Hi, everyone. How’s it going?

Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online a gente continua com o assunto amigos e amizade. E lá no fim, a nova aplicação da palavra “friend” em inglês.

Transcrição

Hello, everyone. How’s it going? 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 we’re gonna talk some more about vocabulary related to friends and friendship. Remember in the last episode when I said that you were friends with John? That means that John and you were friends. So in the last episode you were friends with John, and actually you and John became friends after Mary introduced you to each other. So Mary is a mutual friend.

Anyway, moving on… when a family moves into a new town, the kids start going to a new school and, what happens? They make new friends, right? They make new friends at the new school. So some people make friends very easily, some people take longer to make friends… Usually, though, when you arrive in a new place, a new city, for example, you make a few friends. You make friends with your neighbor, maybe, or maybe not. You make friends with classmates, and so on.

So, who are your childhood friends? Can you remember their names? Your childhood friends are, of course, people you were friends with when you were a child. They’re the people you befriended when you were all kids. To befriend someone means to become friends with this person. So where are your childhood friends now? Do you still keep in touch with some of them? Do you know where your childhood friends live?

Here’s an example: Jessica grew up in New York City. When she was still a kid, she became friends with two other kids from her neighborhood: Tina and Mike. The three of them were very close. They were close friends. But after they had all turned seventeen, they went their separate ways. Jessica went to college in Boston, Tina moved to Iowa and Mike went to Seattle to work for Microsoft. So now twenty years have passed. Are they still friends? Well, Jessica is still close friends with Tina, but she hasn’t heard from Mike in a long time.

Again: Jessica is still close friends with Tina. Here it goes again: Jessica is still friends with Tina. She is still close friends with Tina. Jessica and Tina are still close friends. That means that they still keep in touch, they still have a relationship, whereas Mike is still a childhood friend, but nowadays they don’t know where he is. So Jessica isn’t close friends with Mike any longer.

So here’s a little recap:

* if you and John are friends, you can say “I’m friends with John”

* if you and John are best friends, you can say “I’m best friends with John”

* if you and John are close friends, you can say “I’m close friends with John”

* if you became friends with some of your new classmates, you can say “I made friends with some classmates”

Guess who man’s best friend is. A dog, of course. That’s the same in English. We say that in Portuguese, and they say the same in English. Also, here’s the most recent application of the word “friend” that I know of: “friending” someone on Facebook. Yeah, “friend” has become a verb, which is something that can happen to almost any word in English, really. So “to friend someone” on a social network means you and this other person have become friends on that network. People usually say “Oh, I’ve friended such and such on Facebook”. “I have friended Mary Smith on Facebook”.

Your turn: let us know about your childhood friends. Are you still friends with them?