Podcast Inglês Online

Hello, everyone.

Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre um idiom muito comum com a palavra cover – não perca!

Hello, everyone. 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 listen to this: when people do something wrong, sometimes they remember to cover their tracks. Many times they don’t! In those cases, it’s easy to figure out what that person did. For example: let’s say your work colleague Richard one day decides to steal from your company. Steal… office supplies. Yeah, pencils and notepads. He opens the supplies cupboard and takes, like, fifty pencils and about twenty notepads. However, Richard does all that while he’s eating cherry ice cream. Yes, cherry ice cream. That’s bright red.

So what happens? When Mary, the admin, opens the cupboard a few hours later she notices it’s been raided. As she wonders who stole all those office supplies, she sees some cherry ice cream on the floor. She immediately remembers that Richard loves cherry ice cream. In fact, he’s the only person in the entire office who likes that particular flavour of ice cream. She finds it very strange that Richard would have come to the office supplies cupboard to get stuff without speaking to her first. Why?

Well, because Mary is in charge of office supplies. So when someone in the office needs a new pen, or an eraser, or a notepad, they usually tell her what they need, and then Mary herself goes to the cupboard and brings the supply to that person. That way she always knows what’s in stock and what’s not. So right now she’s looking at the notepads and the pens, and she can see they’re running low. She’s suspicious. She looks at all that cherry ice cream on the floor – she’s actually a bit mad ’cause she stepped on it – and she knows it was Richard!

Richard stole office supplies but he didn’t cover his tracks, he just didn’t. Maybe he forgot. If Richard had remembered to cover his tracks, he could have looked around and searched for evidence that he’d been in the supplies cupboard. Maybe then he would have spotted the cherry ice cream on the floor, and cleaned it up. That way Mary wouldn’t be able to immediately figure out that it was him who stole all the supplies.

There’s more, though. As you may remember, Richard stole fifty pencils and about twenty notepads. That’s a lot of supplies, and he hid them all under his desk. Well, when Mary came back from the supplies closet she headed straight over to Richard’s desk. He wasn’t there, but Mary took a peek under his desk and she obviously saw the stolen pencils and notepads. I think it is clear that Richard definitely didn’t cover his tracks!

Not only did he leave cherry ice cream on the floor near the cupboard, but he also did a poor job of hiding what he stole. In order to cover your tracks, you would have to to hide or destroy anything that shows where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing – in other words, the incriminating evidence!

So, yeah, Richard did a poor job of covering his tracks, and he got caught. His manager called him into his office for a little chat… and Richard got suspended for a month and had to go through some HR training.

Can you think of a similar story where someone covered their tracks… or maybe they didn’t, and got caught? Let me know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

cupboard = armário

admin = administrative assistant

raided = atacado de surpresa (aqui, num sentido mais figurado – não é um ataque de verdade)

How’s it going?

Hoje eu falo sobre duas expressões super comuns com phase e faze.

How’s it going? You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!

Our idiom today is really simple. We say something very similar in Brazil. “Ele tá passando por uma fase”. He’s going through a phase. Example: you bump into your friend Sally in the mall and she says “Have you seen Martin lately? I saw him last night at the pub and he looked like death. What is going on?”

And you say “Oh, don’t worry about Martin. He’s just going through a phase of rethinking his whole life, apparently and he’s let himself go a little bit. He was fired from his job but, like I said, don’t worry – he’s fine. He really didn’t like his job anyway. So now he’s thinking about what he’s going to do. It’s just a phase.”

So your friend Martin is just going through a phase, or so you hope! He’ll probably be back on his feet in a couple of months or so. And if he isn’t, you’re ready to be there for him, be a good friend, listen to him, have a chat and even tell him he needs to get his act together if it comes to that.

Some people go through a phase of being into gardening, or cooking, or listening to punk rock. I remember when my friend went through a phase of going jogging every day. It was just a phase, and it lasted about three months. Turns out she didn’t really like jogging. What about you? Tell me about your phases.

Now the other word we have for today sounds the same, but the spelling is completely different. When we say “go through a phase”, phase is spelled p-h-a-s-e. The “faze” I’m talking about now, however, is spelled f-a-z-e. Faze. So let me give you an example of how to use faze with a Z.

My friend Jane and I went to a bar last week and they asked us to show some ID at the entrance. Jane was upset, mad even, but it didn’t faze me. I didn’t care, it didn’t bother me. It didn’t faze me. Then the next day Jane and I went to this burger place where they make our favourite burger. We were really looking forward to it. Well, we get there and the guy behind the counter tells us they’re “out of burgers tonight”. Everything else on the menu – feel free to order. Not burgers, though. Not tonight. I was really disappointed. I was so disappointed I almost cried, seriously. Not Jane though. It didn’t faze her, and she likes that burger even more than I do. But it really didn’t faze her.

This is a very good word because it’s something that happens all the time, isn’t it? Different people are subjected to the same situation and react very differently. You and your friend go through something; you have a strong reaction but your friend isn’t fazed. Certain things really bother your brother or your sister but when the same thing happens to you, you’re not fazed.

I’m curious to know about the things that faze or don’t faze you – let me know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

he looked like death = estava com uma cara péssima, acabado

let yourself go = parar de cuidar de si mesmo, ficar com aparência ruim

be there for someone = estar disponível para dar apoio a alguém

What’s up?

Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms super comuns com a palavra clean.

What’s up? You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!

We have a couple of idioms today with the word clean. Yep. I bet you all know what clean means – both the verb and the adjective. There’s always more to learn when it comes to English though… and that’s because the sheer number of idiomatic expressions in this language is just unbelievable.

So our first idiom of today is come clean. People sometimes come clean with someone about something. That means they have admitted something to that person. Obviously we’re talking here about something unpleasant or difficult, right?

Let’s say this guy called Peter came clean with his dad about how his car got damaged. It wasn’t someone else’s fault, like Peter originally claimed; it was Peter’s fault and he came clean about it with his dad. Last week, Peter came clean with his friend Tina about his true intentions when they became friends: he actually has feelings for her, and Tina had no idea. So Peter admitted, or came clean, about his feelings for Tina.

Ideally politicians would come clean about all their misdeeds, all at once, like right now – wouldn’t that be perfect? Obviously many people never come clean about lots of things they’ve done, or how they feel, and so on. Some people do, however – can you remember the last time it happened to you? Or maybe you were the person who came clean about something. I’d like to hear your story – please leave a comment.

Our second idiom with clean today is about getting your act together. It’s about improving your behaviour in some way; it’s about changing the way you do things and perhaps behaving in a way that is more acceptable, constructive, or nice – you get the idea. I’m talking about the idiom clean up your act. Let’s say your friend Karen was fired for being a lazy and dishonest employee. You could tell her “Karen, you brought this on yourself. You know you should not have lied to your boss and you should have done your job. It’s up to you now to clean up your act and start behaving like a mature, reliable person.”

Or let’s say you stayed in a hotel for a few days and found that your room was a bit dirty, the flush valve in the bathroom didn’t work, the service was sloppy and the food was bad. So now you’re back in your home and you go to the Trip Advisor website to leave a review – you feel it’s your duty to warn others before they make the same mistake and spend money on a horrible stay. You go ahead and write “Hotel ABC needs to clean up their act. Sloppy service, room hadn’t been cleaned, couldn’t flush for a whole day.”

You could say that someone who used to drink excessively, for example, and got into a bit of trouble every now and then because of their excessive drinking, has now cleaned up their act. That means this person doesn’t drink excessively anymore.

That’s it for today! Tell me about how you cleaned up your act about something, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

sheer = palavra usada para dar ênfase, como em português às vezes se usa “puro” ou “simples”

he has feelings for her = ele gosta dela (no sentido romântico)

brought this on yourself = você foi a causa dessa coisa indesejável que aconteceu com você

service was sloppy = serviço foi com má vontade, descuidado

How have you been?

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

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

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

Hi, there.

Hoje eu falo sobre idioms super comuns com a palavra question. Enjoy!

Hi there. 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 let’s say you’re planning your holidays – you’re looking forward to them. You’ve been browsing the Internet, looking for nice destinations but it turns out you’re going to your favourite beach town as always. You can’t wait! You’re so excited about the holidays that you can’t help but ask Sally, your boss, where she’s headed for her holidays this year.

Sally looks at you and says “Holidays? Holidays are out of the question for me this year. With one manager in hospital and the new manager I’m responsible for training, I can’t even think of taking time off before January.” Wow. You feel bad for Sally, obviously, but like she said – holidays are completely out of the question for her at this moment.

So notice how we say this in English – out of the question. Slightly different from what we say in Portuguese, right? A few more examples: I don’t like sushi. That’s true, by the way. Having a sushi dinner for me would be out of the question. I’m not a fan of horror movies. In fact, I never watch them. So getting me to go with you to the cinema to watch a violent horror movie – it’s out of the question! Don’t even try. Don’t waste your time.

Alright – so let’s move on to our second idiom of today: there’s no question. There’s no question for me that soda drinks do not quench my thirst. On a hot day I need water, no question about it. Notice that in Brazil we use the word “dúvida” for the same kind of expression, right? So there’s no question you can’t always translate Brazilian or Portuguese expressions literally into English, and vice-versa. Many times I see writers translating English expressions literally into Portuguese – which frankly just makes their text harder to comprehend. There’s no question our mother-tongue is rich and varied enough that we can find whatever words we need to put our point across.

So that one is really easy – there’s no question. Now here’s an interesting term with the word question before we wrap things up: a loaded question. A loaded question is a question that requires… a loaded answer. How so? Well, imagine you run into your friend Jane, who’s just separated from her husband of fifteen years. You ask her if she’s alright and then your second question is “Do you miss your ex-husband?” Jane immediately says “Oh, that’s a loaded question.” The reason she says that is, she still feels vulnerable, she’s confused, she’s a bit depressed but, on the other hand, relieved that she can now move on… It is a bit difficult for her to express how she feels because so many emotions are involved. That is why this is a loaded question.

You can also say a question is loaded when it’s not necessarily about personal emotions, but still about a difficult or complicated topic and demands a difficult or complicated answer. Maybe you just bumped into your friend Tom who owns a company, and he tells you the company has been in the red for the past six months. So you ask him “Are going to let some people go?” Tom says “That’s a loaded question. I’ve been struggling about what to do and have not made a decision yet.” So you can tell that is a difficult subject for Tom – as we would expect. He’s probably been thinking a lot about it and, because it’s not easy, hasn’t decided what to do at this point. And that’s why he said “That’s a loaded question.”

So that’s all for today. Let me know what things are out of the question as far as you’re concerned, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

I didn’t get the reference = não entendi a referência

quench my thirst = mata(m) a minha sede

in the red = no vermelho

put a point across = comunicar uma ideia

let people go = (neste contexto) mandar pessoas embora, dispensar

Hey, everybody.

Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms super comuns com a palavra fish… Incluindo como dizer a frase do título deste pod. Enjoy!

Hey, everybody. 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 that it’s a stressful day at the office. A stressful Friday, to be specific. You’ve got a million things to do and your phone seems to be ringing off the hook. You’re getting ready to enter an important meeting when your work colleague approaches you and says “Hey buddy, have you heard about the new curtains in the meeting room? They’re thinking about a purple pattern for the curtains but I’d really rather have a floral design. Can you swing by later today and take a look at the catalogue, see which ones you like? I think you’ll agree with me – floral is the way to go.”

So you look at your colleague and say “Sounds important. However I do have four different meetings to attend this afternoon before 5pm, so I think you’ll understand when I tell you that, as much as I would like to help you choose the best colour for the new curtains, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

That’s right. You have bigger fish to fry today. That’s a different way of saying… I’ve got more important things to do than the one you’re asking me to do. I can’t take time to do this thing you’ve just spoken about – I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Four meetings before 5 PM.

Then you pick up the phone in your office and it’s your admin. She says “Tony from the warehouse is calling about your visit next week.” You know who Tony is and, in a different situation, you’d take the call. Not today, though. You’ve got bigger fish to fry and that’s what you tell your admin: “Listen, I’ve got other fish to fry now. Please take a message and tell Tony I’ll speak to him soon.” Sometimes you need to make a choice, right? When you don’t have time or resources to do everything that comes your way, you’ve got to prioritise. Sometimes you just have to say “I have bigger fish to fry” and move along with something that is more important to you.

OK – on to our second idiom of today. Imagine something that is ridiculously easy to accomplish. Maybe you’re very skilled at cooking wonderful food. You’ve been doing it for years, to the point.. your friends ask you to cook for them when they have a special occasion. You’re a wonderful cook. Some would say you’re a proper chef. So when someone asks you if you’re capable of making a nice lasagna, your friend Larry says “Lasagna? That’s like shooting fish in a barrel for him (or her)”.

That’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Obviously if you have fish trapped in a barrel… it would be easier to shoot them than if they were swimming freely in the sea or in a river. So, that’s basically it. For you, making a great lasagna is like shooting fish in a barrel. So easy.

Let’s say you arrive in São Paulo and it’s your first time in the city. Ever. You have to visit several different offices in different parts of the city. It’s a bit daunting. You know São Paulo is a huge city and it’s easy to get lost. However your friend Maria comes to the rescue and you immediately feel better. Maria has lived in São Paulo for decades and knows her way around the city like the back of her hand. She’s volunteered to drive you wherever you need to go. She’s even better at this than a cab driver. For Maria, getting to any address in São Paulo is like shooting fish in a barrel. She’s basically a human GPS.

So tell me – where could you apply that expression in your life? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

ringing off the hook = (telefone) tocando sem parar

admin = administrative assistant

daunting = assustador (no sentido de intimidating)

like the back of her hand = como a palma da mão (veja que não é uma tradução exata)

Hi, everyone.

Hoje eu falo sobre alguns idioms que raramente são usados em inglês – brincadeira! Como sempre, expressões super comuns e que estão na boca dos falantes nativos, hoje com a palavra trick.

Hi, everyone. 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 today let me tell you about a term that we use when we want to say that someone used a bit of deception in order to make another person do something. Attention! Deception does not mean “decepção”. Deception happens when you deceive someone; when you lie to them, or exaggerate, or omit information, so that they will act in a way that gives you the result you want. That’s deception.

So here’s our first idiom: trick someone into doing something. It’s basically what I just said, but here it goes again: when you trick someone into doing something, you’re fooling or deceiving this person. Maybe you’re telling them a lie. Maybe you’re only implying something… that is not true. You might be holding some information back from this person, because you know that if you tell them, they’re not going to do what you want. Or maybe… you’re manipulating them in some way, leading them on to behave in a certain way.

Whatever you’re doing, when you trick someone into doing something you’re not being a hundred percent honest with that person about what you know, or your motives. For example: let’s say my [quote, unquote] “friend” John tells me one day “Hey, Ana, I’m selling raffle tickets to help with a really worthy cause. It’s an amazing cause. Would you be interested in a ticket?” And I say “Oh yeah, sure. I’m feeling generous so give me five tickets!”

Later that day my friend Mary gives me a ring and tells me how John doesn’t actually represent any causes. He said he was going to help the poor with the proceeds from the tickets, but actually he’s raising money for himself so he can buy a new car! So there you have it: John tricked me into buying raffle tickets, and now he’s nowhere to be found. He ran away with the money. First, he tricked me  – and a few other people – into buying his tickets, and then he ran away.

By the way, tricking someone into doing something is different from talking someone into doing something. Check out that episode to learn more.

And here’s one more idiom with the word trick. Very simple, very common, just use it whenever you find something that does exactly what you need. That does the trick. It does pretty much what is needed. This morning I needed to put some old clothes in boxes because someone was coming over later to collect the boxes and give them away to people in poor communities. I thought I’d need to go to the shop and get a couple of boxes, but then all of a sudden I stumbled upon the old box my stove came in, in the garage. That did the trick. Problem solved. The stove box did the trick.

The last week someone told me about a new hair product and I went over to my local drugstore to buy it but they were out. Instead, I bought a similar product and then when I came back home I tested it on my hair. It did the trick! Yeah, it wasn’t the product I had originally been recommended, but it did the trick anyway. It worked. It did what I needed it to do.

Alright – so now please go ahead and tell me what it is that you’ve bought recently that did the trick – it did exactly what you needed. Talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

quote, unquote = maneira como as aspas são lidas em inglês: “friend” lê-se ‘quote, unquote friend’.

raffle = sorteio

a worthy cause = uma causa (de caridade) muito boa, de valor

How’s it going?

Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms com a palavra flag, incluindo “fazer sinal para o táxi/ônibus parar”.

How’s it going? 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 I’m wondering how you get to work or school every day. Do you drive, or do you take public transport? In case you take the bus, you know very well that if you’re the only person standing at the bus stop, when you see your bus you have to raise your arm as a kind of signal to the driver that you want him to stop.

What you’re doing is, you’re hailing down a bus. To hail down something or someone means exactly that: to signal or wave at someone to let them know they should stop. We do the same thing for a taxi, right? If I’m out in the street and need a cab to go somewhere, when I see one approaching I’ll just raise my arm, maybe wave, and if the taxi is free the driver will stop and pick me up.

Have you ever missed a bus because, although you were standing at the bus stop, you forgot to hail it down? It’s happened to me. Actually, I’m not sure whether I was distracted or forgot to wave, or I just thought someone else was going to hail it down. Nobody did, and the bus just went right on past all of us. But that’s pretty rare – that actually happened out here in London. In São Paulo it was usually the opposite: I don’t think I ever had to worry about hailing down a bus because there were always so many people at the bus stop who were waiting for the same bus I was… So lots of hands went up as the buses approached.

Here’s a tweet I read the other day:

https://twitter.com/iamlaurenhutton/status/849545339552112643

The woman who tweeted this is a former cast member on a reality show that I used to watch. Also, I didn’t get the “magneto” reference… I only watched the first X-man movie so, if you know what she’s talking about please let me know!

We can also say flag down – it’s the same thing as hail down. Sometimes you’re driving a car and the police will flag you down, won’t they? A police officer will sort of wave at you and you know you should immediately pull over. So police officers sometimes flag down cars.

And here’s another idiom with flag that you will hear a lot: red flag. I hear that one all the time. A red flag is a sign to you, or to someone else, that something is not right. Maybe you’re interviewing someone to be your new assistant – let’s say it’s a guy called Richard. So Richard says “I’ve had three jobs so far, and all my bosses were awful people. They were really horrible.”

OK. So you hear Richard say that the last three bosses he had were awful people – really? That raises a red flag. That’s a huge red flag to you. You keep going with the interview, but by now you’ve already made up your mind: either this guy has a problem with authority figures or he doesn’t think twice about badmouthing other people. Either way, it’s a no-go. Richard saying that all his previous bosses were awful people was a big red flag to you.

Or let’s say you’re a girl and you’ve been dating a guy for a few months now but he still doesn’t want you anywhere near his place. He’s fine with coming round to yours, but whenever you suggest going round to his, he’ll give you an excuse. That’s a red flag to you. Something smells fishy… Maybe he’s married? You end up breaking up with him because you can’t ignore a red flag like that.

OK, that’s it for today! Tell me about your red flags in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

I didn’t get the reference = não entendi a referência

badmouth someone = falar mal de alguém

either way = de qualquer uma das duas maneiras que você acabou de mencionar

a no-go = uma situação que você não quer, que não vai acontecer, você não vai aprovar, etc

Hi, all.

Hoje eu falo sobre estimativas (dois idioms super comuns! Não perca!)

Hi, all. 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 let’s talk a little bit about the word estimate. That’s e-s-t-i-m-a-t-e. Take notice of the pronunciation: estimate. An estimate is an approximate calculation; you could say it’s an educated guess most of the time. Most of the time, not all of the time… sometimes people make an estimate and it’s just a wild guess.

Everyone has had to make estimates in their lives. When you’re about to go on a journey to your weekend destination, you make an estimate of how long the journey is going to take based on the weather, traffic reports, the distance to be traveled and so on.

Here are two very common ways in which the word estimate is used: the first one is combined with the word rough. If someone tells you they have a rough estimate of something, they are forewarning you that this estimate is really just an approximation and a better estimate could be made using additional information.

Usually you make a rough estimate when someone wants an answer or a number in that moment, and you don’t have all the information needed for that calculation on hand. So you just use whatever you know and… or remember in that moment, and tell them “Well, my rough estimate is XYZ. That’s a rough number, a rough estimate. Later today when I’m around my computer I’ll be able to make a better guess.”

Here’s another one: a ballpark estimate. A ballpark is a stadium where games are played that involve a ball. Ballpark estimate is a slang expression; it’s another way of saying, you know, “it’s an approximate number” or even “it’s a rough estimate.”    

Here’s an example: you take your car to the mechanic because it’s been making a strange noise. The mechanic tells you he’s going to look into it this afternoon. You ask him “How much is this going to be?” and he says “There’s no way I can tell you right now” and you insist: “Please give me a ballpark estimate”, and he says “In the 400, 500 range.”

That’s a ballpark estimate. Another example: your best friend says she’s throwing a party in the next few months and it is obviously very important that you be there, because it will be a party in your honour. But… you’re planning your annual vacation, and you’re about to start booking hotels for next month – so you absolutely need to have at least a ballpark estimate of the date to make sure that you’re not going to be away on that date.

You ask your friend and she says she doesn’t know yet. That’s her answer, “I don’t know.” So you go ahead and explain to her that you’re looking into hotels for the next few weeks, and say “If you can’t give me an exact date, give me a ballpark estimate.” Give me a date that is in the ballpark. Give me something, so I at least have some idea!

Now, listen to the verb we can use when we make an estimate – the verb is estimate. You make an estimate, and you estimate something. Can you estimate how many people work on the same floor with you? Can you estimate how many times you have brushed your teeth since the day you were born? Can you estimate how many hairs you have on your head? Just a ballpark estimate, c’mon :-)

Let me know in the comments what you’ve come up with, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

educated guess = um palpite feito com base em algum conhecimento e dados (e que provavelmente está correto)

… a não ser que você já os conheça, claro. What’s up?

Hoje eu falo sobre vários nomes de lugares aqui no Reino Unido, em especial na Inglaterra, cuja pronúncia eu só aprendi depois de ouvir a versão certa algumas vezes – estes nomes são muito counter-intuitive pra gente!

What’s up? 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 today I thought I’d give you a taste of some of the names I’ve encountered since I moved to London. Not people names, but places. Until I got to hear other people say them, I mispronounced quite a few of them. Some places in the UK have names that are not that intuitive to pronounce – well, not for us Brazilians, anyway. The US has got them as well, but I find that they’re a lot more common out here.

For this podcast in particular it would really be helpful if you followed the transcript as I say the name of each place. So let’s start with some neighbourhoods in London. Take Balham and Clapham, for example; two areas below the river. I think what I find a bit unusual is the H after the letters L and P and how the H is completely silent. It’s like it’s not even there. Balham and Clapham.

Now I was very surprised first time I heard someone say Southwark, Southwark which is the name of a huge area of London. I did not expect it and I hope you’re reading these words as well so you can be surprised as well! Southwark. What about the W in there? It just… disappeared.

How about this town in West London called Ruislip? That’s right, Ruislip. I can tell you that that is not the first pronunciation that came to mind when I first saw that word. And here’s one I learned very early on, because it’s a famous market in London and it’s in people’s mouths a lot: Borough market. Not “borou”, no, but Borough. Borough market.

So when I learned that one and then I saw “borough” affixed to the names of other places, I thought “Oh, OK, I know how to say that!” Only, I was wrong. Check these ones out: Loughborough and Peterborough. There are many more like these but I’m just giving you a couple of examples. Loughborough Junction is a neighbourhood in south London and Peterborough is a town in eastern England.

Now, this one – people who move to London get up to speed on this one pretty quickly, because it’s the name of an extremely well known touristic spot in central London, Leicester Square. I’ve heard it mispronounced in all kinds of ways: leicéster, laicester. Hey, I even did it myself years ago. Nope, it’s Leicester. Leicester is a city in the English Midlands, which is the central part of England. It’s a major city in the county of Leicestershire. Yep, Leicestershire. And Worcestershire.. I had to throw that one in.

Now, here’s the name of a place many Brazilians are reasonably familiar with: Windsor, where the Windsor castle is. Not “windssor”, but Windsor. We have a similar “z” sound in Swansea, a coastal town in Wales.

Now look what happens to “mouth” when it’s attached to the end of a name: Portsmouth. We also have Plymouth. Both are port cities in the south of England, which means they’re by the sea. I’ll finish today’s episode with one of the best examples of non-intuitive pronunciation: Newquay. Make sure you check the spelling of all these places by reading the transcript, but especially this one: Newquay. That’s another coastal town in the south of England.

So I want to know: which one surprised you the most? I think for me, it was Newquay. Please let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Vocabulary

get up to speed on (something) = se atualizar, ficar sabendo sobre (alguma coisa)