Hey, everyone. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online falamos sobre expressões interessantes em inglês com a palavra WALK, e eu chamo sua atenção também para uma expressãozinha que comunica “no entanto”.

Transcrição

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

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

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

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

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

Can you think of any examples from your own life, or someone you know? Let us know in the comments. And here’s another expression with WALK: “all walks of life”. This is an interesting expression and you’ll hear it when people are describing events or any situation, really, where they saw people with very different backgrounds.  Not just in terms of professional experience, but diverse social, economic and even ethnic groups. For example, you could hear someone who attended a concert at a...