Hi, everybody. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre algumas expressões com SPEAK em inglês.

Transcrição

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

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

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

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

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

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

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