter... I don't remember when, but I know that there was a time in my life when I had a worse burger than the one I'm having now. I've had worse.

So this is a very common term, or structure, which can be used with a few different verbs. Just to keep with the food theme a bit longer, can you remember a time in your life when you were even a bit surprised that a certain food didn't taste so bad? Nobody was expecting it to be good and then you took a bite, and said "Eh... I've had worse."

We have all been there. C'mon, what's your recent example? Maybe you've been to a football match and you thought the food at the stadium would be crap and then... Upon your first bite on that hotdog you thought "Eh, I've had worse." Or you went to the office party expecting, again, the food to be kinda awful... And in the end you thought, "I've had worse."

Now, you can also say something like "I've had better", and that's the opposite situation, of course. That's a complaint - you say "I've had better" when you don't want to outright say that you don't like the food, or that it sucks. It's an euphemism, for sure, and it's very popular in English language conversations.

Let's say everyone's been talking about this new movie and when you go see it, you're a bit disappointed. Your friend asks what you thought of the movie and you say "I've seen better." Or someone shows you some work of art, and... This is your opinion: "I've seen better."

You hear about a restaurant that has been getting rave reviews everywhere and when you finally get to try their signature dish, you think to yourself... I've had better.

What is your experience? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* I've had / seen worse
* I've had / seen better

Vocabulário

potato crisps = batata frita de saquinho,

Hey, everyone.  Hoje falamos sobre dois idioms com a palavra PICK.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So this is our first episode of 2016 and we kick off with a very simple expression: take your pick. It's very simple, really: it means choose which one you want. Of all the options available to you, which one do you want? Take your pick.

You don't wanna go to the theatre on your own this Saturday. You've got a spare ticket and you'd like to take someone with you. Mike said he can go, Annie is also available and Jack also volunteered. Take your pick.

Have you ever been in a restaurant where there's a dessert cart? The waiter will bring it around at the end of the meal, you look at the cart and there's some kind of pudding, there's black forest cake, there's apple pie, brownies and cookies. You're free to choose whatever you want. Take your pick.

Or your friend, who you're spending Saturday with, says "I've nothing planned for today but we could go see a movie, chill at the pub, or stay in and play videogames. Take your pick."

Now hear this: let's say you're a girl and you have a party this weekend... And you already have your outfit picked out for the party. You have your outfit picked out. To pick something out is to select something... or someone - pick out can be used with slightly different meanings but today we're focusing on this one.

You have a closet with a few different outfits but you've already made up your mind about which one you're going to wear. You've already picked out the dress you're going to wear.

Many people who do not have children but plan on doing so have their kids' names picked out already. They've already thought about it, they've made their choice and they know what they're going to name their kids in the event they have any. They've already picked out their kids' names.

Let's say your mum sent you to the supermarket on a mission: bring back home some delicious biscuits to offer to your three aunts who are coming to visit this afternoon. You get to the market and head over to the biscuits aisle. There are so many options: plain biscuits, with almonds, vanilla cream, chocolate chips, crackers and the list goes on. In the end, you pick out the chocolate cookies with chocolate chips, which are usually a hit with everyone you know...

Now check this out: yesterday I spent thirty minutes picking out the expressions for this podcast. It's true. My friend spent two hours at the eye doctor today picking out new glasses.

Now I want to hear from you. Let me know what it is that you picked out last week, or yesterday. Talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* take your pick
* pick out

Vocabulário

a hit = um sucesso

Hi!  Hoje falamos sobre algumas expressões comuns relacionadas a feriados aqui na Inglaterra (e no Reino Unido em geral!)


Transcrição
Hi! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

This is the last Inglês Online episode of 2015 (twenty fifteen) and I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you guys about a couple of expressions used by the Brits to refer to holidays. Let's start with public holidays - what is a public holiday? It's a day where most businesses and services are closed. Christmas and New Year's Day are two examples.

So here in the UK people actually refer to public holidays simply as bank holidays - as you can guess, banks are closed on bank holidays. So we just had a bank holiday - Christmas, the 25th of December. Tomorrow, January 1st, we have another bank holiday - New Year's Day.

So apparently there are about eight bank holidays a year in England - and I'm talking about just England now. Only three of those are public holidays in Brazil as well: the two I mentioned before, Christmas and New Year's Day, and Good Friday, which is the Friday before Easter Sunday.

The other five bank holidays in England are the second day of January; St. Patrick's Day on March 17th (seventeenth); Easter Monday, which is the Monday after Easter Sunday; May Day, which is the first Monday in May; the last Monday in May; the last Monday in August; and finally Boxing Day on the 26th (twenty-sixth) of December.

So Boxing Day is the bank holiday I'd like to talk about - it's basically the day after Christmas, except when it falls on a Sunday. So if Christmas falls on a Saturday, the next day - 26th of December - will be a Sunday. In that case only, Boxing Day will be on the 27th.

So what IS Boxing Day? Historically speaking, the most well-accepted version is that in the nineteenth century... the day after Christmas was the day servants and manual workers received gifts, known as "Christmas boxes", from their employers and customers. In modern times, though, Boxing Day is best known as a big shopping holiday - a lot like Black Friday in the US.

Another holiday here is St. Patrick's Day, which is a religious bank holiday on March 17th. It celebrates Patrick, a missionary who, according to tradition, converted the pagan Irish to Christianity. Nowadays, when celebrating St Patrick's Day, it's tradition to wear green clothing to the parades and festivities all over the UK.

So I've told you about a few bank holidays here in my neck of the woods - which Brazilian public holidays can you remember? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next year!

 

Key terms

* public holidays, bank holidays
* Boxing Day
* St. Patrick's Day

Vocabulário

Brits = British people (britânicos, informal)

Hello!  Hoje falamos sobre a palavra GIG e como ela praticamente virou sinônimo de trabalho ou emprego de qualquer tipo. Um P.S.: gig também é abreviação de gigabyte, que não é assunto deste episódio.


Transcrição
a musical gig

Hello! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So an Inglês Online reader asked me about the word gig yesterday. He was reading a business book and came across the expression full time gig. He was surprised to see that, since he thought 'a gig' meant a temporary job, or maybe not even temporary - but sort of a side job that you take, in addition to your full time job, to make some extra cash.

As it turns out, though, the word gig has been used in a much broader sense for a while now, to mean a job, or work. It's a slang word, for sure, so it's always informal. Before I give you more examples, let's just go over the original meaning of gig: in the beginning, gig was used by musicians when they were hired to perform somewhere.

The word gig is still very much in use with that meaning - for example, I sometimes go to bars to see live music gigs here in London. They usually have lineups of four or more gigs on the same night. Some gigs are better than others and, in general, they leave the best gigs for last - so if the first performance starts at eight, for example, you'll probably see the fourth or fifth gig around ten or ten-thirty and these will probably be the most popular ones.

Like I said, though, we can say gig for basically any kind of work in informal language. It doesn't matter if it's temporary or full time; if it's music-related or not. All you have to do is qualify it: a full time gig; a temp gig; a side gig, a great gig, and so on.

You may be telling your friend that you're starting your new job as an analyst for a big consulting company. You tell her about the hours, the pay, the job description... And your friend thinks it's an awesome job. She says "Wow... Sweet gig!" And you agree. It is a sweet gig. It's going to be your full time gig from now on.

You have another friend who's a carpenter and he's telling you someone wants to hire him to build custom furniture for a house in the countryside. It's a bit far from where he lives, so you ask him "Are taking the job?" and he says "Hey, a gig is a gig". It's work! Work is work; a gig is a gig.

And yet another friend of yours says "I like my job but I wanted to make some extra cash so I'm driving for Uber now." So your friend now has a side gig, in addition to his full time job. He's an Uber driver.

And here's my story: when I lost my full time corporate job years ago, I started teaching English. It was supposed to be just a temporary gig. It turned out to be more than that as it lasted for a few years, and eventually the Inglês Online website turned out to be my full time gig.

So what's your gig? Do you work full time and also have a side gig? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

* gig

Vocabulário

a side job = um segundo emprego, no geral 'part time', para complementar a renda

What's up?  Você só fala... Fazer que é bom, nada. Como dizer isso em inglês? Hoje vemos três idioms do inglês muito comuns para comunicar exatamente isso!


Transcrição
What's up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's get right into it: you're all talk and no action. Whoa... I'm not accusing anyone. Just letting you know what our first idiom of today's episode is. And while I'm sure some of you have heard this term before - it is, after all, very, very common in English - unless you're saying it confidently whenever you wanna tell someone they're only talking a lot about something but never actually doing it... Well, you could use some more listening to get even more familiar with it, and that's exactly what we're doing now.

So when your father asks you "Did your brother ever get around to fixing the computer?" You know that John, your brother, hasn't fixed the computer yet. He's been telling everyone he's gonna do it for weeks, though. So you say "John's all talk and no action. He's at his girlfriend's now and the computer's still broken." John is all talk and no action.

Notice that you can shorten this idiom to "He's all talk". She's all talk. John is all talk. They talk a lot about the stuff they're going to do, but they never actually do it!

Your friend Melissa wants to move to an English-speaking country, let's say Canada. You know she's really going to do it - she has family in Canada, she's a nurse, she's applying for a visa and all that stuff. However, she's been saying she'll be able to speak good English come time to move, and you know that's not gonna happen... She can barely understand "What's your name?" and her plane leaves in a couple of months!

Every time you see Melissa and ask her about her studies, she reaffirms her intention to learn English. Finally you just look at her and say "Melissa, you're all talk! You've been saying this for months now and you haven't even started lesson 1!" She's all talk and no action. She's all talk...

What about someone who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk? Picture someone who is very vocal about respecting other people, for example. They can actually speak beautifully about that topic, and you even feel inspired by their speech. However, one day the two of you disagree on something. And, well... Your friend, let's say his name is Rick, the one who just the other day made a Facebook post about the importance of respect, got mad at you because you didn't share the same opinion, and started calling you offensive names. Whoa...

Rick talks the talk... but does he walk the walk? Hmm, I don't think so. Calling you names because you disagree with him... Not very respectful. Rick talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. Someone, on the other hand, who actually acts or behaves according to what they talk is someone who talks the talk and walks the walk.

So think about the expression: talking about something is relatively easy, isn't it? Now, aligning your actions with your talk... That may not be so easy. You know, talk is cheap!

How's it going? No episódio de hoje, você ouve mais sobre duas partes do corpo (na perna) sobre as quais a gente não fala muito, e fica familiarizado com estas palavras.


Transcrição
How's it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'd like to talk about some body parts that I know are not that well known by English students. What inspired me to talk about them was the term keep your chin up. The chin - c-h-i-n - is the part of the body that is right below our lower lip.

So 'keep your chin up' is an expression of encouragement, right? It means, remain confident and maybe cheerful in whatever tough circumstance you're going through. Keep your chin up.

Chin, then, made me think of shin, which is a body part that is in the leg. Look at the picture and you will see where the shin is. OK, so notice that I just spoke about an idiom with "chin", which is below the mouth. Chin.

Now I'm talking about the shin, which is right below the knee. Shin... S-h-i-n. And notice that I am not saying "sheen", as in "Charlie Sheen". I'm saying 'shin'  - check out my pronunciation tip to learn more.

So apparently shin splints are a very common form of leg injury. I looked for the expression in Portuguese and found "canelite" - I've never heard this word before so if you have, please let me know if that is what we really say for shin splints.

Basically, almost any kind of pain you feel in your shin as a result of exercising will fall under this category - shin splints. And I found out that most shin splints occur when there is more stress on the tibia than it can handle, so - there you go.

I'm thinking here about football players - or soccer players, if you like - do they wear any protection for the shin, like shin pads? If you know the answer, please educate me :-)

So the shin is in the frontal part of the lower leg, right? On the other side we have the calf. Calf - c-a-l-f. The calf is the back part of the leg. Notice the way we pronounce calf - it's the same as half. Also, the plural form is calves, just like the plural of half is halves. One calf, two calves; one half, two halves.

Calves are very fleshy and muscular, and of course, calves can be injured as well. You can strain your calf, for example. Apparently that happens a lot to tennis players. I don't think I've ever strained my calf, but it sounds painful.

So let's talk about calves a little bit more. Here's a popular way to make your calves more muscular: are there any stairs where you live? If so, stand on the edge of a stair step. Be careful - don't lose your balance! Then, stand straight and lift your heels until you're standing on your toes. Stay there for two seconds, lower your heels and repeat the movement. That's it - simple.

Tell me - do you know anything about shin or calf injuries? Do you exercise your calves regularly? Let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* keep your chin up
* shin
* calf / calves

What's up? Sei que o título de hoje pode chocar um pouco :-( mas o assunto é atual e importante! Todos ouviram falar dos ataques terroristas em Paris, e o governo britânico já está orientando a população sobre como proceder em caso de ataques similares por aqui. Eu aproveito para falar sobre o vocabulário!


Transcrição
What's up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

OK, so I know today's topic is a bummer: I'm gonna talk about the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, specifically here in England, where I live. Keep listening though - the vocabulary involved is pretty interesting and not something you hear every day.

So last Friday, the thirteenth of November 2015, a number of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, France. There were mass shootings, suicide bombings, and many people were held hostage.

As expected, ISIS, the islamic state terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks, and as it turns out other European capitals are at risk. So now the British government has released some advice on how people can prepare for similar attacks here in the UK.

The main piece of advice, or at least the piece this newspaper article chose to highlight is, victims should run and hide rather than play dead. What that means is, rather than falling on the floor and pretending you're dead, you should try and run away from the shooting and hide away somewhere.

But the UK Security Chiefs actually provided a lot of detailed advice, which is pretty interesting to go through - well, for me, I'd say it's kind of important to go through all of it... as you may know, I live in London - but for you and all other English learners it's a nice opportunity to get some more exposure to this sort of vocabulary, which you might have already heard on TV shows.

So I've selected some of the advice, which they summed up in the following instruction: RUN, HIDE, TELL. So here we go:

RUN: Escape if you can; consider the safest options; is there a safe route? Run, if not, hide. Can you get there without exposing yourself to greater danger? Insist others leave with you; leave belongings behind.

So the first part is all about escaping and running away. Alright, makes sense. Here's the next part:

HIDE: If you can’t run, hide; find cover from gunfire - if you can see the attacker, they may be able to see you; cover from view does not mean you are safe, bullets go through glass, brick, wood and metal; find cover from gunfire e.g. substantial brickwork or heavy reinforced walls; be aware of your exits; try not to get trapped; be quiet, silence your phone; move away from the door.

So there are some interesting bits here - for example "cover from view does not mean that you're safe", meaning, if there's a wall between you and the attacker and they shoot, the bullets might still get through the wall and hurt you, so what they recommend is that you hide behind substantial brickwork (like a very thic...

What's up? No episódio de hoje, falo sobre dois provérbios pra lá de comuns na língua inglesa. Não perca!


Transcrição
What's up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's focus today on a couple of proverbs in English. Proverbs are sayings that have stood the test of time. In other words, they supposedly reflect some kind of truth and therefore people continue to say them because... truth never changes.

I've talked about proverbs before in our podcasts and I've probably already asked the same question I'm gonna ask now: are proverbs always the truth? Well, I happen to disagree with some proverbs, to be honest. So, in my opinion, no, they're not always the truth.

Wanna hear an example? No pain, no gain. Ok, that's probably not a proverb per se, but boy is that a popular saying. I think almost every gym in the UK has that saying glued to a wall. OK, when it comes to exercising and training that might be true - no pain, no gain.

If you want to be in great physical shape or become a good athlete, then you've got to train, exercise, work out, lift weights, all of that stuff. There's a bit of pain involved, that's true. So in order to have some gain - in other words, in order to achieve your goal - you do have to experience some pain. True.

If you want to become really good at something - let's say, speaking English, you do have to put in time and effort. Unless you're a baby learning to speak, of course. So - if putting in time and effort equals pain, then there you go: no pain, no gain.

Now, the reason I slightly disagree with this saying is that pain is sometimes relative. Some people really enjoy training and working out and honestly don't mind doing it. Other people do not mind studying at all - I know people who love to study! So in their case - no pain and a lot of gain.

Also - how about winning the lottery? That's like zero pain and a big gain. What do you think?

Alright - so let's move on to our second proverb: Great minds think alike. First of all, 'think alike' means 'think in the same way'. You know when you and your friend say almost the same thing at the same time? That means you guys were thinking the same thing. The two of you think alike. One of you might say "Great minds think alike".

Of course, it's always a bit of a joke when someone says that... It's like, they're congratulating you for being as smart as they are. After all, you said the same thing they said. One other example for this is, you could be chatting with someone on Facebook and you and your friend post the same thing simultaneously. So you type in next "Great minds think alike".

Do you have a close friend or a relative, with whom that happens a lot? Please let me know in the comments... And talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* No pain, no gain
* Great minds think alike

Vocabulário

have stood the test of time = já duram muito tempo

per se = por si só, em si mesmo

boy is that a popular saying = puxa, como esse ditado é comum

How are you? No episódio de hoje, falo sobre idioms muito comuns no inglês com a palavrinha eye, como o famoso "fulano fez que não viu o que aconteceu".


Transcrição
How are you? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

OK, so you know when there's something going on and people ignore it and pretend they didn't see it? I'm talking about something that should not be happening. For example, your entire class is doing an exam today and the teacher, Mr. Stevens, is there, standing by his desk, watching all of you as you do the test.

So of course everyone knows that they're not supposed to cheat. They're not supposed to open their books while doing the test. They're not supposed to talk to each other nor help each other. Everyone knows that, especially the teacher!

However, let's say that your classmate Johnny is sitting by your side and you can see that he's cheating. You can see it! He's looking at his notes while writing on the test. You lift your eyes to Mr. Stevens, who is looking directly at Johnny. You can tell he knows Johnny is cheating.

You hold your breath for a few seconds, waiting for the teacher to call Johnny out. Instead, silence. You lift your eyes again, and, to your surprise, you see Mr. Stevens pulling up his chair and sitting down. He's now looking out the window! What?

You can hardly believe it, but it's true: Mr. Stevens has turned a blind eye to Johnny's cheating. He chose to ignore Johnny's behaviour. He pretended not to see it. Mr. Stevens caught Johnny cheating, and chose to ignore it. He turned a blind eye to Johnny's cheating.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever seen someone do something wrong in a situation where you were supposed to take some kind of action, meaning... You were not supposed to let that person get away with it, but instead you turned a blind eye?

In other words, maybe you were the teacher and you caught a student cheating on an exam, and you did nothing. Or maybe you were reffing a soccer game and you saw one of the players commit a fault, and you said nothing. You turned a blind eye.

Here's what an Egyptian journalist said, speaking about media censorship in Egypt: "My three friends got a life sentence, strictly for doing their job, for reporting - they're journalists and the world is silent. The world is turning a blind eye to what is happening in Egypt." His friends were imprisoned for reporting facts that didn't make the government look good - and this man says the world is turning a blind eye.

OK - on a lighter note... When you're punched in the face, your eye turns black.  I know that in Brazil we use the color purple to describe an eye that was hit by a punch, but in English we call it black. If you're punched in the face you'll most likely get a black eye. Have you ever had a black eye, by the way? How did that happen? I'd like to hear that story.

So please let me know in the comments... And talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* turn a blind eye
* a black eye

Vocabulário

What's up? No episódio de hoje, falo sobre aquelas palavrinhas do inglês que podem ser pronunciadas de duas maneiras: com ênfase na primeira sílaba, ou com ênfase na segunda. Tudo depende do uso. Ouça já!


Transcrição
What's up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So here's what I want to talk about today: the pronunciation changes in words that can be nouns or verbs. Here's an example: the word i-m-p-a-c-t. IMpact, or imPACT. Have you noticed that there's a difference? Words like IMpact, or imPACT. INcrease, or inCREASE. OBject or obJECT.

One is a noun, the other is a verb. With the noun, the stress is placed on the first syllable: OBject. With the verb, the stress is placed on the second syllable: obJECT.

So which one is IMpact? It's a noun, like in this sentence: The behavior of parents has such a big IMpact on a child.

Now let's use the verb imPACT - here's an example: Your donation will impact our organisation's results. Your donation will impact the results. As a noun again: your donation will have an impact.

So in order to help you get used to this, let me give you a string of short examples with both IMpact and imPACT. Ready? Here they go: low-impact exercises are easier on the body. Our CEO's speech had no impact on employees. Recession has had a huge impact in our economy and lots of shops are now closed.

Now, technology will continue to impact our lives in the future. Loss of vision will usually impact someone's independence. Plot twists generally impact the way a story unfolds.

So, in case the difference in pronunciation doesn't come naturally to you - how are you gonna know? How are you going to learn this? Well, I suggest you do what I've done and get a move on with your listening. You could sit down and do focused activities to try and memorise, or internalise, the different ways to pronounce impact - but listening to comprehensible English as much as you can is, hands down, bar none, without a shadow of a doubt, the most efficient, fastest way for these things to become natural to you.

Let's take another one: progress. I said PROgress, which is the noun. By the way, it's PROgress in the UK. Technology has brought a lot of PROgress to our lives. We've made a lot of PROgress on our reports. PROgress is a good thing.

Now, listen to this: as they got to know each other better, their relationship proGRESsed. Mary didn't speak any French last year but she has since proGRESsed to an intermediate level. This disease usually proGRESses through various stages.

Here are a few others: there was an INcrease in sales last year. The purpose of our courses is to inCREAse knowledge in our staff. Don't inSULT me! Sorry, what I said wasn't meant as an INsult. You need a PERmit to park your car in this area. We can't perMIT this behavior in our school. I'm studying a few different SUBjects now. We can't subJECT our employees to poor working conditions.

So, tell me: have you noticed the different pronunciations of these words before? Do you say them right most of the time? Is this new to you? Can you give me a few examples of how you'd use them? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* pronunciations of progress, increase, object, etc.

Vocabulário

get a move on with = comece logo a fazer

How's it going? No episódio de hoje eu faço diferente e te dou alguns updates relacionados ao Inglês Online.


Transcrição
How's it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'm not going to talk about any specific idioms and expressions. Today I'm going to do more of an update on blog-related news.

So I wanted to start by saying that our recent feed problem is over. If you're listening to this episode on your mobile you probably know that already... If you have no idea what I'm talking about, well... The feed for this podcast used to be at Feedburner, which is an independent service that is supposed to really help podcast producers by preparing their feed for iTunes.

However Feedburner has been less than reliable for quite a while and last month it was my turn to experience that. My feed simply stopped updating, which meant that feed subscribers didn't get podcast updates for some time.

It took me a while to find someone to help me ditch Feedburner and fix my podcast feed so that it would work again - but it's done now, so all's well.

The other news I have is that I've been expanding the basic English section of Inglês Online. Just go to the site and hover your mouse over "Inglês Básico" on the top green menu and you'll see the options. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast you're probably way beyond the basics, but if you know of anyone who's in need of some basic learning, send them our way!

For now, all I'm doing in the Inglês Básico section is written articles and activities. I have been updating the basic English tips regularly and also creating new activities and I intend to keep doing that for a while. So check it out and pass it on to your friends.

Now, I hope you've been enjoying the podcasts and if this is your first time listening, welcome! I recommend you read "Como Falar Inglês", which is a series of tips I wrote in 2009 explaining the importance of Listening and the exact steps you should follow in order to get the most out of your listening activities.

And the last thing I would like to address here is... probably the question I get the most from anyone that gets in touch with me, readers, students, everyone: are you going to release an intermediate course? Will there be a sequel to your basic course?

And while I can't give you any details right now, all I'm gonna say is, yes. There is going to be a sequel, I am going to teach intermediate English and it's not going to take that long - so sit tight, stick around, keep following me on the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter and you'll be the first to know about it when it's time.

Everyone, that's it for today and next week we're back with our regular programming of idioms, expressions and general English teaching. See you there!

 

Vocabulário

ditch Feedburner = abandonar o Feedburner

send (them) our way = manda (eles) pra gente

stick around = fica por aqui

How's it going? No episódio de hoje, eu falo sobre como dizer em inglês duas expressõezinhas nossas do dia a dia: "Oi, sumido" e "Vê se aparece".


Transcrição
Hi, what's up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'm gonna talk about a couple of expressions with the word stranger. What does stranger mean?

Hi, stranger!

Well, a stranger is basically someone you've never met. This person's not a friend nor an acquaintance.

So when someone says to you "Hi, stranger!" - are they calling you a stranger?

Not really. "Hi, stranger" is a facetious way of saying "Hi, I haven't seen you in a while". "We've met before, I know you, but you've been out of touch (maybe)."

Here's an example: let's say you have this friend who works at a computer shop. You haven't seen her in a couple of months.

And then one day, out of the blue, your computer crashes. You try to revive it but nothing works.

So you decide to take your computer to the shop - I mean, it's not like you have a choice.

You don't know how to fix your computer and you've got a lot of work to do, so.

Anyway, you get to the shop and there's your friend - the one you haven't seen or spoken to in a couple of months.

As soon as she sees you, she says "Oh hello, stranger! How are you doing?"

Every time you see a friend or anyone you're close to after a period of absence you can say "Hello, stranger." That's it!

And our second idiom of today also has the word stranger in it and it's something people say when you're saying your goodbyes: Don't be a stranger.

That means, don't disappear. Keep in touch. Make contact. Give me a call or come by for a visit some time.

That's pretty much what we mean in Brazil when we say "Vê se aparece" or "Não some".

By the way, that reminds me of the last couple of times someone said "Não some" to me.

It's funny how people who say that are frequently the ones that are kinda lousy at keeping in touch - have you noticed?

I used to be a bit lousy at keeping in touch, so I understand!... It's kinda funny, though, how sometimes we try to keep in touch with someone and they're always too busy to meet up...

And when it finally happens, they're the ones who say "Don't be a stranger!"

Anyway, let's wrap up with one more term - listen to this: John is no stranger to blind dates. What does that mean?

John is no stranger to blind dates. That means John is familiar with blind dates. He's been on a few blind dates.

He has gone on dates with women he had never met before. He's done it. He is no stranger to blind dates.

One more example: my friend Mary decided to organise her wedding entirely on her own. She is going to plan every single detail of her wedding.

Hi, what's up? Sabia que em Londres também tem escola de samba? :-) Pois no episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo um pouco sobre uma inglesa que desfila numa escola de samba brasileira aqui na Inglaterra.


Transcrição
Hi, what's up? This is the 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.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So have you heard that there are "samba schools" outside of Brazil? Here in London they call it a "school of samba", actually.

It is called Paraíso. How do I know? I'll tell you all about it.

So around October last year I started looking for a place to live in London. That's because I had to leave my old place, obviously.

I put an ad on a well-known website saying I was looking for accommodation and talked to a few people, and checked out a few places.

And then an English lady answered my ad and said she had a spare room she would like to show me. She emailed me a few pictures, I liked them... And then we set up a meeting.

A big yellow carnival headpiece hanging on a wall

So when I first met Teresa - that's her name - face to face, she told me she loved samba and Brazilian carnival and she was actually a member of a Brazilian school of samba in London: Paraíso.

I was a bit surprised to hear that. I mean, I know many foreigners who are into samba and Brazilian music, but this lady actually went to samba dance classes every week and participated in an actual "escola de samba"!

Just to give you a better idea of just how much Teresa is into Carnival, when she was giving me a tour of the house we got to the dining room and I saw a big yellow Carnival headpiece hanging on a wall.

That's actually a headpiece that Teresa wore in a carnival parade with her school of samba, Paraíso, a few years ago.

Yes, Teresa dressed up in costume and paraded alongside dozens of 'passistas'.

The carnival I'm talking about is an annual event in Notting Hill, London.

Every year many different groups parade in the streets of Notting Hill, and Paraíso is one of them.

They claim to incorporate all the main elements of a Rio carnival parade, although their group is a bit smaller.

A 'passista' chatting with the London police

Apparently in Rio samba schools in the Grupo Especial parade with up to four thousand people, whereas Paraíso puts two hundred and fifty people in the street.

So this year I actually went to Notting Hill to see the carnival parade... I didn't get to see Paraíso though. It was raining, we got there around 2PM and my two friends wanted to grab a bite.

So when we finally got to the actual area of the parades, Paraíso had already passed.

I got to see a few other groups, though, and listen to their carnival music.

I have to say - I'm one of those Brazilians who couldn't care less about Carnival, to be honest!

I don't even like to travel in Brazil during Carnival, 'cause there's so much traffic coming and going to the beach (where else?), so...

It's pretty funny that I ended up sharing a house with an English woman who's crazy about samba and Carnival.

How's it going? No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, falo sobre maneiras de usar o verbo STICK.


Transcrição
How's it going? This is the 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.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let me tell you a story: years ago, I was in a public speaking class.

Basically, we all had to write a speech about whatever we wanted and then...

Every one of us gave the speech in front of the class and listened to everyone's feedback.

Our job then was to incorporate whatever useful feedback we got and work on the speech to make it better.

After a couple of weeks, we then presented again what was, hopefully, an improved version of our initial speech.

So when I gave my speech for the first time, this is the feedback I got: "I don't understand what you mean".

I had spoken about one of my favourite books when I was a teenager, but the other students couldn't really understand where I was going with it.

Actually, it wasn't even apparent to them what the story of the book was about. It was THAT bad.

Well, in that moment I though the topic I had picked was the problem.

The speech revolved around this book that meant a lot to me, but it wasn't really straightforward to those unfamiliar with the story.

Some people gave me a puzzled look while I spoke... They were definitely not getting it.

So, obviously, I got some private feedback from my teacher and he discussed several points with me.

I just told him I was going to pick a different topic. In that moment I thought it would be impossible for me to write an interesting speech about that book.

I'd taken a stab at it and it had not gone well, and I was feeling a bit discouraged...

My teacher thought differently, though. He thought I should stick with it, and that is the expression I want to focus on today: stick with it, or stick with something.

When you stick with something, that means you don't give up on it even when things get a bit tough.

My teacher wanted me to stick with my topic. He wanted me to talk about that book. He didn't want me to give up on it just because my first attempt wasn't successful.

He wanted me to stick with it, and that's what I ended up doing: I stuck with it. Yep, that's the past of the verb to stick: stuck. I stuck with it.

The teacher gave me a few guidelines, and then I set off to rework my speech.

And what do you know... The second time I gave that speech, it was like I was telling a completely different story.

It went great and after I was done some of my classmates came to me and congratulated me on the speech.

And then my teacher said, "Aren't you glad you stuck with it?" Aren't you glad you didn't give up on this topic?

Now, think about some activity in your life that turned out to be harder than you initially thought, but you stuck with it and you're glad you did. So tell me about it in the comments!

And one more thing: notice that I'm saying things li...

Hello, there. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, falo sobre duas expressões com a palavra head, e uma delas é parecida com o que a gente fala no Brasil: assim, de cabeça, eu só lembro desse ou daquele.


Transcrição
Hello, there. This is the 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.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's get started with the term a big head. I'm going to talk about the figurative meaning here.

If someone says that you have a big head, that means this person thinks you're conceited or too full of yourself.

Maybe you think you're more important than everyone else; or that you're better than everyone else!

Maybe you think you deserve special treatment because because of something you've done, or because of a personal trait, or for something you have and so on.

That's what being full of yourself means: basically, you think you're more important or better or deserve some kind of special treatment.

And that's also how you get a big head. A woman said on Twitter today "I have so many new followers. I hope I don't get a big head." She was kinda joking, of course, but what was she saying? She was saying that she hopes she doesn't become conceited. She hopes she won't become full of herself with all these new followers.

The adjective big-headed is also common. Instead of saying that someone has a big head, you will say that this person is big-headed.

For example, someone tweeted out today that "all girls deserve someone that will treat them well, but girl -  don't let it get you big-headed".

Off the top of my head... Ten people are coming.

Don't become someone with a big head. That guy doesn't want you to become big-headed.

Now let's move on to our second idiom of today: off the top of my head. This is a great one - it's so common!

One possible translation for this term is in the title of this episode - when you say "Off the top of my head", it usually means that you're going to answer a question without a lot of thought or research to back it up.

"Off the top of my head" means you're about to say what you remember first, whatever pops up in your mind at the time you're speaking.

So when would you use it? Well, if someone asks you how much you're spending on your birthday party. You don't know the exact figure but you have an idea, so you say "Off the top of my head... Around a hundred reais."

Or you could say "I can remember at least five different recipes for orange cake off the top of my head". That means that, for some reason, you're really familiar with orange cake recipes.

I mean, you can remember five of them off the top of your head!

Let's say your mother asks who's coming to your birthday party and you tell her the names of ten different people who said they were coming. Then, you say "I can't remember anyone else off the top of my head."

OK, now: how about you give me an example for "a big-head", and another one for "off the top of my head?

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

Key expressions

* a big head

Hi, there. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre aquela situação em que você ouve a conversa de outras pessoas sem querer. E também a situação em que você ouve de propósito!


Transcrição
Hi, there. This is the 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.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today we talk about eavesdropping. Yep, eavesdropping on someone else's conversation.

Have you heard that term before?

Here's a popular definition for the word: eavesdropping means secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent.

Basically, every time you pay attention to and try to listen to what other people are saying (and you're not part of the conversation) you're eavesdropping.

Well, of course, sometimes you can't avoid it. I mean, how many times have you been in an elevator and then someone stepped in while chatting on their cell phone and they happily carried on the conversation as though they were alone?

You can't help but overhear what they're saying in that case, and that is the second term of today's episode: overhear.

So the difference between eavesdropping on a conversation and overhearing a conversation is, one is on purpose and you're kinda not supposed to do it, while the other one happens unintentionally.

Like I said though, if you're surrounded by people who are loud talkers, you would pretty much have to cover your ears to avoid overhearing, no?

Now, when you know there are two people in the other room and they're having a private conversation...

And you quietly put your ear to the door - well, then you are clearly eavesdropping. No two ways about it: you are eavesdropping.

OK, now I'm going to ask you to admit to it and let us know about the last time you eavesdropped on a conversation. Who were you eavesdropping on, and did they ever realise you were there? What was the conversation about? C'mon... tell us!

Here's what someone tweeted out: I'm glad our ears don't perk up like dogs when we're eavesdropping on a conversation.

So, yeah! You know how a dog's ears will perk up when they're paying attention to something.

If that happened to us human beings, well... I bet we would start thinking twice before eavesdropping.

Now, overhearing what other people say is so common. When we're standing in line at the supermarket or just walking down the street, we can't help but overhear all kinds of things.

I mean, there are entire websites devoted to strange or funny things people overhear while out and about.

I've overheard many funny things in my life, and I have also gotten a few looks from strangers who've overheard me talking to other people.

I wanna hear your stories: tell me about something funny you overheard someone say.

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

Key expressions

* eavesdropping
* overhear

Vocabulário

as though they were alone = como se ele/ela estivesse sozinho/a

no two ways about it = não há dúvidas

when a dog's ears perk up = quando as orelhas de um cão...

Hey, everybody. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre circunstâncias que forçam mudanças temporárias na sua rotina.

Como você reage? Segue em frente como se nada tivesse acontecido ou demora um pouco pra se acostumar?

Aproveite para reparar bem também no meu uso do Present Perfect, já que estou falando de uma situação que começou há alguns dias e continua até agora.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. This is the 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.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast, please do so.

The more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening!

So how do you react when your normal circumstances are disturbed? Here's what I mean... I'll give you an example of something going on in my life.

I work at home. I used to go out to cafés a lot and bring my laptop with me, but lately I've been staying in more often.

I've been doing that for a few reasons. One is, it saves me time, which means I've more time available to work on Inglês Online.

Another reason is.. the silence. Cafés are busy, whereas my home is pretty quiet. Or so it was!

So on to my example: my normal circumstances have been disturbed. Temporarily, that is.

My housemate, who's also the landlady, is redoing her kitchen, and for that she hired two contractors who have torn the old kitchen down and are now in the process of putting a new kitchen in place.

Obviously, tearing down the kitchen involved making noise. A lot of noise.

Coincidentally, I had a job to do this week that involved recording my voice for a couple of hours.

Ideally, I should do that without a lot of external background noise - not the case this week.

So yesterday I waited until 6 o'clock in the afternoon - the two men working in the kitchen had left by then, and I was able to do my recording in relative silence.

Well, having the kitchen redone also means I can't use the oven - actually, we can't use anything that used to be in the kitchen, except the fridge.

So the fridge is working, and there's a new microwave oven, but that's it. All my stuff - kitchen supplies and groceries - is piled up on a table and covered in a dust sheet.

I've been eating sandwiches and drinking coffee beverages out of a can (which isn't bad, I have to say - just a bit more expensive than making my own coffee). And, the house has been kinda messy.

Obviously, this is all temporary and necessary for the kitchen work to be done. All should be back to normal in less than a month.

And I had plenty of notice from my landlady, so... When the contractors started their work, I was ready.

Still, it got me thinking about temporary disturbances and how we deal with them.

My question for you today is, what would you do if you were me?

Would you take your work somewhere else just to get out of the house?

Would you do the same as I've done, and pick up a sandwich and some crisps in a shop every day for dinner?

Would you be really annoyed if you decided to stay in every day, or would you be able to focus on your work and stay just as productive?

Are you pretty flexible regarding your surroundings,

Hi, all. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre blind dates ("encontros às cegas") e aquelas ocasiões onde sua amiga quer te apresentar a alguém que ela acha que seria perfeito pra você.


Transcrição
Hi, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I'm gonna talk a little bit about dating. Dating is the activity of going on a date, or many dates. A date is when two people meet up - let's say, for dinner and a movie, potentially to get romantically involved. People go on dates to get to know each other better, and dating does not necessarily mean being in a relationship. I don't think we have an expression in Brazil that is the exact translation of "a date". We could say "um encontro", I guess, but we don't really say that, do we?

So if two people start dating, or going on dates and if they do that regularly for a while, then they might end up having a talk about their situation and agree to be in a relationship. So that would be the moment when they start referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend.

OK, so there are two terms related to dating that I would like to present today. You may be familiar with them, which is good. The first one is a blind date. First, let me clarify the meaning of the word blind: a blind person would be someone that doesn't have the ability to see. And a blind date is a date with someone you've never met before. I'm not talking about meeting someone in person for the first time - someone you've been chatting with online, from a dating site. Rather, I'm talking about going on a date with someone you've never met nor spoken with before.

How can someone go on a date with a stranger, you ask? That is where the second expression of our episode comes in. Let's say you're single and your friend Silvia thinks she knows someone who would be perfect for you: Mark. So she wants to fix you up with Mark. So if both you and Mark agree with it, she will, let's say, give Mark your phone number, and maybe Mark will text you or give you a call and the two of you will agree to meet up for coffee. So now you're going on a blind date with a guy named Mark. Your friend Silvia is fixing you up with Mark. Have you ever tried to fix friends up? Did it work? Are you a talented matchmaker?

I don't think blind dates are very common in Brazil. Again, a blind date is when you meet up with someone you've never seen or spoken with before so you can get to know each other a little and see if the two of you click. Have you ever been on a blind date? How did it go? Now, fixing people up, or at least trying to... That's a bit more common in Brazil I think. Do you know anyone who's been fixed up with another person by a mutual friend, and then they ended up having a relationship?

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

 

Key expressions

* dating
* blind date
* fix someone up with

Vocabulário

meet up = se encontrar

Hello, everyone. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre uma diferença básica entre as palavras whatever e whichever em inglês e dou exemplos de como usá-las.


Transcrição
Hello, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I will talk about the basic difference between whatever and whichever and give you examples of how to use both. I'm not gonna cover all the ways you can use one or the other; rather I'll focus, like I said, on the most basic way to use them.

Whatever language you choose, it's important to listen to it.

Do you remember the difference between WHICH and WHAT? Let's recap: which is the better option when you're referring to a limited set of options that is known to the people having a conversation. If you ask someone "What's your favourite movie?", you're asking that person to choose from an almost infinite number of possibilities - like, every movie known to man. Now, if you show three DVDs to that person, you could say "What's your favourite?" but "Which one is your favourite? " is better here. Why? Because you're asking them to choose from the three options you presented before you asked the question.

So the examples I'm going to show you using whatever and whichever follow the same rule, so to speak. So if someone tells you "Whatever language you decide to learn, it is important to listen to it." Out of all the languages of the world, whatever language you choose, it's important to listen to it. If someone says "You can buy whatever you like in the supermarket. It's on me" they're giving you complete freedom - they will pay for any products you choose to buy without restriction. If your teacher tells you "whatever degree you'd like to pursue, I can help you" that means that you could choose any degree in the world and they will be able to help you.

Now, if the same teacher says "In order to have my guidance you have to pick Geography, History or Social Sciences. So whichever one you choose, I will be able to assist you"... That teacher laid out three options for you - here, you have limited choice. If you go with one of these three options, they will be able to help you - whichever one you choose. If that other person said, "You will find five kinds of yoghurt at that supermarket. Whichever one you buy is fine" - again, you will find only five options. And finally, you might be telling that first person that you're thinking about learning an Asian language - like Japanese or Korean. So that person might tell you "Whichever one you choose (out of the limited set of Asian languages) will be a great addition to your education."

I would like to see your examples for whatever and whichever. Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

* whatever
* whichever

Vocabulário

so to speak = por assim dizer

it's on me = é comigo (eu estou pagando)

laid out = apresentou, expôs

Hi, everyone. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre algumas maneiras diferentes de pedir pra pessoa repetir o que disse (pois você não entendeu de primeira).
Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today's episode is about common ways to ask someone to repeat what they just said to you. You didn't hear it the first time, so you say, for example, "Come again?" There's obviously a literal meaning to that phrase, which is "Come again" or come back again some time, but if you say it more like a question, you're asking the speaker to repeat what they said. Now, it could be that you couldn't hear them, and it could also be that you're sort of questioning what they said. So "Come again?" can also be said when, let's say... You cannot believe what you just heard.

It's very simple to use. Let's say someone offers you chocolate. "Would you like some chocolate?" And you say "Come again?" "Chocolate. Would you like some chocolate?" That's it.

Here's a very similar term: Say what?  Same thing. Say what? It's like you were asking "What did you say?" or asking that person to repeat what they said. So you simply say "Say what?" We could use the same example: Would you like some chocolate? "Say what?" Chocolate. Would you like some chocolate?

Now here's another one, and this one's a bit longer. "I didn't catch that" and you can also say I didn't get that. That just means, again, I didn't hear you. Please repeat. So there you have it: come again, say what and I didn't catch that, I didn't get that.

If you watch lots of American movies and shows, you've no doubt come across the line "I didn't catch your name". That's very common and that just means that person's asking what your name is. Now, remember, it may be that you're talking to a native speaker on the phone and they're speaking a bit fast (as we often do when speaking our mother tongue) and you can't understand them very well - not just a couple of words, but overall.

In that case, you may want to ask that person to slow down, rather than saying "Come again? " or "Say what?" all the time. For most situations, just say "Could you speak slower, please?" That's the informal version, which uses the adjective "slower". The more formal version, which correctly uses the adverb, is "Could you speak more slowly, please?"

Sometimes it is necessary to explicitly ask someone to slow down, since some people will just keep repeating what they said without realising that the problem is that they're speaking too fast to be understood by someone whose native language isn't English.

Have you ever had to ask someone to slow down? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key expressions

* come again?
* say what?
* I didn't catch that
* I didn't catch your name
* Could you speak slower?
* Could you speak more slowly?

 

Vocabulário

slow down = desacelerar

Hello, everyone. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre a importância de se pontuar frases corretamente, com exemplos de mensagens em inglês que podem ter significados completamente diferentes dependendo de como são lidas.


Transcrição
Hello, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I came across something that sparked my interest and I thought it would make good subject matter for this episode. I'm sure many of you have come across one of those images on Facebook with a phrase that can be read several different ways according to how you punctuate it. Obviously, the meaning will change depending on how you read it, and that's the whole point.

I guess one of the most well-known ones is the "let's eat grandma" meme. This one has been widely circulated around social media and usually comes with an image of an old lady... Probably for impact. And the words are exactly the ones I said before, only there are two versions. The first one is Let's eat, grandma - which has a comma after "eat", and means that someone is asking their grandma to join them and start eating.

The second version has no comma: let's eat grandma. So that would be some pretty savage grandkid suggesting they should have grandma as a meal. The image closes with "punctuation saves lives!" Have you seen it on your social media timelines?

That's not the one I saw today, though. The one that piqued my interest reads "Chickens keep dogs on leads". It was seen on a road sign by someone and this person photographed it. I can't post the picture here since I don't have the rights for it but I've put together an image that sort of gives you an idea.

So this is a nice one since there are multiple ways to interpret this sentence. Before I get into this, let me ask you: take a look at the image I posted for this episode and read the words. What's the first interpretation that came to your mind after you read it? I'm curious.

When I first read it, my thought was  - whoever put up this sign is calling me a chicken and asking me to keep my dog on a lead. Now, chicken is a word that can be used in the United Kingdom to refer to a woman and it's usually not an insult. So this person would be asking all women that are passing by to keep their dogs on a lead. If you're a guy, you're off the hook apparently. So that's one way to read it.

The second way to understand it can be - this person is telling actual chickens to keep their dogs on leads. By the way, a lead in this case is a long piece of plastic or leather that is attached to the dog's collar, so the dog owner can direct and control the dog.

And finally, the way I think whoever put up this sign intended for it to be understood. "Chickens. Keep dogs on leads" meaning, there are chickens running around in this area, so please keep your dog on a lead to prevent it from chasing after a chicken and potentially hurting it and so on.

And that made me think about punctuation in general and how it can, when misused, really get in the way of understanding what the other person is trying to say. I know I've run into this problem before - someone sent me a message and I had a hard time figuring out what they wanted to say.

Hi, all. No episódio de hoje do podcast Inglês Online, eu falo sobre o reality show  que eu assisto para me acostumar com o inglês britânico, e também sobre um idiom super comum, que aparece toda hora nesse reality e em todo lugar onde se fale inglês.


Transcrição
Hi, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So I wanted to tell you about something I've been doing since I moved to England. If you know anything about me, you know that I grew up on American English so when I moved here, I wanted to make sure I got used to the local accent as fast as I could. Obviously I talk to people and they talk to me, but in London you will find people from all over the world, really, and that means a multitude of accents which are usually easier to understand than some of the native British accents.

So as part of my plan to get myself acquainted with British English I went to the websites for the main UK TV channels and started following some TV shows online. Here in the UK you can basically watch most TV shows online, so that's pretty cool. One of the first shows I stumbled upon was "Made in Chelsea", so let me tell you about it. Well, I'll tell you a little bit about it - it's easy to summarise.

Made in Chelsea is a reality show about very wealthy kids that live in Chelsea, which is a neighbourhood in London. When I say kids, I mean young adults in their early twenties. So this show is a hit in the UK- it's been going for eight or nine seasons - and by the way, in the UK they don't say "season"; rather, they call it a series: series 1, series 2 and so on.

So although Made in Chelsea has had eight or nine series so far, things don't change much from one series to another. Here's what changes: some regulars leave, and new people join the show. That's it. This is what happens in every season: new couples are formed, then there's a lot of gossip about the new couples, then they fight and end up breaking up; or else one of them cheats and they end up breaking up. Then, if A and B used to be a couple and C and D used to be another couple, in the next season A and C get together, and then B and D get together as well, and the cycle of intrigue and misbehaviour begins again. I swear to you, that's 99% of what goes on.

Anyway... Here's what I really wanted to tell you: one of the terms I hear most often when watching Made in Chelsea is "to have someone's back". The people on this show are all friends and some of them have been friends for several years, so they expect their friends to have their back. And what does that mean?

To have someone's back means to defend them when someone is saying things about them that are unkind, for example. Or you can show your friend that you have their back by taking their side in a fight. Let's say your friend John is arguing with a guy named Michael about a girl. Michael likes this girl and he thinks John hit on the girl, even though John knew Michael liked her. So now Michael is confronting John about it, and John is saying that he and the girl were just having a chat as friends.

So you tell Michael that John is telling the truth: he was not hitting on the girl; they were just having a chat. You have John's back on this one. John's your mate,

Hey you! Hoje temos o episódio do podcast Inglês Online é sobre a história do noivo que chutou o buquê da noiva antes que qualquer uma das amigas dela conseguisse pegar as flores. Ouça o episódio para saber mais sobre o incidente, e qual foi a reação das convidadas.


Transcrição
Hey, you! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I stumbled upon this funny piece of news about a bride who, on her wedding, you know - threw the bouquet to the female guests... As you do, when you're a woman getting married. It's tradition! So, anyway, the woman threw the bouquet, and here's what happened:

"A groom left his female wedding guests disappointed after destroying his bride's bouquet of flowers - before any of the unmarried women could get their hands on them."

That's right. The groom destroyed the bouquet. Here's the link to the story if you'd like to check it out, and there's a video too, so go watch it. So here's what I find weird about this story: this guy just got married. It's not like he's against marriage..! And as far as I know, he got married of his own free will.

I mean, I would understand if a confirmed bachelor did that - although, honestly, that would be in poor taste - but at least it would be in line with his convictions. However we're not talking about a confirmed bachelor here, we're talking about the groom, now husband! What's going on with this guy?

And here's what he did after kicking the bouquet, according to the news piece: "The groom then runs over to his friend and gives him a high-five, saying: "Sorry, I had to." So he high-fived his friend and said that he had to do it. Ok, I don't know about you but I'd be wary about marrying a guy that feels he has to save his mates from having the same fate as him...

Now, it seems like the female guests didn't take it very seriously, which, I have to say, is nice. I found this comment on a different news site, supposedly by a guest that attended the wedding: "I was at that wedding stood amongst those girls. We all thought it was hilarious and were not left "disappointed". We all saw the funny side to what Joe did, including the bride! For everyone saying the marriage won't last, you don't know these people! They are ridiculously happy and currently on their honeymoon in Mexico! Some people just take things far too seriously and just need to lighten up!!"

That's cool: everyone thought it was hilarious and the groom is a big goofball from the sounds of it. Better this way. If the bride thought it was funny, then I think it's funny. Now, I'd like to hear from female listeners - are you a stickler for tradition? If you're married, did you throw the bouquet... And maybe one of your friends caught it? Did she get married?

Or maybe you were at a friend's wedding and you caught the bouquet. So - did you get married after that?

I'm not the best person in the world to talk about traditions because I'm not really big on traditions.

Hey, everyone. Hoje temos um podcast com duas expressões super comuns no inglês com a palavra WORTH.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

For what it's worth... I think your hair looks great

So today we kick off our episode with this very, very popular idiom: for what it's worth. Actually... every term or idiom I talk about on this podcast is pretty popular - that's how they make the cut. So that's the case with today's idioms as well, and "for what it's worth" is one you've certainly heard if you routinely watch American movies or TV shows.

First of all, if you're not clear on the meaning and usage of WORTH, I recommend you take a look at my previous post about it. OK, so imagine that you're having a chat with a friend who's just inconsolable about not winning a contest. Yeah, it was a drawing contest. Your friend is a talented artist, and he prepared, he studied, he took specialized classes, he put a lot of effort into this... And he didn't win. OK, so now he's standing in front of you and you can tell he's sad and all that... You don't really know what to say, I mean you know he's good - at least, you think he's good. So you tell him "Look, for what it's worth, I think you're an amazing artist."

For what it's worth, I think you're an amazing artist. I don't know if my comment will help, but I think you're an amazing artist. I don't know if my comment is worth much, I don't know if it matters or not, if it's important or not, so just take my comment for what it is worth, and it may not be worth much. So, for what it's worth - I think you're an amazing artist.

You don't just use "for what it's worth" when you're trying to console someone, though. For example, it can be a very unassuming way to introduce your opinion. Unassuming means modest, unpretentious. No one has asked what your opinion is, no one's invited you to speak, but you'd like to offer your opinion anyway, for what it's worth. You're not saying your opinion is the right one and everyone should listen, so, for what it's worth, here's my opinion.

Now, if you're in a business meeting and all the other participants are there to listen to what you have to say, you should not start your speech with "For what it's worth, this is what I think." You're in that meeting as an expert, as someone who's supposed to know their business - so obviously you should state your opinion with confidence. We use "for what it's worth" when we want to come across humble, unassuming... You know, I'm just putting my opinion out there, for what it's worth.

And here's another term with WORTH that I really like: money's worth. Let's say you're going to visit a place that is very touristic and has lots of interesting attractions, so you pay for a ticket that gives you entrance to all the attractions in the same day. You want to get your money's worth, so you go to every single attraction. That's right, there are thirty different things to see in that place and you manage to go to every single one of them.

Hi, everybody. Hoje o episódio conta com quatro frases em inglês comuníssimas em eventos ou qualquer outra situação 'social', quando pessoas estão sendo apresentadas umas às outras.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I will review with you guys four set phrases that are used every day, all the time, when people are introducing or re-introducing themselves or other people to someone. A 'set phrase' is the same as a fixed phrase. Fixed phrases are phrases whose words are fixed in a certain order - and that order is how people say them. Even if you could say the same thing in a different way, using different words... People just don't.

Native speakers use set phrases just because... they do, the same way we, in Brazil, use our own set phrases, such as "Tudo bem?" instead of "Tudo está bem?" The second phrase is perfectly correct; it makes sense and everyone can understand what's being asked. We just don't speak like that, though. Same thing in English :)

So I love our four set phrases of today because they all use the Present Perfect, which is something every Brazilian learner of English could become more familiar with. So here's the first one, which we say when we're introducing someone to someone else: Have you met...this person? For example, Have you met Ted? This is going to sound familiar to "How I met your mother" viewers.

So that's a great line for introducing two people to each other. "Hey, Sara, come here. Have you met Ann?" Have you met my sister? Have you met John? It's a question, obviously, but we don't really expect to get an answer. You don't really need to say "No, I haven't", although you can. You could just say "Glad to meet you, John."

And here's our second set phrase: If you've actually been introduced to that person already, you can say "Yes, I believe we've met." Someone's introducing you to James, for instance, but you and James were introduced about a month ago. The two of you have already met. So when your mutual friend Louise says to you, "Have you met James?", you say "Yes, I believe we've met."

So last weekend someone introduced me to a man named Michael. My friend said "Ana, have you met Michael?" and I said "Hi, nice to meet you." Then later that night I was introduced to Debbie, who's someone I've actually met before. My friend said "Have you met Debbie?" and I said "Yeah, I believe we've met. How are you?"

Now here are a couple of phrases for when you haven't met someone yet, and you'd like to introduce yourself. You see someone you'd like to talk to but there's no one there to introduce you to each other. You can just say "Hi, I'm John, or I'm Mary. I don't think we've met". Maybe this person is standing near you and, why not? You think it's a good idea to introduce yourself and greet them, maybe have a little chat... So "Hello, my name's Ana. I don't think we've met."

And, instead of saying "I don't think we've met", you can say "I don't believe I've had the pleasure." Now, that's something I hear men say more often. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure" is a bit more formal than just "I don't think we've met."

So there you go. Listen to this episode a few more times and get a bit more familiar wit...

Hey, everyone. Hoje eu falo sobre jeitos diferentes de se dizer "infelizmente" ou "infelizmente, não" em inglês.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So if you're listening to this podcast you probably know the word 'afraid' and the term "to be afraid" or "to be afraid of". To be afraid means to be fearful, to be scared of something. What are you afraid of? Ghosts? Bugs? Are you afraid of the dark?

By the way, since I mentioned being afraid of ghosts, let me tell you about something that happened to me the night before Christmas, the 24th of December, 2013. I was already living in London in a house that I shared with four other people. Everyone had gone away for the holidays. I was going to fly to Brazil the next day, which was Christmas day.

Anyway, all I remember is that I was pretty tired that night and I could tell that a storm was starting to build. The wind was blowing hard outside. It was around eight in the evening and I was in the kitchen fixing myself something to eat. Now, this was a three-story house with lots of doors and windows and, I swear to you, that night I understood why ghost stories are so popular in the United Kingdom. I could swear there was someone on the third floor slamming the doors - I mean, I'm sure it was just the wind but it really did sound like it was a person and if memory serves, I thought I heard a few steps. I was lucky though - I was knackered that night and couldn't be bothered to even be afraid of a ghost roaming around.

OK, so after this little story let's move on to the expression "I'm afraid so". When someone asks you "Is it going to rain today?" and you answer "I'm afraid so", you are basically saying "Yes", but you're also communicating that you regret having to inform them that it is going to rain. If you answer "I'm afraid so", or simply "Afraid so", rather than just "Yeah", that adds a touch of "sorry to say that, I know you were expecting otherwise." That person was expecting clear, dry weather for today. Maybe they would like to go to the beach, maybe they were planning on taking their dog out for a long walk. So you're giving them the not-so-good news that it's going to rain.

Did I flunk the exam? I'm afraid so. Are we lost? Afraid so. Are they out of ice cream? Afraid so. Does my hair look awful? I'm afraid so.

Naturally, we can also say I'm afraid not with the opposite meaning. Is it gonna be sunny tomorrow? Afraid not. By the way, I remember hearing this on those little afternoon movies from "Sessão da Tarde" - I think they used to translate "I'm afraid not" as "Temo que não." I don't think anyone actually says that in Brazil, at least not informally. I guess what we do is use "Infelizmente." Also, I wanted to stress that "I'm afraid so" and "I 'm afraid not" are used all the time, whether it's a formal or informal conversation.

"Did I get the job?" I'm afraid not. Has Mary called? Afraid not. Are the seats at the theatre any good? Afraid not. Do you have good news? I'm afraid not. So, did Brazil win the World Cup after all? I'm afraid not.

So, come on - tell me where in your life you could use these little expressions. Are you about to deliver unpleasant news to someone?

Hello, all. Hoje eu falo e dou vários exemplos sobre alguns idioms comuníssimos do inglês que usam a palavra GUT.


Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Have you ever heard the word GUT? If you're in the habit of watching American TV shows and movies, I'm pretty sure you have. Gut means belly, or even 'intestines'. Look at the picture: that's a guy with a big gut. By the way, people call that a beer gut, or a beer belly. A beer gut is usually the result of habitual beer drinking. I searched Twitter for people using this idiom and found this: "I'm either pregnant or I have a beer gut." Well, I hope she has figured that one out by now. Then, this guy complained that... "Every day at the gym so far someone I know has commented about my beer gut." Geez. Anyway, beer isn't the only cause of a beer gut, that much I know...

So let's move on to a very interesting idiom: gut feeling. That does not mean having a sick stomach, or having a bad feeling associated with your stomach. A gut feeling is an intuitive feeling. It's something you know, and sometimes you can't explain why you know it or where it came from. Some people call it intuition, some call it instinct, and other people call it divine guidance.

Whatever you call it, when you have a gut feeling about something... I, personally, would recommend that you listen to it. I don't know about you, but when I have a gut feeling about something, it's usually right. And, honestly, sometimes I regret not listening to it. I think there have been times when... I felt pressured to take a particular course of action that was the opposite of what my gut was telling me. I can tell you that I always regret going against my gut, or not listening to my gut. OK, so, as you can see, we can just use the word "gut" - listen to your gut, listen to what your gut says, go with your gut. When people say something like that - go with your gut, they're saying "If you've got a gut feeling about this, trust it." What's your gut feeling about this, or that? Deep down, in your gut, what do you think will happen?

So I totally agree when someone says "when in doubt, go with your gut". Do what feels right. This is a very common phrase: go with your gut. If someone tells you they were faced with a difficult situation and didn't really know what to do but then decided to go with their gut... Perhaps they ended up making a decision that was not what everyone expected, but it felt right because they went with their gut. They had a gut feeling about it and they listened to it.

Now, can you guess what a gut reaction is? This is another great term with the word gut. Your gut reaction is your immediate, instinctive reaction to something. Before you have time to think, before you're influenced by other people's reactions... A gut reaction is your true, genuine reaction. If someone says "What is your gut reaction to this? Please give me your gut reaction", that means they wanna know your immediate thoughts on something, before you have time to choose your words. Just give me your gut reaction. No sugarcoating. Don't mince your words. I want your gut reaction.

Hey, everybody. Depois da parte 1 dessa série de 2 partes, em que falei sobre as similaridades entre may e might no contexto de possibilidades presentes e futuras no inglês, hoje continuo com exemplos desses dois modal verbs em tempos verbais um pouco mais complexos.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

it might have worked out

So today I give you the second part of a 2-part series on may and might. In the first part, I talked about a few simple ways to use may and might interchangeably. In today's episode, I'll take it a step further  and give you examples of may and might being used with multi-word verb expressions. Here's what I'm talking about: we might have gone to the show if it had not rained. He may have read the letter by now. So today's examples are a bit more complex and you will hear lots of "have been, have made, have gone" and so on.

There are two main kinds of situation I'm going to focus on: in the first one, there's a possibility that something may have occurred, or might have occurred - we don't know. This is the one where may and might are still basically interchangeable in general. In the second situation, I am going to talk about something that might have happened in a certain way, but didn't - it happened differently, and I know that for a fact. In this one, we usually go with MIGHT.

So on to the first one. Let me present you with a few hypothetical situations... Let's say your friend Mike said something today that, he thinks, might have offended... his friend Lisa. Mike doesn't know for sure. Lisa may or may not be offended. Lisa might be offended - no one knows. So Mike thinks that his comment might have offended Lisa. Here we could also say, Mike thinks his comment may have offended Lisa.

So here's another one - you gave your students homework yesterday, and today you find out that half of your students were not able to do the homework. It may have been too difficult for them. You don't know yet, but you're about to ask. So this is what you're thinking: it might have been too difficult for them, or it may have been too difficult. Your friend Mary said she was going to call you up yesterday, but didn't. Why? What is the reason she didn't call? You don't know for sure. She may have been really busy, or she may have forgotten. You're not sure, but she might have forgotten, or she might have been busy.

Now, think of a few things that could have happened in a certain way, but did not. They happened in a different way. And you know how they turned out; it's a fact. Example: my friend John might have enjoyed his new job (it looked very promising) but it turned out that he hated it. We know for a fact that John didn't like his job, and in this case it is more common to use MIGHT. He might have enjoyed his job, but he didn't. I bought a lottery ticket when I was eighteen so I might have become a millionaire at 18, only... it wasn't the winning ticket so I didn't become a millionaire. Things between you and your boyfriend might have worked out great!... but they didn't, unfortunately,

Hey, all. Hoje eu falo pra você sobre o chamado phrasal verb "keep up". Você certamente já ouviu essa expressão se tem costume de assistir filmes e seriados legendados, e hoje se familiariza um pouco mais com ela no podcast.


Transcrição
Hey, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today we take a look at the phrasal verb keep up. Keep up can have a few different meanings, and in today's episode we're gonna focus on two very popular, very common ways to use it.

Imagine you started a new job two months ago. So today your boss calls you for a little meeting... She says "I want to congratulate you on your work. You've been doing a great job. Keep it up!" Your boss told you to keep it up. That's the same as "keep up the good work."

"Keep up" is an extremely common phrasal verb and if you're a movie buff or into TV shows, you have certainly heard it before. When your boss tells you to keep it up, what is she talking about? She wants you to maintain the same level of performance at work. She wants you to keep doing a good job. Don't drop the ball! She congratulated you on your good work, and then told you to keep it up. Keep on doing a great job.

Your friend Laurie has been learning to play the piano. She plays a beautiful piece on the piano. You say "Keep it up!"
Your cousin Tony has been training to run a marathon and he's doing great. You tell him "Great job. Keep it up!"
Your friend John has been trying his hand at cooking. You eat one of the cookies he made, and it's delicious. You say "Yum! Please keep it up. What are you planning to cook for next week?"

I can't keep up

Now imagine a different kind of situation. Let's say you've been going to an aerobics class at the gym for about a year. You do great at that class. You even look like you could teach that class - you're that amazing. You're moving to a different neighbourhood though, so you leave your old gym and sign up for another gym that's just next door to where you live now. You start going to the aerobics class, only to realize that you can barely get through 50% of the class! You're in shock, but it's really happening: you can't follow all the moves, they're too complex. You're falling behind in the sequences - the pace is too intense. In short, you can't keep up with the class!

You can't keep up with this aerobics class. It's a bit too hard for you; too complex, too fast, it's too much for you right now. You see the other people in the class and they're doing just fine. Now, you... You can't keep up. You can't keep up with the teacher, you can't even keep up with the other people in the class! That means that right now you're not able to match their ability. You can't do things on the same level they do.

Here's a different example. You and your friend Mark are both preparing for the same exam. So you guys agree to meet every other day to study together. However, Mark doesn't have a job and therefore he's been studying all day long, every day. You, on the other hand, have a full time job and can only study at night. So every time you guys meet to study, you can tell Mark is way ahead of you. You just can't keep up with Mark. He's got all that free time to study, and you don't.

Hi, everybody. Hoje eu falo pra você sobre mais duas expressões idiomáticas do inglês que estão na boca de todo americano: How come? e What for? A segunda é o nosso famoso "Pra que..?" Quanto à primeira, ouça e descubra, caso não conheça, ou acostume-se mais com ela. Nunca é demais! E mais uma observação para hoje: como eu geralmente faço nos episódios, they, them e their são usados para falar de alguém com gênero indefinido - já reparou nisso? Preste atenção no exemplo onde eu falo sobre a/o spouse.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglesonline podcast, and it's a bit longer than usual. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Have you ever heard this phrase: How come? How come I have to do this? How come the sky is blue? How come it's raining when the weather forecast said it was going to be sunny? Well, even if you haven't heard "How come?" before, it's a very common phrase and once you get familiar with it, you'll start noticing it all the time in movies and TV shows.

In short, the most common explanation to "How come?" is that it means Why? I'm talking about the meaning of "how come" here - it's similar to why. However, we say Why do I have to go to bed now?, and we say How come I have to go to bed now? We never say "How come do I have to go to bed now? "- no! Again, we say "How come I have to go to bed now?" What is the reason I have to go to bed now? How come I have to go to bed now?

And before I give you more examples of How come?, let me clarify one thing: "how come?" is informal, which means you should use it when speaking to friends, family and other people you're close to. We don't use it in writing for a general audience, or in speaking to someone you don't know, for example... Or when you're addressing an important person, like the President or a judge. If you used informal speech such as "How come? " with someone like that, it could be considered impolite or even arrogant.

OK. Now that that's taken care of, here's another example: How come you're not attending the conference? You signed up for the conference. You were supposed to come. You told me you were coming. And now my assistant tells me you're not going any more. How come? You're not attending the conference? How come? How come no one told me we were having the meeting at a different building? I'd like to know the reason for that. How come no one told me?

You changed your mind about buying a new car? How come? Well, I decided to put the money in a savings account instead.
How come you missed our final exam? Well, I felt so sick that day that I couldn't get out of bed.
How come you didn't see us? We were sitting right behind you!

Can you remember a good example with "How come?" Maybe something you heard in a movie, or read somewhere. Let me know in the comments!

Now here's the second expression for today's episode: What for? It's very simple: when we ask "What for?", we're asking "for what purpose". Let's say you move to a new neighborhood with your family, and your spouse, who has never had a car in their life, says "I need a car." You look at your spouse and say "What for? Your office is just around the corner, our kids' school is three blocks away and we have everything we need within walking distanc...

Hey, everybody. Hoje eu falo sobre celebridades, os nomes que todos conhecem e os fãs que não conseguem tirar os olhos de seus ídolos, tudo em inglês.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So how do we say "todo mundo conhece o Faustão" in English? We can say "everybody knows Faustão"... of course. And that structure is not the focus of our podcast. This one is: Faustão is a household name in Brazil. Listen again: Faustão is a household name in Brazil.

First of all, what is a household? A household is a domestic unit where a group of people live - usually a family but sometimes it's just a group of people who are not even related to each other. A household can be an apartment, it can be a house, a hut, a trailer - whatever serves as a home to a group of people. When you ask that person for their address, they will tell you the address of the household.

So when we say that someone is a household name, that would mean that this person is known in every household - in other words, almost everyone knows who they are. In Brazil we have, like everywhere else, a huge number of people who are household names. Roberto Carlos, Xuxa, Ronaldo, Faustão, just to name a few.

Some people dream of becoming a household name, right? They want to become a celebrity, or a famous scientist maybe, or a politician. And obviously there are people who are household names locally, in their hometown. If you grew up in a town that isn't the capital of your state, you know what I'm talking about. Some people become local celebrities, widely known to the population, so they're a household name in that town.

I was reading a blog post the other day about an artist called Marian Hill. The blogger asked the following question in the post: "How is Marian Hill not a household name yet?" She thought this artist, Marian Hill, was so great, so talented, that she could not believe the artist had not yet become really famous and well-known... In other words, a household name.

If I asked you to name a few household names in Brazil, who would you say? The first name that pops up in my head is Pelé. The second one, I have to say, is Xuxa (although I never watched her show - it's true.) Let me know in the comments who pops to mind first.

So we're talking about celebrities and I wonder who's gonna tell me about their celebrity encounter. Yep, I'd like to hear about it (actually, read - please post a comment). Have you ever had a run-in with a celebrity? Who was it? Are they a household name? Share the deets! Where were you, and when?

Or maybe it was a celebrity sighting and you saw them from afar. Whatever the case, I'm curious: are you a starstruck kind of person? If you are, that means you have sort of an ongoing fascination with celebrities - at the very least you're interested in them and you would probably be in awe if you spotted a celebrity at the supermarket, for example. You wouldn't be able to take your eyes off them, your heart rate would go up a bit, and you would probably want to follow that person around for a bit until you worked up the courage to approach them and ask for an autograph.

So.. come on, tell us: when you had that run-in with your celebrity,

Hi, everyone. Hoje eu falo sobre as diferenças (ou seria 'similaridades'?) entre may e might. Esse episódio é a parte 1 do assunto, que continua com mais um episódio em algumas semanas. :)


Transcrição
Possibilities

Hi, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

This episode is part 1 of a two-part series about MAY and MIGHT. Trust me, it's not a complicated topic - you'll see. However I try to keep every episode under five minutes, so I'm guessing I'll have two episodes to cover all the examples of may and might I wanna give you. So this is part 1, and part 2 is coming up in a few weeks.

OK - let's talk about the basic differences between MAY and MIGHT. Actually I should say... Let's talk about all the similarities between MAY and MIGHT, since, as it turns out, these are more frequent than the differences. My hope for this episode is that it helps dispel the myth that there are rigid rules about the usage of one or the other - most of the time, there aren't. So just relax and give this episode a good listen.

Fist off, both may and might are very common when we talk about possibility. If you come to London I will tell you that you might have a hard time getting on the tube after midnight. That's because most tube stations close around thirty minutes after midnight. You might have a hard time, but it is possible to get on the tube after midnight. And I could also have told you "You may have a hard time getting on the tube after midnight."

And what would be the difference in that case? Well, you will find that some people think that it's better to use might when something is less likely, and may when something is a bit more likely... I'll admit that that's how I do it, and that's the general feeling I get from listening to English. If you have a different experience in your contact with native English, please let me know in the comments. So I, in particular, would say "You may have a hard time..." if I thought that would be more likely to happen.

Now, here's what I really want you to pay attention to: is that a rule? Would one or the other significantly change the meaning of what I'm saying? The answer is "No." Some grammar books state that may means a stronger possibility than might; and by the same token, other people, including teachers, think that this is a very flexible "rule."

So here are other things I could say using may and might interchangeably: I may go to the party - I'm not sure yet. We might swing by after dinner. Jane may call you about the report... She seems to be unclear on a few numbers. My friends might enjoy this restaurant. I may go to the gym on Sunday but I'm not sure yet. So just for the sake of being very clear, here are the same examples with the other word: I might go to the party - I'm not sure yet. We may swing by after dinner. Jane might call you about the report... She seems to be unclear on a few numbers. My friends may enjoy this restaurant. I might go to the gym on Sunday but I'm not sure yet.

When talking about present and future possibilities in life - such as illustrated in the examples, use may or might fearlessly. In part 2 I'll explore slightly different situations and we'll see what w...

Hey, all. Sabe quando alguém te conta uma história, e no fim a pessoa não consegue entender porque a amiga ficou brava com ela... E você pensa "Hmm, nem imagino porque...", pois está óbvio pra todo mundo, menos para ela? Pois é. Nosso idiom de hoje serve exatamente para isso.


Transcrição
Hey, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So almost every time I see the word WONDER being taught to English students, the expression "I wonder if" is there. That would be equivalent to our "Será que..." I wonder if it's going to rain. I wonder if Brazil will ever win the World Cup again, and so on. The term "I wonder", however, is not our focus for this episode.

Let's take a look at another very common way to use wonder. Let's say your friend Chris tells you that his brother bought a used car at Mike's Used Cars shop. You look at Chris and you say "I wonder why your brother did that... Mike's shop is the most expensive  place in the area to get a car." And then Chris goes on to explain to you that although Mike's cars are indeed expensive, their service is unbeatable. So when Chris tells you that, you say "Oh, ok. Now I get it."

Now you understand why Chris' brother bought the car with Mike, even though Mike's cars are super expensive. Before Chris explained it to you, though... It was a mystery. "I wonder why Chris' brother would buy a car with Mike. They're so expensive!". Hmm, he bought a car from Mike... I wonder why...? You can basically use that for anything. Whenever you don't get why someone did something, or the reason why something is the way it is.  I wonder why they've changed their logo; I liked the old one. I wonder why "tanto faz" means "it doesn't matter."

So now listen to this one: imagine you're throwing a party and you decide to hire a florist to decorate. Only, your friend Sally was planning on hiring the same florist for her wedding. In fact, she was the person who told you about the florist. She was very excited about having this person decorate the church, the reception ceremony... So she's very surprised when you tell her you hired this person to decorate your party, which is a week before her wedding.

You can't see why that would be a problem, so when you realize Sally hasn't come to your party you're really surprised! The two of you are such good friends. You try to call her, and she doesn't pick up. You tell a mutual friend about what's going on, saying at the end "Not only has Sally missed my party but now she won't pick up the phone!" Your friend says "I wonder why...!" You look at her, puzzled, and she says "C'mon! You stole her florist one week before her wedding!" Oh. It all makes sense now. Sally's mad because you hired the same florist she wanted to hire.

So when your friend says "I wonder why...!" she is being sarcastic, of course. Here's another example: your brother has an exam next week, but instead of spending most of his time preparing for the exam, he's really more interested in watching TV and playing videogames. Every time you walk past his bedroom, you notice he's... not studying. Later that week he tells you he failed the exam.  Your reaction is... "I wonder why." Obviously, you're being sarcastic.

Hi, everyone. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre dois idioms do inglês que você não vai querer perder: um equivale ao nosso "dá um desconto" (quando alguém é iniciante, por exemplo); e o outro é para quando alguém está folgando... Sabe como é?


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Alright. So how about when you get to the office on Monday and as soon as you step in, your boss calls you to introduce you to your new colleague, Johnny? It's Johnny's first day in the office. So on Thursday you overhear another colleague, Mike, telling your boss that Johnny has messed up a couple of spreadsheets. Your boss says "I'll talk to Johnny and train him to use the spreadsheets, don't worry. Now cut him some slack, the guy has been with us for less than a week."

Your boss asks Mike to cut him some slack. Cut Johnny some slack. Johnny is the new guy, and he hasn't been fully trained in his new job yet. He hasn't learned all the ins and outs of the job. So cut him some slack. Cut Johnny some slack. Give him some time to get used to the office, get used to the job, get used to the spreadsheets... Don't be too hard on Johnny - cut him some slack.

So when you cut someone some slack, you're treating them in a way that is less severe than usual, or being less demanding with that person. Why? Well, there's more than one reason why you may want to do that. Let's say you have just lost your job and your friend Mary came over to your place to keep you company and make sure you're alright. She's being a good friend. So, right now she's setting the table for lunch. Your sister looks at what she's doing and says "Hey, your friend Mary can't set a table... She's doing it all wrong!" And you say "OK, I'll fix it later. Please cut her some slack... She's just trying to help." So here's your sister criticizing your friend Mary, because Mary just isn't very good at setting a table. You know Mary's just being sweet and trying to help, though. So you tell your sister "Cut her some slack, she's just trying to help."

I found an interesting examplo someone posted on Twitter: "When you make a mistake, fix it, but also be sure to forgive yourself. Cut yourself some slack... Nobody's perfect." So this one is for when you mess up and then start beating yourself up for it. Cut yourself some slack. Everyone makes mistakes. So, here's a plan: learn from your mistake and next time hopefully you'll do better.

OK, so... You know when a person all of a sudden, for some reason, starts working less hard than usual? Their work, or effort, used to be OK. Now, it's like they're not working as hard. They're not putting in the same amount of effort. Something has changed. Maybe they're preoccupied with other things, maybe they're not so interested in this activity any longer, or... who knows? Whatever the reason, this person is slacking off. This person has become inefficient, or maybe they have become a bit lazy. They are slacking off.

There are other slightly different meanings for this idiom, "to slack off", but the one I just illustrated is, by far, what I hear the most.

Hello, all. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre dois idioms do inglês super comuns com o verbo count. Um deles é o que se usa pra dizer a uma pessoa que ela deveria ser grata.


Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let's get started. I was thinking about our first idiom of today, which is related to gratitude and being grateful, and... Well, some people say that it is actually really important to be grateful or express gratitude. They say that being grateful will impact your life positively - it will not only make you feel good but it will also attract good things. Do you share that opinion? If you don't, why not?

Also, feeling grateful does feel good, doesn't it? It's a nice feeling. So when someone tells you to count your blessings, they're really telling you that you should think about the good things in your life. When someone says that, they're usually trying to make you see the positive things in your life. What is a blessing? Basically, a blessing is something good that happens to you or someone else. Christians, for example, usually pray that God will bless them. However, it happens to all of us every once in a while: things don't go our way and we get angry, upset, depressed... That's when someone might say "Count your blessings." Think of all the good you've had so far, remember all the good in your life. I did a search for "count your blessings" on Twitter and found these examples:

* Count your blessings, not your problems
* Life is too short to argue and fight with the past. Count your blessings and move on with your head held high.
* How you spend your day is your own choice. You can either count your blessings or count your troubles.

So what do you think? It is always nice to say "Oh I think it is really important to count our blessings" but do you actually remember to do it in your daily life?

Now here's an idiom that is very similar to what we say in Portuguese, and for that very reason, many people probably don't say it the right way. I'm talking about "lose count of something." We do not say "lose THE count." Rather, we say "lose count of something." That means you can't remember how many times something happened, or happens. So here are a few very simple examples from my life: I like the sitcom Friends so much that I have lost count of how many times I watched each episode. It's true. I have definitely lost count. I've lost count of the podcasts I've made. Does anyone care to count? It's in the hundreds, that much I know. I lost count of all the times I started a gym membership in Brazil.

Someone posted on Twitter that they have lost count of how many cups of coffee they've had today. Someone else posted she lost count of how many times she's cried today!

Please give me your own examples in a comment. Can you think of anything that's happened in your life so many times, you just lost count? Talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* count your blessings
* lose count

 

Glossário

things don't go our way = as coisas não acontecem do jeito que a gente quer

rather = aqui no texto,

Hello, everyone. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre dois idioms super comuns com a palavra LIFE... Nenhum dos dois pode ser traduzido literalmente para o português, mas acredito que não seja difícil pegar o sentido deles. Por isso, ouça bem o episódio e me diga se tiver perguntas!


Transcrição
Hello, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

OK, so today we have got a couple of very interesting terms - they're really idiomatic expressions, or idioms, and they're both used when you want to communicate that you can't do something. So listen to this: I can't draw to save my life. I can't make a good drawing, I can't draw anything. I can't draw to save my life. If I needed to draw in order to save my life, I'd be dead. If my life depended on my drawing abilities, I'd be dead. I can't draw to save my life.

Listen to this - someone posted on Twitter "I'll remember a face but can't remember a person's name to save my life." Are you that way? I have to say, I am a lot like that. I will always remember a face, but I can't remember that person's name to save my life. There are exceptions, of course... In general, though, I can't remember a person's name to save my life. Then if I meet them again, and they tell me their name again... That's a different story. I'll remember it. But the first time I've met them? Forget it.

Now think about your life. Try to remember something you have tried to do - an activity like dancing, singing, playing soccer, cooking... What is it that you can't do to save your life? What is it that you can't do at all? For me it would have to be singing. I can't sing to save my life. What's your example?

Now here's another idiom that is kinda funny. Listen to this: I know I parked my car in this lot but I can't for the life of me remember where. I'm sure this is the parking lot where I've parked my car, I know that much. However now I can't find it. I don't know where I've parked it. I can't remember at all where I've parked it. I can't for the life of me remember where my car is.

"For the life of me" is one of those expressions that sounds a bit dramatic because, well, it's making a point, really: it's giving emphasis to that thing you can't do, or can't remember. Here's another example I found on Twitter: "For two days I've smelled like cigarettes and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why." I get what this guy is saying. If he doesn't smoke and nobody in his office smokes, and his housemates don't smoke - how can he be smelling like cigarettes? Of course, these are only my assumptions but I think they're good assumptions 'cause the guy sounds pretty confused. He has smelled like cigarettes for two days, and he's saying "I can't for the life of me figure out why."

Can't remember if I turned off the curling iron

One girl said "I remember what I did 10 years ago but I can't for the life of me remember if I turned off the curling iron this morning." I think that happens to lots of people - they can't remember whether they switched the lights off, or the TV, or the oven... I had something similar happen to me this afternoon - I couldn't for the life of me remember if I ha...

Hello, everybody. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre a diferença entre as palavras do inglês early e soon. Se você não é ouvinte dos podcasts porque ainda não consegue compreendê-los, me escreva em analuiza @ inglesonline.com.br e diga se gostaria de uma lição aqui no blog sobre esse tópico!

Aqui, early aparece como advérbio


Transcrição
Hello, everybody. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Let's get right into it. Today I talk about common ways to use soon and early. Are they the same? Are they different? Stay with me and you'll find out. Listen to this: I want to join a gym class, but it starts so early in the morning! I don't think I can wake up that early. The gym class I'm talking about starts at 6AM. To me, that's really early. What do you think? I'd have to wake up around 5: 20AM, which is so early in the morning. The problem is, I go to bed around midnight, which is kinda late. So, for me, to wake up so early would be a bit difficult.

Early is an adjective - most of the time - and we use it to talk about the first few hours, or the first few days, or the first few months... Or just some time near the beginning of a period. For example: if the morning officially starts at 6AM, then we can say 6:30 is pretty early in the morning. 7AM is early. 11AM is not early. We can say that the second day of January is early January. Classes will start in early January. That could be anywhere from the first to the tenth day of January, let's say. Classes will start early in January. The 16th day is not early in January, but the 4th is. If someone tells you they're going to buy a car in early 2016, they're probably gonna do it in January, February or March. So, of course, January is earlier in 2015 than June. 7AM is earlier in the morning than 9AM. I had scheduled an appointment for 11AM on Wednesday, but my dentist rang me and asked if we could meet a bit earlier in the morning - earlier. Around 10:15, which is earlier than 11.

And how about  soon? Soon is an adverb, so it qualifies actions. If something happened too soon, that means the amount of time it took for that thing too happen was too short - in your opinion, of course. So that thing happened too soon. For example, you think your cousin and her fiancé got married too soon. They have only known each other for two months. That is too soon to get married, you think. By the way, they got married in early September - it was the fourth of September, and the wedding took place early in the morning. Yep, eight o'clock. So maybe something happened too soon. Maybe the car you just bought broke down as you were driving it to work - that is too soon for a new car to break down! And your neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, lost her husband a few months ago. You think she should start dating again and she says "It's too soon." Your friend John has been learning Japanese for two weeks and it is probably too soon for him to have a conversation with a Japanese person. It's been only two weeks!

So let's say your friend Angela says "We have to meet soon!" She means that you and her have to meet within a short amount of time - maybe in two or three days. It can't take too long. Angela thinks you guys should meet soon. So two days after saying that,

Hey, all. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre dois idioms comuníssimos com a palavra story. Explico também o verbo to whine, que é usado para descrever alguém que está reclamando assim... meio choramingando.


Transcrição
Hey, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today we're going to open our episode with an expression that you can use when you feel like whining about something. Whining - first of all, what does "whining" mean? To whine, w-h-i-n-e, means to complain, but... in sort of a childish way, in a bit of an annoying way. Can you picture that? Picture someone - maybe you - complaining in a way that reminds you of a spoiled or bratty child. Imagine that it's an adult doing it. A good way to describe that would be "This guy or this woman is whining... about something." In movies or TV shows it is common to hear someone say "Quit whining" when someone else is going on and on complaining about something.

So imagine your friend Mary is whining about how she bought a beautiful shirt last week, and today that same shirt went on sale! Twenty percent off. Mary says it's the second time this has happened to her, and then you say "Oh, story of my life. Last year I bought three jackets at my favourite shop and the next week they were 40 percent off."

So when you say "story of my life" what you're saying is, that thing your friend just mentioned is something that is typical in your life. Of course, it's usually an exaggeration - it's not like that happens every day. It's a way to sympathise with the other person, though... So we use it when we're talking about something unfortunate. Let's say you're waiting in line to pay a bill at the bank and you start to chat with the person in front of you. You're telling her it took you twenty minutes to find a parking spot for your car. She replies "Story of my life." She's saying the same thing happens with her all the time.

And check out this one: to make a long story short. You use this one when you're telling someone what happened, for example, but you don't wanna go through every single detail so you're just going to give them the basic facts. A short, summarised version of the story. I'm not sure we have a similar expression in Brazil - what do you think? Maybe "Bom, pra resumir..." but I'm not a hundred percent sure. We sometimes say "pra resumir" when we're reaching the final part of our story so it's not really the same meaning.

Let's say you bump into a colleague in the office - Mark. So you haven't seen Mark in three days, which is highly unusual. You're used to seeing Mark all the time when he comes to speak to your boss like, two or three times a day. So when you see Mark after three days, you say "Hey, Mark. Haven't seen you in a while. What's up?" And Mark goes "Long story short, this may be the last time I see you. I'm being transferred to our office overseas. Sorry, I have to go now but I'll see you tonight at happy hour". So Mark didn't get into the details; he didn't even really explain why he wasn't in the office for three days. He just gave you the short version: he's being transferred overseas so maybe today is the last time you guys see each other. He'll probably tell you more at happy hour.

In my opinion,

Hi, everyone. Neste episódio, eu falo sobre uma expressão que traduz perfeitamente aquelas nossas indagações do tipo É pra esperar aqui? É pra preencher a ficha? O que é pra fazer? Veja que nem sempre a gente diz É pra...?, que é português bem informal. Às vezes começamos a pergunta de maneira diferente, como O que eu tenho que...? ou Eu tenho que assinar aqui? Se você ainda não é muito familiarizado com o uso de supposed to, ouça bem esse episódio e os exemplos, e comece a reparar nessa expressão daqui por diante.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Everyone, I love talking about idioms that I don't hear people use a lot. And by people, I don't mean native speakers... I mean Inglês Online visitors and Brazilians in general who are learning English. There are so many little expressions and idioms that are insanely useful and pop up all the time in native conversation - and they are usually mentioned in an English lesson along with some examples and all you need to do for English school purposes is know how to use them on the test. Memorising will help you do well on the test, but it won't really help you a lot with speaking with confidence and becoming progressively more fluent.

So I'm happy to present to you today the expression that you will use whenever you wanna say, in English obviously... stuff like "É pra gente esperar aqui?" and "O que que é pra gente fazer?" Now, granted. There's more than one way of saying those. For many of the examples I'm gonna give, we could use 'should'. That's not the term I'm gonna focus on, though. I'm going to focus on supposed to with the meaning I just exemplified in Portuguese.

So listen to this: Are we supposed to wait here? That means - Is there an expectation that we wait here? Is that what we are expected to do? Do you expect us to wait here? Is that what we should do, according to the rules, or according to the process, or according to what you want...? Are we supposed to wait here? When you ask the question "Am I supposed to do this or that?", you're asking "What am I expected to do?" "What do you or other people expect me to do?"

So let's imagine you're a student and you go somewhere with a couple of your classmates to register for a national exam or something. You guys arrive at the place and see a reception desk. The receptionist looks up, says "Good morning", and looks down again. You look at one of your classmates and ask "Are we supposed to wait here?" but he doesn't know. He doesn't know what the three of you are supposed to do. What are you expected to do? Walk up to the receptionist and speak to her? Take the elevator to the second floor, maybe? No one knows. So finally you decide to walk up to the reception desk and say "Good morning. I'm here to register for the exam. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do first." And the receptionist explains that she's just put in a call for the exam representative who will be with you in a minute.

"What am I supposed to do?" is something people say a lot when things don't go the way they expected. You will hear it in movies and TV shows very often, when there's a couple - boyfriend and girlfriend, for example,

Hello, all. Neste episódio, falo sobre usos muito comuns e corriqueiros da voz passiva no tempo passado na conversa em inglês de todo dia.


Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

So today let's take a look at these sentences: I was told to look for you. He was paid last week. I was given a phone number during my visit to that office. During our last meeting, it was said that profits are on the rise. What do all these sentences have in common? They use the passive voice, in the simple past.

The passive voice is useful to put the focus on the action, and sometimes on the person or object receiving the action. Notice that we're not really interested in whoever did that action when we say I was told to look for you. Or It was said that profits are on the rise. Someone told me to look for you... but whoever that was, I don't think it's relevant to name that person right now so I'm saying that I was told to look for you. I can't really remember who said that profits were on the rise during our last meeting, and who said it is not important anyway... So I'm going with It was said that profits are on the rise. This is very similar to what we do in Portuguese: "Disseram que os lucros estão crescendo." "Me disseram pra eu te procurar."

This structure is very, very common in everyday speech - particularly those kinds of examples I mentioned. So, obviously, you've got to use the past participle of verbs, such as told, paid and given. For this episode, I'm gonna focus on these verbs because they're so common and I would like to see a lot more English learners using them in past passive form.

So here we go with the examples - and notice that since I'm using the simple past, all examples refer to a specific event in the past. So when I arrived at school, I was told the teacher was ill. And I was also told I should go home. At the theatre, last night, we were told our session had been canceled. When we arrived at the stadium, we were told we needed to show IDs.

My friend was paid two thousand a month in her first job. That man revealed that he was paid to sabotage our equipment. We were paid a lot of money to solve this problem and that's what we're going to do. That actress was paid three thousand pounds to promote our company.

How are you doing so far? Can you think of your own examples? Do you have a job? How much were you paid last month? What's your example for "I was told to do this, I was told to do that" and where and when did that happen?

So let's keep going: before I left the party, I was given a gift bag. We were given a hotel room that was so dirty we could not sleep in it. As soon as I joined the company, I was given the freedom to make any suggestions I wanted. You were given many opportunities to do the right thing but you failed to take them.

So - can you think of any examples from your life?  Please let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* I was told
* We were given
* He was paid
* It was said

 

Glossary

on the rise = crescendo

Olá! Tudo bem por aí?

Hoje vou te falar sobre uma palavrinha que eu escuto TODA HORA na conversa do dia a dia aqui na Inglaterra. E os americanos também a usam muito. Mas acho que foi preciso que eu estivesse in loco pra perceber de verdade como ela é comum. Nossa palavra hoje é THOUGH.

Clique no player abaixo para ouvir os exemplos ou fazer o download do áudio.



Though já foi assunto de dica aqui no site e o post do link é uma boa introdução - só que esse é um daqueles casos de palavra ou expressão de inglês que eu só ouço sair da boca de quem tem muita, muita vivência mesmo no inglês. Tipo, mora no exterior há anos e tem inglês fluente. Mas não precisa ser assim. Se precisasse, não haveria casos de pessoas que nunca nem saíram do seu país natal e mesmo assim falam inglês que nem americano. E esses casos existem, pois eu mesma conheço alguns exemplares. :-)

Então, o que vou fazer na dica de hoje é dar vários exemplos de como though é realmente usado na conversa do dia-a-dia. E, além disso, vou colocar um arquivo de áudio no fim da dica onde eu falo todos os exemplos, pra você baixar, colocar no seu player e mandar ver no listening!

Though é quase um apêndice no fim de muitas sentenças, apesar de ter sempre aquele sentido de "mas..." ou "no entanto". Outra coisa que não costuma mudar é que, como acabei de mencionar, o though aparece no fim de um período (ou sentença).

Imagine essa situação: duas pessoas se conheceram online e vão se encontrar pela primeira vez, em pessoa. Uma delas diz "Só não sei se vou conseguir te reconhecer."

Esse é um caso perfeito para o though: I don't know if I'll be able to spot you though.

Percebeu que o though não precisa necessariamente corresponder ao nosso MAS, ou NO ENTANTO? Ele pode corresponder também ao SÓ QUE, ou outras palavras/expressões que introduzam essa ideia "contraditória", vamos dizer assim. Mas olha que interessante - ele aparece no fim da ideia. :-)

Quer ver alguns exemplos de coisas que diríamos no Brasil começando com "Mas...", e que em inglês diríamos com Though? Repare que às vezes o "mas" ou "só que" fica implícito - a gente acaba nem falando, mas o sentido está lá. E com esse sentido, na minha experiência, o though aparece bem mais na fala que seus equivalentes brasileiros. Vamos lá:

Ih, mas acho que vai chover. I think it's gonna rain though.
(Mas /Só que) o vestido dela é um tamanho maior que o meu. Her dress is a bigger size than mine though.
(Mas você) Tem certeza? Are you sure though?
Mas você tem que reconhecer que ela é uma boa atriz. You've got to recognise she's a good actress though.
A comida estava meio sem-graça (mas) ainda assim estava boa. The food was a bit bland; it was still good though.
A casa já está diferente, mas ainda tem muito a fazer. The house looks different; still lots to do though.
A gente se perdeu no mercado e achou tudo muito caro. Mas o pessoal era legal. We got lost in the market and thought everything was so expensive. People were nice though.

[Jane diz] "Vou levar essa camiseta" I'm taking this t-shirt.
[Amiga da Jane diz] "(Mas) a azul? A laranja é mais bonita." The blue one though? The orange one is prettier.

 

Veja esse jeito muito, muito comum de usar though, quase como uma ênfase:

"Não aguento mais esse relacionamento.

Hey, everyone. Neste episódio, falo sobre dois idioms em inglês com a palavra chance.


Transcrição
Hey, everyone. This is the 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

So let's get started today with a very simple and very useful expression that I don't hear a lot when Brazilians speak English. So take a listen to this episode and start noticing every time you hear this term from here on out so you get used to it. I'm talking about the expression by chance. Have you heard it before? If you're used to watching films or TV shows in English and paying attention to what is actually being said, chances are... you've heard "by chance" before.

"By chance" means accidentally; without planning. For example, I'm reading a book now that I found by chance at a used-books shop. I didn't know I was gonna find it - it was a complete surprise. In fact, I wasn't even looking for it. I'd tried to find this book before but quickly realized it was out of print. So one day I walked into a used-books shop just to check their stuff out and stumbled upon this book. I found it by chance.

Someone posted this on Twitter: "The best things in life don't happen by chance; they happen because you worked for them." What do you think? I think it depends. Some great things happen in our lives by chance (obviously, that's true for bad things as well.) Some people are born into a great family, for example. Some people are born with great musical talent. Others are born with a gift for sports. All that happens by chance, right? Or does it? What do you think? Now, it's true that you can achieve lots of amazing goals if you work hard for them. You can build a great career. You can become a specialist in something if you study hard. You can learn a second language! So those results won't happen by chance, of course! Here's what someone said: "My life experience has taught me that nothing happens by chance." I guess it depends on your view of the world, or your beliefs.

So our second idiom for this episode is kind of a funny one. Here it goes: fat chance. Yep, fat chance. Fat chance this is gonna happen. You think your friend is going to lend you money? Fat chance... The expression "fat chance" is used in a sarcastic way. The word fat here is equivalent to large, or big or something like that. So it's like you're saying "Oh, really... There's a great chance that this is going to happen." Only you're saying it in a sarcastic way so what you mean is... you guessed it, the opposite. What you think is that there's actually no chance that that thing is gonna happen... And that's where "fat chance" comes in.

Your friend says "Do you think I'm gonna win the lottery this week?" You say "Fat chance." Mark thinks he's getting a promotion next month. "Fat chance... He got hired just two weeks ago." Do you think we can get cheap tickets for the next World Cup? Fat chance... Can we plan a one-month long vacation for twenty dollars? Fat chance.

So what are your examples? Where in your life would you use the idiom "by chance"? Please tell me about it in the comments and talk to you next time!

 

Key terms

* by chance
* fat chance

 

Glossary

Hi, all. Neste episódio, ouvimos expressões como "dinheiro não dá em árvore"  e "vê se cresce!" em inglês.


Transcrição
Hi, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

So I had planned to do an episode that kicked off with... kind of a saying in English, which would be equivalent to what we say in Brazil: "dinheiro não dá em árvore." Here you go: in English we say money doesn't grow on trees. There you go. Notice the verb grow. Money doesn't grow on trees. Is that something that someone in your family used to say, or still does? I think one of my grandparents, probably my maternal grandfather, used to say that one. Money doesn't grow on trees. Be careful with your spending, try to save some money or better yet - just open a savings account with a bank and make a deposit every month. Save some money for a rainy day... Why? Because money doesn't grow on trees.

So after I remebered the saying "money doesn't grow on trees", I thought of another one with the word grow.  Let's say your brother is into golf, and right in this moment he is watching a golf tournament on TV. He's been following golf for a while. He knows everything about it. When you enter the room he doesn't even notice - he's completely focused on the scenes of the tournament. So you sit down and start watching it. Only, you couldn't care less about golf, that's the truth. You know very little about it because... you're not, you're just not interested. So you try to watch the tournament for a few minutes, but you find it so boring. Watching the golf tournament is like watching grass grow.

Now, don't be offended if you like golf. You know different people like different things! Nowadays many of us seem to be addicted to action sports, action movies - so I'm sure some people will find golf boring because it's a more slow-paced sport. In fact, I found this comment on Twitter: How do people watch golf? I'm sure watching grass grow is more exciting.

Can you think of a specific example of something you've done recently where you had to struggle to keep your eyes open, or pay attention to over a period of time? It could also be something that goes on in your life pretty regularly, like your commute to work or school. Maybe you're super bored on that bus on your way to work. Commuting to work is like watching grass grow, you think. Actually, watching grass grow would be more exciting than being on that bus. For me, watching a film that's heavy on the drama is like watching grass grow. Meaning, I find it very boring. That is my personal example. What's yours?

And let's wrap up this episode with one more cool term with grow. The expression, or phrasal verb, 'grow up' means to become mature, to become an adult. When you first meet someone and are having a chat with them, and you're getting to know each other, that person may ask you "So where did you grow up?" But here's a bit of a different use for grow up... It's when someone is being childish or immature. When someone is being childish, it means that they're behaving like a child when they shouldn't be. So you can basically tell them to stop behaving ...

Hey, everybody. Neste episódio eu falo sobre duas expressões muito comuns no inglês - ambas com a palavra two.


Transcrição
Hey, everybody. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

So today I've got two terms for you, both of them with the word TWO. Here we go: have you ever heard anyone say that so-and-so is two-faced? Here's the term again: two-faced. It's an adjective, right? We say that Josh is two-faced, for instance. So when you say "Josh is two-faced", what do you mean by that? What you're saying is that you think Josh is hypocritical, insincere. A flat-out lier, maybe.

If you take this expression literally, it kinda makes sense. If someone is two-faced - that would literally mean that they have two faces. They're capable of presenting two faces to the world, depending on the situation. Let's go back to Josh. So let's say Josh is an acquaintance of yours, and when he's with you... he's really nice. He actually goes out of his way to compliment you. Basically, you think Josh is a fan of yours. So it really surprises you when you find out that Josh has been badmouthing you. He's been doing that behind your back, obviously. So that's pretty much it: Josh is nice to your face, but once you've left the room... There's Josh badmouthing you like there's no tomorrow. Josh puts on a nice face when you're around, and once you've left he puts on a different face - the face of someone who really doesn't like you. Josh is two-faced. He is being two-faced in his treatment of you.

I guess that is something most people will have experienced in their lives. Most of us, at one time or another, have been disappointed to find out that someone we thought of as a friend was talking about us behind our back, or spreading lies even. So let us know about your experience with two-faced people in the comments. Has anyone ever accused YOU of being two-faced? C'mon, tell us everything!

And here's the other interesting expression of today: two-timing. As in, "I think your boyfriend is two-timing you." So what does that mean, exactly? That basically means that I think your boyfriend is being unfaithful, he's cheating on you. "Two-timing" can be used in a more general context, when someone is being deceitful in general, but more often than not you'll see it applied to relationships. I've found an online article titled "11 Signs That He is Two-Timing You." So, of course, the article tries to tip you off to signs that suggest your boyfriend is two-timing you - in other words, that he is cheating on you.

The article says that one of the signs is a sudden change of behavior... For example, if your boyfriend all of a sudden becomes very sweet and starts buying you presents for no reason, watch out. Here's another sign that your boyfriend may be two-timing you, according to the article: he suddenly has lots of work. All of a sudden, he's got this giant workload and you can't reach him. He calls less often and when you call him, two times out of three, he doesn't pick up. So, watch out!

Hello, everyone. Não perca: neste episódio eu falo sobre uma estrutura comuníssima do inglês, cujo significado pode ser sintetizado em "realizar algo através de um certo comportamento ou ação". OK, foi muito vaga essa definição - mas não se deixe enganar! Se você ainda não tiver ouvido esse tipo de estrutura por aí, depois desse podcast vai começar a percebê-la. It's everywhere!


Transcrição
Hello, everyone. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

Today I'm gonna talk about a very interesting structure in English. It is very, very common not only in everyday conversation but also in news reports, lectures, TV, radio - basically you'll hear it everywhere. Let's start with an example: Billy talked his way into his new job. Listen again: Billy talked his way into his new job. What does that mean? Ok, so let's break this down. Billy has a new job, right? That's easy to get from that example. Now, the part that says... "Billy talked his way into..." - that means basically that Billy used his powers of persuasion to get his new job. He talked, he had a chat with someone or maybe two, three or more people, and through talking, he was successful in getting his new job. Billy is probably a persuasive guy.

Listen to this one: the killer talked his way into the victim's home. There's a killer; there's a victim. And the killer got into the victim's home. How did they do that? Through talking. They probably got to chatting with the victim and persuaded him or her to invite them in. The killer talked his way into the victim's home. The killer used talking to achieve his or her goal.

And check this one out: a student lied his way into Harvard University. I've actually read this on the news. This is a guy who forged all the documents that are required to apply to Harvard University. He forged letters of recommendation, test results, transcripts, essays and so on. In other words, he lied, a lot. And using all the fake documents to apply, he actually was successful and got accepted by Harvard. This guy lied his way into Harvard. He got into Harvard through lying.

And here's a popular one: Mary sang her way into our hearts. Mary is a singer, or at least she can sing. And what was the result of her singing? She got into our hearts. That's a figure of speech, of course, and it means that we love her now. She's in our hearts, we're fond of her, we like her. And how did Mary accomplish that, so to speak? Through singing. Mary sang her way into our hearts. We probably saw her sing on a TV show, let's say.

Now check this out: our boss appointed Tony to chair the next meeting, but Tony somehow talked his way out of it. So the boss said to Tony - you're going to chair this meeting; you're gonna be the leader or the facilitator for this meeting. And then what happened? Tony used his powers of persuasion and talked to his boss, and somehow got out of it. Tony talked his way out of it. What is "it"? Acting as the chair of the meeting, leading the meeting. My friend talked her way out of meeting with the company CEO next week. Mike's father told him he had to stay in tonight and study... Mike somehow talked his way out of studying, and is going out tonight. Joanne wanted us all at the office party tonight, but Sandy talked her way out of it.

Hi, all. No episódio de hoje, falo de como foi meu Natal no ano passado, e como será esse ano.


Transcrição
Hi, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.

How are you doing? Ready for Christmas? What's your Christmas going to be like? Are you going to be on your own or with family? I think in Brazil the overwhelming majority of people spend this holiday with their family. Even people who don't like their family spend Christmas with their family. I think it is probably the same in every country where Christmas is a major holiday. Here in England, it's all about Christmas now. I'm at a café and they're playing Christmas songs. The adverts are all over, everywhere you look, and I hear from many people that they're attending Christmas parties and lunches.

What's your end-of-the-year ritual, so to speak...? Do you have to join Secret Santa in the office? Is there an office party that you, well, have to attend? Back when I had an office job, there was always a little party at the end of the year. I remember I was never too excited about it because it was... in the office, which was a downer for me, and the food was usually not that great either.

Last year was my first Christmas after moving to London and I almost spent it completely on my own, which to me, to be honest, is not that big a deal. Someone had told me that London would be completely empty around Christmas, which is, of course, an exaggeration, but in early December last year I began to realize that everyone I knew was going away. Some were going back to their home countries, some had simply booked a vacation during the holidays and so on.

In the end, a few days before Christmas, I came across a cheap plane ticket to Brazil and ended up buying it and spending about six days in my home country. This year I'm going to a friend's house. She lives outside of London so I'll have to hop on a train to get there. And check this out: there's no train service connecting her city to London on Christmas day, or on the next day, the 26th! I was kinda surprised to see that. That means I'm coming back home only on the 27th.

So I've done my Christmas shopping: a few presents, and then wrapping paper, gift tags and ribbon. And a nice pecan tart to take to my friend's. It's the twenty-third today and the streets aren't as busy now as they have been for most of the year. Whatever the case may be for you, I wish you a great end of the year :) but here's what I wish you the most: huge progress in your English learning! If you're taking a few days off over the holidays, slowing down a bit - why not take the opportunity to have another look at your favorite Inglês Online tips?

Let me know what your Christmas plans are, and talk to you next time!

 

Glossary

the overwhelming majority = a enorme maioria

so to speak = por assim dizer

Secret Santa = amigo secreto

a downer = algo que te desanima, deprime

not that big a deal = nada demais

ribbon = fita para embrulhar presente

to my friend's = para a casa da minha amiga

Hello, everyone. No episódio de hoje, falo sobre dois idioms do inglês muito comuns com a palavra head.


Transcrição
Hello, everyone. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

Let's get started today with a very nice idiom that means, basically, to collaborate in order to find an answer or solution to a problem. Let's say you and your classmates John and Mike are working on a group assignment and in a few days you'll meet again to put everything together and turn in the assignment. However, Mike gives you a call and says he's having a really hard time figuring out what to do. And in the end you agree with Mike - you wouldn't know what to do either. Here's what you think: you, Mike and John should get together tomorrow specifically to discuss Mike's part of the assignment. Mike can't figure it out; you can't figure it out, but maybe if you put your heads together you'll be able to figure it out together.

So that's our first idiom today: let's put our heads together and try to find the solution. Let's share ideas and thoughts; maybe something you say will spark an idea in someone else. Let's get together and discuss the problem, let's put our heads together and see if we can figure this out.

In theory, many meetings are carried out in companies with the purpose of having a few people put their heads together to figure something out, right? That's useful when you're working on any kind of team assignment, be it a work assignment or a school assignment. The team leader could call a meeting anytime and say "We've hit a roadblock and it would be great to get everybody's contribution on the issue. Let's put our heads together  and see what we can come up with."

If you work for a company, have you ever been in a meeting like that? A meeting for all the participants to put their heads together and try to solve a problem, find a solution, figure something out. Please let us know when that happened in the comments...

Now here's another very popular idiom with the word HEAD... When someone has a good head on their shoulders - well, I think you can guess the meaning. Someone has a good head on their shoulders - when we say a good head, that doesn't mean "beautiful", "big", or anything like that. A good head here means a sensible head; someone with common sense and intelligence.

I have a recent real-life example for this one. I was telling my friend Carolina about someone I know... When I told Carolina one particular detail, she expressed concern that the third person might be a bit naive. So I told Carol "Don't worry. She's got a good head on her shoulders." She's sensible, she's intelligent, she's got common sense.

Sometimes we refer to other people in that way in Brazil. We all know someone who's mature, sensible... It's usually someone we trust and we think they are capable of taking care of themselves. Do you know anyone like that? Who are the people in your family or circle of friends that would fit this idiom? Can you say "My cousin so-and-so has a good head on his shoulders." Or "My neighbor Maria has a good head on her shoulders. You don't need to worry about her." Who's your example?

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

Keywords

Hi, all. No episódio de hoje, falo sobre como dizer "mais um", "mais dois" e assim por diante, em inglês.


Transcrição
Hi, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

Everyone, today is the day we're all going to get used to saying "mais um", "mais dois", "mais três" the right way. In English, of course.

No more "more one", "more two", "more three". No! We're going to listen to lots of examples, because I want you to get familiar with the right way to say "mais três" in English. It's more than just that, actually - I want you to become so accustomed to the right way of saying it that the next time you're about to utter something like "more three" you will immediately correct yourself.

Imagine you're in a bar having beer with a couple of friends. You're almost done with your beer and you would like one more. You'd like to have one more beer. The waitress approaches your table and you say "One more beer, please". And then your friend says "Oh, and one more side of french fries." That's right: you guys are having some fries with your beer but, as it turns out, one serving of fries wasn't enough so your friend is ordering one more serving. One more beer, one more side of french fries.

Imagine if every morning you had one more hour to stay in bed. Maybe two more hours! Now, think of something you have done that did not end well. Let's say you tried your hand at some sport and you failed. Let's say it was capoeira. You failed miserably! Now imagine if the opportunity showed up for you to try it one more time.

And here's a very common sitch in my life: I buy, let's say, a shirt. Next day, I realise I love it; it fits me perfectly, I love the fabric and I decide I want two more of that shirt. So I go back to the store and buy two more shirts just like the one I bought the day before. Sometimes I buy three more units of that thing I love - of course, I don't do it all the time.

And here's one more example: let's say you are giving some instructions... to someone. You tell them "Do this, then do that, and be careful about this. Understood?" And they say "Understood." And then you think of one more piece of instruction you have to give that person, and you say "Oh, one more thing: Don't forget to shut the door when you leave." One more thing, one more time.

Now let's say you're the office manager and you're in charge of purchasing all the office supplies. Supplies are running low so you decide to call the shop and put in an order for two cases of pens, three packs of printer paper and ten notepads. Only the next day you realise you under-ordered. So you call the shop again and you say "I need to amend my order: I actually need one more case of pens, so that's a total of three cases; two more packs of printer paper, so that's a total of five packs; and three more notepads - a total of thirteen pads." One more case of pens, two more packs of printer paper, three more notepads.

So I would like to ask you: which of the situations I just described have you been through?

* Did you ever tell the waiter "One more beer, please" or one more coke, or one more side of fries?
* Have you ever wished you had one more hour to stay in bed?

Hello, everybody. No episódio de hoje, eu falo sobre pesar os prós e contras de uma situação em inglês.


Transcrição
Hello, everybody. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So what do you do when you have to make a decision and... you're torn? So let's start with the last bit: you're torn. What does that mean? That means you're divided. You can't decide. You probably have two options; there are two different courses of action you can take regarding an issue, but it's hard to decide. You can't make up your mind. You are torn.

Let's say you really want to go to college and you've spent this year studying very hard. So your next step is to apply for two different schools.  Both of them are great; one is in your hometown and the other is in a different city. So finally you get a letter from each school saying that you're in! That's right: both schools want you as a student. You're beside yourself with joy; however... You've got to make a decision. Only, you feel like you can't make a decision. You're torn! You think both schools are amazing - in fact, you would like to attend both if you could.

Only you can't. You've got to choose one. A few days go by and you're still feeling torn. You think to yourself,  "I'm torn between School A and School B". So you tell your friend Mark how you feel and ask for some advice. "Mark, what should I do? I'm so torn". Mark says "Well, you should make a list of the pros and cons for each school".  And you say "That is a great idea. I'm going to weigh the pros and cons of each school, and then I'm sure it'll be easier to come to a decision.

Pros and cons. Pros and cons are the good and bad parts of a situation. Pros are obviously the good parts, and cons are... yep, the bad parts. So let's say that is exactly what you do: you make a list of the pros and cons of both schools. School A's pros are: it's in your hometown (so you don't have to move) and it's cheaper than School B. Now the cons for School A are, it is in your hometown (yeah, you would actually like to live somewhere else) and it doesn't have a strong sports tradition. You're crazy about sports and you know that in School A you won't have that many opportunities to practice your favorite sports. So there you have it: for School A, the pros are - in your hometown and cheaper. The cons are - in your hometown, and not too focused on sports.

What about School B? Here are the pros: you would move to a great city; and it's got a strong sports presence. So you would get to live in a very nice town, and you would have many more opportunities to practice your favorite sports. And what are the cons? It would be more expensive to go to School B, because it would mean moving to a different town, and also - School B does not have a Music program, which is something you would like to do on the side. So, there you go: the pros for School B are, very nice town; focus on sports. Cons for School B are no Music program, and more expensive overall.

So now all you have to do is look at your lists of pros and cons and think about them. You will follow your friend's advice, and weigh the pros and cons of this situation. Here's an example from my own life: I recently moved to a different city and I had to weigh the p...

Hi, everyone. No episódio de hoje, você vai me ouvir falando sobre as estruturas if only e  I wish, usadas para lamentar que alguma coisa não seja do jeito que você queria, ou desejar que aquilo fosse diferente do que na realidade é. Você vê alguém passeando com cachorro e pensa "Ah, se eu tivesse um cão..." Qual é a realidade? Você não tem um cão.

A estrutura básica é assim, sempre com a segunda parte usando um verbo na forma do passado simples:

I wish OR If only       I had / he ate / they were / we believed / etc.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

Alright - so today let's take a look at "I wish" and "If only", two phrases used to express some kind of regret. Well, "I wish" in particular can be used for different reasons, but today we're focusing on regrets about the present. Yes, today we're regretting; we're lamenting the way things are. This is a very whiny episode. We're focusing on regrets about the present state of things. We have had an episode for regrets about the past with 'if only' and 'I wish' - check it out later if you haven't yet done so.

So here's an example: my best friend lives far away from me, and I wish she lived in my neighbourhood. Again: my best friend lives far away from me. That's the present; that's what is right now. The current situation. My best friend lives far away from me. It takes me an hour to get to her place. So, here's what I wish: I wish she lived in my neighbourhood. I wish she LIVED in my neighbourhood. Notice that I'm using the past form of the verb LIVE. How do we say that in Portuguese? We say Eu queria que ela morasse no meu bairro. That is a Subjunctive verb tense - in Portuguese we call it "Pretérito Imperfeito do Subjuntivo" and we have a whole new set of verb forms for this tense in our language. In English we simply use the past form for everyone: I wish I lived, I wish you lived, I wish he lived, I wish we lived and so on.

So let's say you go to a furniture shop because you want to buy a new desk for your bedroom. You get there and you see all the available desks and it turns out you don't like any of them... Actually, you kinda like a few of them but you don't like their colors. You want a yellow desk and none of the desks you've seen are yellow! One of the desks for sale at the shop is just the right size, it's got three drawers, it's perfect. However, it's not yellow. So what do you say? I wish they had it in yellow. If only they had it in yellow. If only they had this desk in yellow... I would definitely buy it.

So what's the difference between "I wish" and "If only"? Basically, none... You could go with either one of them and get the same message across: there is something happening right now, or there's a certain reality in front of you and you would like it to be different. "If only I had more money", you say, as you see an advert for a five-bedroom apartment. "I wish I had a dog", you think, as you go for a stroll and see people walking their dogs. "If only I knew how to cook", you think, as you flip through the pages of a new cookbook at the b...

Hello, all. No episódio de hoje, você vai ouvir vocabulário de inglês relacionado a uso de cartão de crédito.


Transcrição
Hello, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So today we talk about using your credit card and the vocabulary involved in that. And what inspired this episode was a video that shows US president Barack Obama telling the audience about a little incident involving his credit card. Listen to Obama talk about it [Obama speaks]. So he said "(...) I guess I don't use it enough. So they thought there was some fraud going on. Fortunately Michele had hers. I was trying to explain to the waitress, no, I really think that... I've been paying my bills."

So what happened? Well, Obama's credit card was declined. That's when you try to make a payment using your credit card and the shop person operating the little credit card machine returns the card to you and says "Sorry, it's been declined." And why would a credit card be declined? There are a few possible reasons... Sometimes it's just a mistake and if you try it again, it'll work. Other times, your card being declined means that you haven't paid your credit card bill! Mr. Obama said that he tried to explain to the waitress that he had been paying his bills - more specifically, his credit card bill. And the other common reason for your card to be declined is that you have maxed out your credit card.

When you max out your credit card... That means that you have used up all the credit you had available for a certain period of time. Different credit cards have different spending limits, right? Do you have a credit card? What is your spending limit? Some people may have a spending limit of five hundred reais on their credit card. Other people may have a spending limit of two thousand reais, and so on. That's the amount of money you can use to make payments. If you try to go over that limit - if you try to go over your spending limit, your card will probably be declined. Why? Because you have maxed out your credit card. Before being able to use your credit card again, you will have to make a payment.

You will either have to pay off your balance, or pay the minimum payment every month. When you pay off your balance, that means you pay your balance in full. Your balance, which you can see on your credit card statement, is the total amount of money you owe. So you can pay it in full, every month. Or, you can choose to pay only the minimum payment.

So have you ever maxed out your credit card? I have. It was a long time ago, and I wasn't being very responsible with my spending. I started to spend, to pay for stuff with my card, and then one day my card got declined. That happened because I had maxed out my credit card. And in the past, sometimes I used to pay only minimum payments. Nowadays, I'd rather pay off my balance every month. I'd rather pay my balance in full if possible.

Do you look at your credit card statements often? I get mine on email- no more paper for me. Has your credit card ever been declined? Come on, tell us. What was the reason? Did you forget to pay your credit card bill? Did you max out your credit card? Let me know, and talk to you next time!

 

Keywords

Hi, everybody. Se você acompanha os podcasts aqui do Inglês Online, quero te convidar a dar uma atenção especial ao episódio de hoje! Antes de ir para o áudio, vamos fazer um teste:
Responda mentalmente, o mais rápido que puder - como se você estivesse numa conversa ao vivo, em tempo real:Como você diz em inglês, usando o Possessive Case ('s)?1) O carro que pertence à Ana e ao Tim (o carro pertence aos dois)2) Os carros da Maria e do Antonio (um carro é da Maria, e o outro do Antonio)
Aqui vão as respostas: 1- Ana and Tim's car; 2- Maria's and Antonio's cars.

Se foi fácil, ótimo. Mas se você está entre os que hesitaram e se enrolaram um pouco, e é ouvinte deste podcast, então este episódio é pra você mesmo. Essa é uma dica relacionada aqui no blog.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So in today's episode I wanna talk about the possessive case, which is the grammatical name of something like this: Jenny's shoes. We're talking about the shoes that belong to Jenny. Mark's house. Here. we're talking about the house that belongs to Mark. These are the simple cases, though, and they're not our focus today.
So let's get right into what IS our focus, which is using the possessive case when there's more than one person involved. That doesn't come so easily for  many people, so here we go. Ana and Tim are married and they own a car. That blue car belongs to both of them. They share the car. And here's how we say that: It's Ana and Tim's car. It's Ana and Tim's car. Ana and Tim's car is blue.



Monica and Sara are sisters. They bought a house together, and they both live in the house. The house belongs to Monica and Sara. It is Monica and Sara's house. Or you can say, why not? It's Sara and Monica's house. Sara and Monica's house is medium-sized. It is Monica and Sara's house.

 

Johnny and Tina are brother and sister. Johnny and Tina have the same mother and the same father, of course. They have the same parents. So this is how we say that: Johnny and Tina's parents. If you look at the picture, you will see Johnny and Tina's mother. You will also see Johnny and Tina's father. Those are Tina and Johnny's parents.

 

You may have noticed that when "something" belongs to more than one person, and we are listing out the owners - Mary, John, Jenny, Mike, etc. - the possessive case goes on the last name. Listen again: That blue car is Ana and Tim's car. That house is Monica and Sara's house. That man and that woman are Johnny and Tina's parents. Ana and Tim's, Monica and Sara's, Johnny and Tina's.

Now I would like you to think of people you know who have shared ownership of something. That's right, they share ownership of a house, or a car. Or just go for a simple example of two brothers or two sisters and their parents. Please leave your example for this situation in the comments!

Moving on - here's a different situation. Now we are talking about Donald, who owns a red car, and Lesley, who owns a black car. Donald and Lesley are friends and, coincidentally,

Hello, all. No episódio de hoje, temos mais do -ING (doING, eatING, etc) aplicado de uma maneira que eu quase nunca ouço alunos usarem. Vamos falar dele, o gerúndio do inglês, numa forma que não tem nada a ver com o que fazemos em português: com a função de substantivo.

VEJA ISSO! Aqui no site você encontra várias dicas sobre -ING em geral e sobre seu uso como sujeito ou substantivo tmbém. Recomendo dar uma olhada nessa, nessa aqui e também nessa.

Encontre no texto todos os exemplos de gerúndio (e expressões começando com gerúndio) que fazem a função de substantivo.


Transcrição
Hello, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So... Are you guys ready? Today's topic is a favorite of mine to write or talk about because I know that not many English students have incorporated these words into their speech yet, or into their writing even.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about words like writing, eating, seeing, working and so on. Verbs in the -ING form... Which to us is simply "escrevendo, comendo, vendo, trabalhando." So what's the big deal? "I am writing" means "Eu estou escrevendo"; "Eu estou comendo" means "I am eating." So what?

Well, at the beginning of this post I suggested you read three of my past tips that talk about the -ING form being used as a noun. Now, notice that I'm not saying "name." What I mean is a "noun." A noun is a word for a place, a person or a thing. And what would that thing be? An activity. A task. An occupation. Anything that describes the act of doing something.

Let's take writing, for example. The activity of writing, or the action of writing. Now really listen to these examples:

* Jack and I produced this report together. He did the writing; I did the editing.
* My boss asked me how long it took us to do the report. Editing it was fast; now, writing it took a while.
* I also told my boss that Jack was planning to do the entire thing on his own, till I offered to help. Jack asked me "Are you OK with writing it?"
* Writing the report was definitely the hardest part.

Now, in the first example I said "He did the writing." How would we even say that in Brazil? I guess we could simply say "Ele escreveu." If we wanted to be more literal in our translation, we could say "Ele fez a escrita." So Jack did the writing. That task, writing, was completed by Jack. And there was another task involved: editing. The text needed to be edited. Jack did the writing and I did the editing. Editing was fast; writing it took a bit longer. Listen to this one again: editing was fast but writing it took a bit longer.

Now think about how we say that kind of thing in Portuguese. "Editar foi rápido mas escrever demorou." We frequently use the infinitive - editar, escrever - to describe an activity, to give it a name.

Hi, everybody. O episódio de hoje é, of course, sobre a expressão do título. Mas antes de chegar nela eu falo sobre um anúncio que o departamento de transporte colocou no metrô de Londres, que faz um pedido às pessoas que abrem e comem seus lanches do McDonalds dentro do vagão.. hehe.


Transcrição
Hi, everybody. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So the other day I was on the tube here in London when I saw this ad, which is an ad put up by the Transport for London department of the British government. I'm gonna read it out for you:

There is a special type of beast
who likes to sit down and feast
on the train and on the bus
unaware of all the fuss,
that takeaways (although easy)
can make others feel quite queasy.
Please don't eat smelly food.

As you can tell, all the verses rhyme. By the way, I posted the other day about an ad for handyman services that sounded like a poem as well, remember? Very poetic :)

So what's the one on the tube about? Well - take a look at the glossary for this episode, for word meanings. The general message here is, basically... Don't eat food that smells when you're riding the tube. Why would they ask you that? Well, it's a confined space, sometimes there's no ventilation and the smell gets really strong, and some people are really bothered by it and sometimes they even feel sick. It's happened to me on the train - a guy eating french fries (or chips, as they're called here)... Pretty strong smell.

I mean, to be honest, on a short ride I personally don't think that's a huge problem but that's because I'm quite the foodie and I like watching food shows on TV even when it's some kind of food that I don't like... On the other hand, it's understandable that some people may feel annoyed by it on their journey back home after a long day's work. It is a pretty small, confined space and it would actually be really nice to wait and eat your smelly food when you get out of the tube.

So I thought it was interesting not only how the government would start a campaign about that, but also that they used verses and rhymes to present it. They're getting the message across and telling people it's rude to eat smelly food on the train, but it sounds light-hearted because it's sort of a humorous poem.

Let's zoom in on one phrase for a minute: "takeaways (although easy) can make others feel quite queasy." Takeaways (although easy)"  - that's a very useful structure in English. It means that although takeaways are easy, convenient, handy, they may bother other people. So another way of saying "although takeaways are easy" is "takeaways, although easy." Listen to this one: I just made a lemon pie. The filling, although tasty, was too sweet." "The filling, although tasty" is a more succint way of saying "Although the filling of the pie was tasty." So there you go: the filling, although tasty, was too sweet.

The movie we watched, although long, was very enjoyable. The hotel, although cheap, was very comfortable. Barry, although young, is a very accomplished lawyer. My dog,

Hello, all. O episódio de hoje é sobre diferentes maneiras de se dizer que algo é bom (good) em inglês.


Transcrição
Hello, all. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So anyone who's been in contact with English for a while is aware of the common words used to say that something or someone is, basically, good. What are some very popular words for describing something as nice, positive, good? "Interesting" is a popular one. Great and excellent are common. Beautiful is another popular one. What are the ones, though, that we don't hear much when people who are still learning English speak? Well, there are so many ways to describe something in a positive way. A few years back we published a post on Inglês Online that covered exactly that: collocations with words that are frequently used to describe something or someone positively.

I stumbled upon that old tip today and thought it would be a good idea to have our podcast around that topic.  If you check out the post, you'll see that there are certain words that frequently go together with some other words, such as fun and party. What a fun party! That was a fun party. Can we say "What a nice party"? Sure. It's just that you will hear the combination "fun party" way more often, and you will sound a bit more natural saying "What a fun party!" than if you said "What a nice party!" That's basically the definition of a collocation: a combination of words that you will hear very often as spoken by native speakers.

So, as always, I'd like to bring to the fore a few combinations that I don't hear very often from Brazilian speakers. Remember: these are natural combinations of words - preferred combinations, if you will - that pop up a lot in native English conversation. Let's start with advice: useful advice; helpful advice. Has anyone ever given you a useful piece of advice? I've been given useful advice several times in my life. A while ago when I was planning a trip someone advised me to get a travel bag with wheels. That was a useful piece of advice. What's your example?

Here are a couple of words for weather: pleasant weather, perfect weather. What do you think of the weather right now, wherever you may be? Here where I am (São Paulo) it's kinda hot. It's bit too hot to describe it as pleasant. I guess I consider sunny, cool weather to be pleasant weather. Actually I think sunny and cool is perfect weather. What is your idea of perfect weather? Or just pleasant weather?

When we talk about an actor or actress - we say a talented actor or actress, of course. A talented actor. And when we watch a movie or a theater play and really enjoy that actor's performance - here are a couple of words: an outstanding performance; a brilliant performance. An outstanding performance by Al Pacino, a brilliant performance by Meryl Streep. I still remember the first Leo Di Caprio film I watched; it was called Gilbert Grape or something like it. What a brilliant performance! So tell me - out of the last few movies you've watched, which one had a brilliant performance and who was the talented actor in question?

Hi, everyone. O episódio de hoje é sobre uma expressão do inglês que eu acho bem engraçadinha... e com a qual quase todo mundo vai conseguir se identificar de vez em quando.


Transcrição
Hi, everyone. Here's 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. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven't yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening!

So let's get on to the idiom, or term I'd like to talk about this week... I've heard it twice, actually, this week. Once from an American, on a podcast, and once from an English man on a TV show. This idiom has the word mail in it - the American version has the word mail in it, to be more accurate. What's "mail"? It's a verb that we use when we want the post-office to deliver our letter to someone, for example. You have to mail your letter - so you drop it into one of those mailboxes... If I remember correctly I think they're blue in the United States. And then a postal worker will come by some time later and open the mailbox and collect all that mail. You know, all the letters, cards, maybe small packages - all that stuff people need mailed to someone else. So "mail" is also a noun - it means correspondence.

Now, I find this expression kind of funny, and the reason is... Well, let me give you an example that will make it clearer. So... I was listening to this podcast that is hosted by three people. They have been doing the podcast together for a while. One of them was telling about how he had a few friends over on the weekend and they were eating potatoes and something funny happened and blah blah blah... And then one of the other hosts said "Well, I'm sure my invite got lost in the mail!"

She said it as a joke - what does that mean, though? Well, it means that she wasn't invited to that little gathering on the weekend, so she's being sarcastic and saying that she is sure that she actually was invited but the problem was, her invite got lost in the mail. Something happened to her invite. Maybe the postal worker lost it or mishandled it somehow, so she never got the invite and THAT is the reason why she wasn't aware of her friend's little party.  So that's why the woman said "I'm sure my invite got lost in the mail." Obviously, she's joking and it's ok to say that to a close friend, for example.

Sometimes people say that because they are actually upset that they were not invited to something. That's the case of the English man on the TV show I watched this week. His friends told him they were going on a ski trip, and the guy said "Well, I'm sure my invitation got lost in the post." In the United Kingdom it's very common to say post instead of mail. Also, invite is kind of an abbreviation for invitation... So invite or invitation, it doesn't matter.

I think it's usually kind of funny when someone says "Well, I'm sure my invite got lost in the mail" to a friend, because they're actually teasing the friend, right? Do we have an expression for that in Brazil? Maybe "Valeu por me chamar" or something like it?

Can you remember feeling left out of a party and thinking "I'm sure my invite got lost in the mail"? Let me know and talk to you next time.

 

Keywords

* I'm sure my invite got lost in the mail / post

 

Glossary

gathering = reunião de pessoas (geralmente por motivo social)
...

How's it going? Hoje falo sobre aquela famosa expressão - tanto em inglês quanto em português... o benefício da dúvida. Alguém já falou isso para você? Ouça o episódio de hoje para se familiarizar com este idiom.
Transcrição
Hi, guys, how's it going? This is Ana with the Inglês Online podcast.

I wanted to thank everyone who left a review for the podcast recently, thank you so much... and wanted to ask you guys: if you've been listener for a while, if you enjoy the podcast please head over to iTunes or the Apple store or the Podcasts app on your iPhone and leave a review for the podcast. And if you use Google podcasts please do the same. It really helps the podcast become... you know, better known and more people will get to listen to it, because they'll see the reviews and be interested. If you leave a nice review, that is!

Let's just get to it and start the new episode. Today I wanted to talk about this expression or idiom, or whatever you want to call it, which is the benefit of the doubt. We use the same expression in Portuguese with the same words and here at Inglês Online we published an article, an English tip featuring this expression a while ago... But I thought this expression is popular enough... It's common enough that it deserves a podcast episode, so here it is.

The benefit of the doubt. When do you give someone the benefit of the doubt? It's usually... it's usually when you don't know them very well, I would say. Because if you know someone very well... you know if they're telling the truth or not. Generally you know if someone is telling the truth or not when you know them very well. So if you don't know someone very well, if your relationship with this person is not very close - it's not a very close relationship, then something happens and you give them the benefit of the doubt. So, what kind of thing?

Let's say you're talking to your friend... your good friend, your good friend Jack. You guys have been friends for a while and Jack's mate, whom you don't know very well... Paul. Paul is there as well, Paul is listening to the conversation and you don't know Paul very well. So you and Jack get to talking and you end up sharing with Jack that you're planning a birthday party for your cousin, let's say. The next day, your cousin Kelly gives you a ring and says: "Hey, I heard you're planning my birthday party. That's so cool". And you know, there goes the surprise... There's no surprise anymore.

She heard the news that you're planning her surprise party. And you ask her "Who told you?", and she says: "Ah... I'm not going to tell you, because I don't want you to be mad at the person who told me. It's okay, don't worry". But you know what, you are a bit mad, because when you were talking the only person you told about this was Jack and inadvertently you also told Paul, because you forgot that Paul was right there, you were talking to your friend Jack and you told Jack that you were planning Kelly's surprise party.

But you know that Paul heard you. So now you're thinking... it has to be Paul! Because, I mean, Jack is my buddy, Jack has been my friend for years, he would never do that, he knows to keep a secret, he knows it's my secret, he would never go and tell Kelly. It has to have been Paul.

You talk to Jack, and Jack says: "Hey, no, it can't be Paul, he's such a good keeper of secrets, he would never do that and also he doesn't know your cousin". And you say: "Ok, well... I'll give him the benefit of the doubt". Meaning you're not sure that it wasn't him, but you're also not sure that it was him. Since you don't know this person very well, OK... "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt". You're still going to talk to Paul, maybe you'll become friends... You know, you're not sure one way or another. You're giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Now, this is an expression that if you say to a friend of...

What’s up? No podcast de hoje, falo sobre reservar um voo. Enjoy :-)
Transcrição
Hi, everyone, how's it going? Is it boiling in Brazil yet? Here in my neck of the woods it's getting colder and wetter every day. Sorry, I didn't mean to brag...

Anyway, I thought that having a look at one of these booking websites where you can search and find your flight would be a good idea. There's some interesting vocabulary involved - let's dive right into it.

The website I'm looking at has kind of a funny name: Momondo. I'm looking at it right now and... What does it look like? At the top you have sort of search form where you enter the airport you're departing from. And then you enter the other airport where your flight is supposed to arrive. You enter first the three-letter code for the departure airport - let's say you're departing from... if it's an international flight, maybe you're departing from Guarulhos, which is GRU.

Or if you want to go somewhere, I don't know, in Brazil and you're departing from São Paulo, you're going to enter CGH which is the three-letter code for Congonhas, then you enter the dates. The date (when) you're going to depart, and then if it's a round trip you're going to enter your return date as well... Or maybe you're just looking at a one-way ticket and then you only enter one date, which is the departure date.

Then you hit Search and when you look at the results you, obviously see a list of flights. Several options from several different airlines, and you'll be able to see the dates - usually it will be the dates that you entered. You'll be able to see, for each flight, how many stops, how long each stop takes... The time of the flight, and then you have some options: either you'll see a few direct flights, which are usually more expensive, and you will see some flights with one, or two, or sometimes even three stops.

There are some flights that - with all the stops - take, sometimes, over 24 hours. If you want to save some money maybe that's the flight you choose. And then, when I scroll down on the search results, I see multiple different airlines. I see some traditional ones like TAP, which is a Portuguese one, KLM, which is a Dutch one, British Airways... And then on the left side of the search results there's the sidebar with additional options.

Right on the top you have... almost at the top, you have the option of, I guess, narrowing down your search by number of cabin bags, or checked bags that you want to take, and also the payment method. What is a cabin bag? That's... that's also known as a carry-on bag. That's sort of, that smaller bag - when you board the plane you take it with you, and you sort of put it in the overhead compartment above your seat. Or, if that is full, you kind of tuck it away under the seat in front of you. Usually the flight attendants will help you with that. That's the cabin bag or carry-on bag.

And then you also usually have a checked bag, depending on... if it's a budget flight, sometimes you have to pay quite a bit of money to be able to take a checked bag with you, and for other flights, longer flights... It's included in the price. You can take a checked bag with you, which is actually that larger bag. It's that large suitcase where you put all your clothes. If you're traveling for a month, you'll probably need a large suitcase. You stuff all your clothes in there, and your toiletries, and your shoes and whatever else you want to take with you.

That's the larger bag and obviously you can't board the plane with that bag. You have to get to the airport with some time in advance and check that bag. And then scrolling down a bit further, I find that there are some options for "flight quality": you can choose "show Wi-Fi flights only", "show flights with multiple tickets for booking", "show red-eyes".

This is an interesting expression.