Hello, everyone!

O podcast de hoje é sobre uma expressão com TAKE. Ouça como dizer:

* Eu demorei quatro horas para ler esse livro

* Quanto tempo demorou para você (fazer alguma coisa)?

* Demore o quanto quiser, não tenha pressa

Transcrição

Hi, this is Ana Luiza of inglesonline.com.br and here’s another episode of the inglesonline podcast. To get a transcript of this episode, go to inglesonline.com.br and look up the post Como digo em inglês: demorou um tempo, published on January 12, 2010. You can use the search box to look up a post. Just type in the title, in the search box, and hit Enviar.

Today I’m going to talk about a couple of ways to use the word TAKE. So there are many many different ways to use take, there are several phrasal verbs, idiomatic expressions, slang expressions that use take, so here I’m going to focus first on this kind of situation… I’m going to give you an example: My sister moved to Italy a few years ago and she didn’t speak Italian when she first got there. She had to study Italian for about one year and a half before she was able to speak fluently.

So here’s how I’m going to say this: it took her 18 months (eighteen, that’s 1, 8) so it took her eighteen months to become fluent in Italian. It took her about one year and a half, right, eighteen months, one year and a half. It took her about one year and a half to really speak Italian fluently.

Here’s another example: some time ago I had a car and I used to drive everywhere. If I needed to go to the pharmacy just around the block, I would drive. If I had to go to the bank which was, like, two blocks away, I would drive. So one day I sold my car, and during the first couple of weeks after I sold my car, I had to get used to being a pedestrian again. You know, look both ways before crossing a street… Making sure I had everything I needed in my pocket before I left the house and so on. So I could say it took me a couple of weeks to get used to being a pedestrian again, or even it took me a while, this is a very common expression, it took me a while, it took me a while to get used to being a pedestrian again. So, whenever someone asks you, How long did it take you to do something? You can answer, Well, it took me a week, it took me three hours, it took me a year to do this. For example it took me four hours to read this book. That means that I read the entire book in four hours.

So what are your examples of how long it took you to do something? There’s no rush here, take your time. Take your time means, you can think about this question and come back tomorrow to post your answer, or you can come back next week, or next month… It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to answer this question. Take your time.

Talk to you soon.

 

Key expressions:

* It took me (a year to do something), It took her (18 months to speak Italian)

* It took me a while

* How long did it take you (to do something)?

* Take your time

 

Glossary

just around the block = ali na esquina, super perto

I had to get used to being = eu tive que me acostumar a ser

look both ways = olhar para os dois lados

making sure = ter/tendo certeza que

it took me a while = levou um tempo pra eu… Eu demorei um tempo para…

whenever = sempre que

there’s no rush = não tem pressa

 

Estou esperando as respostas de vocês! How long did it take you to do… something?