Hello, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu vou falar sobre expressões idiomáticas com a palavra face.

Transcrição

Hi, what’s up? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So how about we look into a few expressions today with the word FACE? Yep, “face”. Face means the same in Portuguese, at least the noun. Face is also a verb, though. It kinda means the same as our verb “encarar”, you know? So let’s get started with the term “long face”. It won’t really make sense if we translate it literally into Portuguese, but in English we can say that someone has a long face when they look sad. That’s pretty much it: you look at someone and you think that they look sad or upset… And you might ask “Why the long face?”

Of course, you wouldn’t say that to everyone but if it’s a friend or someone you’re kinda close with, you might ask “Why the long face?” Or you can say that you ran into this or that person, and they had a long face. So here’s my question for you – who’s the last person you’ve seen that had a long face? Probably today, or yesterday, or this week. Let us know in the comments.

And here’s another idiomatic expression that is quite popular, I guess: face the music. So what does that mean? Well, imagine you borrowed your dad’s car for a quick weekend trip. Let’s say your dad didn’t even want to lend you his car. And now imagine you got in a car crash with your dad’s car. Not a very pleasant event, of course… Let’s say that’s what’s happened, though, and now you have to face the music. That means, you have to face the unpleasant consequences of what’s happened. You’ll have to accept the criticism or even the punishment for what you’ve done, even if it wasn’t on purpose or even if it wasn’t entirely your fault.

Imagine your boss put you in charge of a very important business account, and you’ve screwed up. You’ve screwed up so bad that your company has lost the account. Guess what? You’ve got to face the music now. Your boss will probably lecture you, and you might even lose your job – who knows? You’ve screwed up, and now you’ve gotta face the music.

And I’d like to mention that it is also very common to say “face the consequences“. You do something, and you face the consequences. This expression, just like ‘face the music’, is used in a context of negative consequences. If you’ve worked hard for twenty years and the consequence is that you’re now a millionaire, we wouldn’t say to you “Well, you’ve gotta face the consequences” unless it was a joke.

That’s very easy to translate into Portuguese, right? “Encarar as consequências”. You spent your life savings in one day and now you’ve got to face the consequences. You lost your cool when arguing with your boss at work, and now you’ve got to face the consequences. You went out in the rain wearing your new night dress and now you have to face the consequences.

So, please, tell us your stories about having to face the music or facing the consequences of your actions. Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.

 

Key expressions

* long face

* face the music

* face the consequences

Glossary