Como falo em inglês: Já era hora!

How have you been?

Hoje eu falo sobre um idiom comuníssimo e pouco usado por nós, brasileiros que aprendem inglês. Enjoy :-)

Transcrição

How have you been? You're listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!

So imagine you have a favourite restaurant in your neighbourhood. You've been going to this restaurant for years. You like the food, you know the staff, it's reasonably priced, it's almost perfect. Not just for you, but all your neighbours go often as well. It's just a great place. There's only one downside: they don't take credit cards as a payment method.

That's right. You have to pay in cash. Not that you spend a fortune every time you go, it's not that. It's just that it would be easier if you didn't have to worry about having enough cash in your wallet every time you go there. You know what I mean? It's always the same thing: you gotta check your wallet and, two times out of three, make a stop at the ATM machine before you head to the restaurant.

So today is Sunday and you decide to stop by your favourite neighbourhood place and have a nice meal. The owner is happy to see you and proceeds to take you to your favourite table. He then says "Guess what? We now take credit cards!" Yep, that's right. You can hardly believe it. After so many years, finally! You say "Wow, that is awesome. It's about time you guys accepted credit cards!" It's about time.

It's about time your restaurant accepted credit cards. Notice the verb tense: accepted. It's about time the restaurant accepted credit cards. Everyone else does! This is a great restaurant, customers love it, people come in often for a good meal and nowadays many of us rely on cards to pay safely and easily. People have been looking forward to the day they'd be able to simply whip out their card and make a payment. So it's about time you accepted cards.

City workers put some speed bumps on the road near where I live, and my thought was "It's about time they did that!" There are kids crossing that road every day and speed bumps help make it safer, so it's about time the city put a few of those on that road." Notice that "put" is the past tense of put.

You know when you're watching a movie and the villain seems to be able to get away with everything? It's like the good guys are the last ones to know. So when something happens that finally puts an end to the villain's misdoings, you think "It's about time. It's about time something bad happened to the villain of the story." Again, notice that I used "happened", past form of happen.

Or maybe it's been hot and dry where you live for a couple of months and then, all of a sudden, one day it starts to rain. You think "It's about time we had some rain".

How would you use "about time" in your own life? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

* about time

Vocabulary

ATM machine = caixa eletrônico (ATM = automated teller machine)

two times out of three = de cada três vezes, duas vezes

whip out (something) = sacar (um cartão, uma caneta do bolso, etc - informal)

speed bump = lombada

misdoing = coisa errada, crime