Hi, everyone.  What’s up?

Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online falamos sobre duas maneiras muito comuns de usar a palavra such em inglês.

Transcrição

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

Remember last week when our podcast talked about how to use the word ‘such’? That’s the most common way to use it I know. There are others, and there are also a few terms with ‘such’ that you’ll hear a lot when you talk to people or watch movies and sitcoms in English.

So for today’s podcast I picked a couple of very popular terms. I’m going to introduce the first one with an example. Just listen to this: We went to the supermarket yesterday looking for cheap food. Really healthy food, such as veggies and fruit, was expensive. Since we were on a tight budget, we ended up buying stuff that is more like junk food, such as cookies, instant pasta and burgers. Large chains such as Walmart and Carrefour usually carry a broad range of frozen meals as well, such as feijoada, strogonoff and pasta dishes.

Did you notice that I used “such as” in order to exemplify the kinds of things I was talking about? I could have said that whole thing without the examples. Listen: We went to the supermarket yesterday looking for cheap food. Really healthy food was expensive. Since we were on a tight budget, we ended up buying stuff that’s more like junk food. Large chains usually carry a broad range of frozen meals as well. So the first time I read the paragraph, I used ‘such as’ to introduce examples.

So from now on when you listen to English try to notice how people use ‘such as’. And by the way, the word ‘like’, as you may know, is also used to exemplify stuff. Some people, even some grammarians, consider ‘like’ and ‘such as’ interchangeable. Others disagree. In any case, a good thing to do is be alert while you’re listening to English materials such as podcasts and radio shows, in order to catch examples of how ‘such as’ is used. See what I did there? ;)

OK. And here’s a common saying in English: There’s no such thing as free lunch. Have you ever heard that one? This is so common, especially in business settings, that I think it’s already becoming incorporated into our Brazilian conversations. I’ve seen it used on newspaper articles once or twice. But what does it mean? There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The literal meaning would be –  it’s not really free. They may pay for the lunch, but they’re doing this because they’re expecting something from you. It’s like when sales people take clients out for lunch, dinner, drinks and so on. Of course they may like their clients and enjoy their company, but sales people are actually trained to pamper their clients. They hope their clients will like them better after a few free lunches and dinners, and, ultimately, buy more of their stuff.

So that’s actually where this saying probably originated. When a sales person offers a client a free lunch, is it really a gift? Not really… the sales person is expecting something in return. So it isn’t really a free lunch. Of course, nowadays this sentence is used for anything that looks free, but actually isn’t. For example, imagine that you’re browsing the Internet and you land on a website that’s offering an e-book collection for free! This e-book collection comprises twenty different novels written by your favorite author. Since the books are in the public domain, the website can offer them for free. They have managed to find some pretty rare books and you’re excited to get your favorite ...