Podcast Inglês Online

Hey, all.  Hoje falo sobre os mais conhecidos tipos de exercícios físicos – abdominais, polichinelos e flexões de braço e perna, em inglês.

Hey, all. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So back when I lived in Brazil, I didn’t go to the gym at all. Sure, I signed up three or four times over the years but I never lasted longer than two months. I just didn’t like going to the gym. I’m not really sure what changed, but a couple of years ago, when I was already living in London, I thought it would be nice to start exercising regularly and maybe get a little stronger.

a lunge

So that’s how I became a gym-goer, and today I’m gonna talk about some very common kinds of exercises – I’m sure you will recognise all of them. In order to better understand which exercise I’m talking about, look at the corresponding picture as you listen.

First, there’s the lunge. In order to do a lunge, you step forward, say with your left leg, and then you bend both your knees at the same time. Then you bring your leg back to the initial position and repeat the sequence with the right leg forward, and so on. Keep in mind that this is just a general description of the exercise, OK? If you’ve never done it, seek additional instruction before you try it ;-) So that’s the lunge for you. By the way, I can’t remember what we call a lunge in Brazil – please let me know in case you do.

a press-up

Now here’s a very popular one: the press-up. Do you do press-ups? That’s when you get down on the ground, with your face down, and then you raise yourself, as though you were trying to push the floor away from you. There are a few different types of press-ups – and by the way, they’re also known as push-ups.

a jumping jack

And here’s one that… it’s probably the first exercise I ever learned: the jumping jack. To do a jumping jack, you start off standing up with your feet together and arms alongside your body and then, as you jump, you move your feet out and raise your arms at the same time. Then you bring your arms down and your feet back together, and repeat the sequence. Can you remember doing jumping jacks as a child, maybe in your P.E. classes?

doing a sit-up

And then we also have lots of exercises to work our abs – the abdominal muscles. People working out often do sit-ups – that’s when you’re lying on your back with your knees bent, and then you tighten your abs and raise your body up towards your knees.

Tell me – do you go to the gym and if so, do you ever do lunges, press-ups, jumping jacks and sit-ups? Which one do you find the hardest? For me, personally, lunges are the hardest – especially when the teacher asks us to do jumping lunges. Sit-ups are usually the least difficult ones for me. What about you? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

say, with your left leg… = digamos, com a sua perna esquerda

P.E. = physical education

knees bent = joelhos flexionado

How’s it going?  Hoje falamos sobre as expressões usadas para dizer que alguém está em cima do muro a respeito de alguma coisa, ou… simplesmente não decidiu ainda.

How’s it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I’m gonna tell you about a very common idiom in the English language that is used to say that someone is neutral about something; or hesitant to choose a side in a discussion or competition. We say that person is sitting on the fence, or simply on the fence.

Let’s say a new film is out and all your friends want to go see it. You, however, have read the synopsis and can tell that there’s a lot of heavy drama in this film. You happen to not be a big fan of overly dramatic stories. What’s more, this film has been rated R for violence. Yep, lots of blood and gore. You can’t stand watching violent scenes. OK, I’m talking about myself – it’s true. I basically don’t go to the movies anymore except when it’s a comedy. So much drama and violence!

Back to the example: so all your friends are excited and can’t wait for Saturday to arrive. That’s when they’re going to the theatre. The film does sound amazing; the actors are outstanding and critics are raving about it. Also, hanging out with your friends is always fun. So there are pros and cons to this. If you go, you get to spend time with your buddies and watch what is supposed to be a wonderful film; however you’ll have to endure some drama and cover your eyes when graphic scenes come up.

So when your good friend Sally rings you up wanting to know if you’re joining the gang on Saturday, you tell her that you’re still on the fence about watching this film. You’re undecided, you’re still hesitant to make a decision. “I’m still on the fence with this movie, Sally… Not sure it’ll be worth watching all the blood.”

You’re on the fence about watching this movie. Last week you were on the fence about buying a new computer since your old computer was still functional. You decided to go ahead and buy a new one. Last month your father was on the fence about going on vacation. He ended up deciding to postpone the vacation until next year.

Here’s another example:  you’ve been offered a new position in the company you work for. You’ve talked to your boss about it and he has been very understanding. You really like your current job; however, this new position pays better and is a bit more challenging. You’re still on the fence, though. The offer was extended to you a week ago and you haven’t decided yet. You’re still on the fence. Your boss then says “You’ve got to make up your mind. You can’t be sitting on the fence forever.”

Now, notice that the meaning of “sit on the fence” isn’t always exactly the same as ficar em cima do muro such as we use it in Brazil. When we say that in Portuguese, it usually communicates that someone doesn’t want to make a decision because they lack the courage to do so; because they don’t want to get in trouble and so on.

So in English, ‘sitting on the fence’ does not necessarily have such a negative connotation, as you can tell by the examples I’ve used. It can, however. You could say “So and so is a fence-sitter” which means that person never takes sides – probably because they don’t want to disappoint anyone. So a fence-sitter is someone who doesn’t choose sides.

What are you on the fence about at the moment? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

(he has been) understanding = (ele tem sido) compreensivo

so and so = fulano de tal

How’s it going? Hoje eu falo pra vocês sobre uma pessoa que conheci no fim de semana: a black cab driver.

How’s it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

a black cab in London

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today I’m gonna tell you about an acquaintance I made over the weekend. I went for a guided walk in central London, with a group, and as we waited for other people to arrive at the meeting point I struck up a conversation with this guy David.

He was born and raised in London, and now lives near Heathrow airport. He told me that he will soon be moving to a nice area further up north. I then asked him about what his commute was going to be like after he moved house, and he said that it doesn’t really matter since he drives a black cab. So that’s his occupation: he drives a black cab.

He told me that he had to pass a test in order to be qualified as a black cab driver. He studied for three years – yes, that’s three years – to prepare for the exam. Just to give you an idea, David had to memorise over three hundred routes in London. Basically, you’ve got to know the map of London by heart, as well as all the important landmarks and buildings. Twenty-five thousand streets… How about that?

In London you have the choice of black cabs and mini-cabs. Black cabs are the more expensive option and now I understand why. The driver of a black cab is highly qualified and chances are better that, you know, you’re not going to be ripped off or run into any sort of trouble. With that said, there are good reputable minicab firms as well – but it’s a lot easier to become a minicab driver than it is to be licensed and qualified to be a black cab driver, so… It’s just less risky to hop into a black cab than a minicab.

While we were walking, I told David where I live in London – it’s an area called West Norwood which most people haven’t heard of, but he obviously knew immediately where it was. Not only that, but he knew there was a somewhat famous cemetery in West Norwood, and he ended up giving me a few tips on local attractions that I could visit.

David then told me about his trip to the United States a while ago. I think he visited seven or eight cities, and his favourite one was New York, and the least favourite one was San Francisco.

So there you go: now you know a little bit about the life of a black cab driver in London. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Vocabulário

a guided walk = uma caminhada com um(a) guia, que vai comentando os pontos de interesse durante o passeio

struck up a conversation = comecei a conversar

after he moved house = depois que ele mudasse de casa

commute = “viagem” ou trajeto, geralmente para o trabalho (e do trabalho para casa)

be ripped off = ser explorado

Further reading about The Knowledge, London’s legendary taxi-driver test

Como taxistas adquirem The Knowledge (exame de qualificação)

Photo credit: James Barrett under Creative Common

Hi, everybody.  Hoje falamos sobre I’ve had worse e I’ve seen better, expressões muito comuns no inglês

Hi, everybody. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

Today you’re going to listen to several examples of a very common structure in English. Imagine that you’re out with a friend and it’s 8 PM and neither of you have properly eaten all day. Yeah, that’s right, you’ve spent the day chatting and snacking on potato crisps and peanuts. You guys are starving and decide to look for a decent place to eat.

However, there’s some kind of restaurant and bar strike going on and the only place where you can get food right now is a greasy joint that sells hamburgers. It does not look good but hey, you guys are hungry and out of options  so you decide to give it a try.

So you go in the joint and order a couple of burgers and, as you’re eating yours you’re surprised to realise that, while it’s not the best burger you’ve ever had… It is actually far from being horrible. So you say “OK, this is actually not so bad. I’ve had worse.”

So notice the use of the present perfect here: I’ve had worse. I have had worse. I have had worse burgers in my life. When did you have worse burgers? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter… I don’t remember when, but I know that there was a time in my life when I had a worse burger than the one I’m having now. I’ve had worse.

So this is a very common term, or structure, which can be used with a few different verbs. Just to keep with the food theme a bit longer, can you remember a time in your life when you were even a bit surprised that a certain food didn’t taste so bad? Nobody was expecting it to be good and then you took a bite, and said “Eh… I’ve had worse.”

We have all been there. C’mon, what’s your recent example? Maybe you’ve been to a football match and you thought the food at the stadium would be crap and then… Upon your first bite on that hotdog you thought “Eh, I’ve had worse.” Or you went to the office party expecting, again, the food to be kinda awful… And in the end you thought, “I’ve had worse.”

Now, you can also say something like “I’ve had better“, and that’s the opposite situation, of course. That’s a complaint – you say “I’ve had better” when you don’t want to outright say that you don’t like the food, or that it sucks. It’s an euphemism, for sure, and it’s very popular in English language conversations.

Let’s say everyone’s been talking about this new movie and when you go see it, you’re a bit disappointed. Your friend asks what you thought of the movie and you say “I’ve seen better.” Or someone shows you some work of art, and… This is your opinion: “I’ve seen better.”

You hear about a restaurant that has been getting rave reviews everywhere and when you finally get to try their signature dish, you think to yourself… I’ve had better.

What is your experience? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

potato crisps = batata frita de saquinho, no Reino Unido (nos EUA, chamadas de potato chips)

greasy joint = um “sujinho”, restaurante parecido com boteco, que faz hamburger, etc.

to outright say something = dizer algo diretamente

rave reviews = grandes elogios (feitos por críticos)

signature dish = o prato pelo qual eles são conhecido

Hey, everyone.  Hoje falamos sobre dois idioms com a palavra PICK.

Hey, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So this is our first episode of 2016 and we kick off with a very simple expression: take your pick. It’s very simple, really: it means choose which one you want. Of all the options available to you, which one do you want? Take your pick.

You don’t wanna go to the theatre on your own this Saturday. You’ve got a spare ticket and you’d like to take someone with you. Mike said he can go, Annie is also available and Jack also volunteered. Take your pick.

Have you ever been in a restaurant where there’s a dessert cart? The waiter will bring it around at the end of the meal, you look at the cart and there’s some kind of pudding, there’s black forest cake, there’s apple pie, brownies and cookies. You’re free to choose whatever you want. Take your pick.

Or your friend, who you’re spending Saturday with, says “I’ve nothing planned for today but we could go see a movie, chill at the pub, or stay in and play videogames. Take your pick.”

Now hear this: let’s say you’re a girl and you have a party this weekend… And you already have your outfit picked out for the party. You have your outfit picked out. To pick something out is to select something… or someone – pick out can be used with slightly different meanings but today we’re focusing on this one.

You have a closet with a few different outfits but you’ve already made up your mind about which one you’re going to wear. You’ve already picked out the dress you’re going to wear.

Many people who do not have children but plan on doing so have their kids’ names picked out already. They’ve already thought about it, they’ve made their choice and they know what they’re going to name their kids in the event they have any. They’ve already picked out their kids’ names.

Let’s say your mum sent you to the supermarket on a mission: bring back home some delicious biscuits to offer to your three aunts who are coming to visit this afternoon. You get to the market and head over to the biscuits aisle. There are so many options: plain biscuits, with almonds, vanilla cream, chocolate chips, crackers and the list goes on. In the end, you pick out the chocolate cookies with chocolate chips, which are usually a hit with everyone you know…

Now check this out: yesterday I spent thirty minutes picking out the expressions for this podcast. It’s true. My friend spent two hours at the eye doctor today picking out new glasses.

Now I want to hear from you. Let me know what it is that you picked out last week, or yesterday. Talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

a hit = um sucesso

Hi!  Hoje falamos sobre algumas expressões comuns relacionadas a feriados aqui na Inglaterra (e no Reino Unido em geral!)

Hi! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

This is the last Inglês Online episode of 2015 (twenty fifteen) and I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you guys about a couple of expressions used by the Brits to refer to holidays. Let’s start with public holidays – what is a public holiday? It’s a day where most businesses and services are closed. Christmas and New Year’s Day are two examples.

So here in the UK people actually refer to public holidays simply as bank holidays – as you can guess, banks are closed on bank holidays. So we just had a bank holiday – Christmas, the 25th of December. Tomorrow, January 1st, we have another bank holiday – New Year’s Day.

So apparently there are about eight bank holidays a year in England – and I’m talking about just England now. Only three of those are public holidays in Brazil as well: the two I mentioned before, Christmas and New Year’s Day, and Good Friday, which is the Friday before Easter Sunday.

The other five bank holidays in England are the second day of January; St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th (seventeenth); Easter Monday, which is the Monday after Easter Sunday; May Day, which is the first Monday in May; the last Monday in May; the last Monday in August; and finally Boxing Day on the 26th (twenty-sixth) of December.

So Boxing Day is the bank holiday I’d like to talk about – it’s basically the day after Christmas, except when it falls on a Sunday. So if Christmas falls on a Saturday, the next day – 26th of December – will be a Sunday. In that case only, Boxing Day will be on the 27th.

So what IS Boxing Day? Historically speaking, the most well-accepted version is that in the nineteenth century… the day after Christmas was the day servants and manual workers received gifts, known as “Christmas boxes”, from their employers and customers. In modern times, though, Boxing Day is best known as a big shopping holiday – a lot like Black Friday in the US.

Another holiday here is St. Patrick’s Day, which is a religious bank holiday on March 17th. It celebrates Patrick, a missionary who, according to tradition, converted the pagan Irish to Christianity. Nowadays, when celebrating St Patrick’s Day, it’s tradition to wear green clothing to the parades and festivities all over the UK.

So I’ve told you about a few bank holidays here in my neck of the woods – which Brazilian public holidays can you remember? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next year!

Key terms

Vocabulário

Brits = British people (britânicos, informal)

Hello!  Hoje falamos sobre a palavra GIG e como ela praticamente virou sinônimo de trabalho ou emprego de qualquer tipo. Um P.S.: gig também é abreviação de gigabyte, que não é assunto deste episódio.

a musical gig

Hello! This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So an Inglês Online reader asked me about the word gig yesterday. He was reading a business book and came across the expression full time gig. He was surprised to see that, since he thought ‘a gig’ meant a temporary job, or maybe not even temporary – but sort of a side job that you take, in addition to your full time job, to make some extra cash.

As it turns out, though, the word gig has been used in a much broader sense for a while now, to mean a job, or work. It’s a slang word, for sure, so it’s always informal. Before I give you more examples, let’s just go over the original meaning of gig: in the beginning, gig was used by musicians when they were hired to perform somewhere.

The word gig is still very much in use with that meaning – for example, I sometimes go to bars to see live music gigs here in London. They usually have lineups of four or more gigs on the same night. Some gigs are better than others and, in general, they leave the best gigs for last – so if the first performance starts at eight, for example, you’ll probably see the fourth or fifth gig around ten or ten-thirty and these will probably be the most popular ones.

Like I said, though, we can say gig for basically any kind of work in informal language. It doesn’t matter if it’s temporary or full time; if it’s music-related or not. All you have to do is qualify it: a full time gig; a temp gig; a side gig, a great gig, and so on.

You may be telling your friend that you’re starting your new job as an analyst for a big consulting company. You tell her about the hours, the pay, the job description… And your friend thinks it’s an awesome job. She says “Wow… Sweet gig!” And you agree. It is a sweet gig. It’s going to be your full time gig from now on.

You have another friend who’s a carpenter and he’s telling you someone wants to hire him to build custom furniture for a house in the countryside. It’s a bit far from where he lives, so you ask him “Are taking the job?” and he says “Hey, a gig is a gig”. It’s work! Work is work; a gig is a gig.

And yet another friend of yours says “I like my job but I wanted to make some extra cash so I’m driving for Uber now.” So your friend now has a side gig, in addition to his full time job. He’s an Uber driver.

And here’s my story: when I lost my full time corporate job years ago, I started teaching English. It was supposed to be just a temporary gig. It turned out to be more than that as it lasted for a few years, and eventually the Inglês Online website turned out to be my full time gig.

So what’s your gig? Do you work full time and also have a side gig? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

a side job = um segundo emprego, no geral ‘part time’, para complementar a renda

lineup = programação das bandas para aquele período

sweet gig = sweet aqui é gíria para ótimo, bacana

What’s up?  Você só fala… Fazer que é bom, nada. Como dizer isso em inglês? Hoje vemos três idioms do inglês muito comuns para comunicar exatamente isso!

What’s up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So let’s get right into it: you’re all talk and no action. Whoa… I’m not accusing anyone. Just letting you know what our first idiom of today’s episode is. And while I’m sure some of you have heard this term before – it is, after all, very, very common in English – unless you’re saying it confidently whenever you wanna tell someone they’re only talking a lot about something but never actually doing it… Well, you could use some more listening to get even more familiar with it, and that’s exactly what we’re doing now.

So when your father asks you “Did your brother ever get around to fixing the computer?” You know that John, your brother, hasn’t fixed the computer yet. He’s been telling everyone he’s gonna do it for weeks, though. So you say “John’s all talk and no action. He’s at his girlfriend’s now and the computer’s still broken.” John is all talk and no action.

Notice that you can shorten this idiom to “He’s all talk”. She’s all talk. John is all talk. They talk a lot about the stuff they’re going to do, but they never actually do it!

Your friend Melissa wants to move to an English-speaking country, let’s say Canada. You know she’s really going to do it – she has family in Canada, she’s a nurse, she’s applying for a visa and all that stuff. However, she’s been saying she’ll be able to speak good English come time to move, and you know that’s not gonna happen… She can barely understand “What’s your name?” and her plane leaves in a couple of months!

Every time you see Melissa and ask her about her studies, she reaffirms her intention to learn English. Finally you just look at her and say “Melissa, you’re all talk! You’ve been saying this for months now and you haven’t even started lesson 1!” She’s all talk and no action. She’s all talk…

What about someone who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk? Picture someone who is very vocal about respecting other people, for example. They can actually speak beautifully about that topic, and you even feel inspired by their speech. However, one day the two of you disagree on something. And, well… Your friend, let’s say his name is Rick, the one who just the other day made a Facebook post about the importance of respect, got mad at you because you didn’t share the same opinion, and started calling you offensive names. Whoa…

Rick talks the talk… but does he walk the walk? Hmm, I don’t think so. Calling you names because you disagree with him… Not very respectful. Rick talks the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk. Someone, on the other hand, who actually acts or behaves according to what they talk is someone who talks the talk and walks the walk.

So think about the expression: talking about something is relatively easy, isn’t it? Now, aligning your actions with your talk… That may not be so easy. You know, talk is cheap! That’s a great one as well – when you see someone boasting about climbing Mount Everest next year and how they’re ready to do it, you could say “Talk is cheap! You should wait til you get back to say anything.”

You know those politicians who make a hundred promises because they wanna get elected? Talk is cheap. Saying what people want to hear is easy. Look at their track record if you really wanna know whether you can trust them. Talk is cheap!

So give me an example of a situation in your life where you could have said to someone “You’re all talk!” Talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

did not get around to doing something = acabou não fazendo algo

to be vocal about = fala muito sobre, acha importante falar sobre

boasting about = se vangloriar a respeito de

How’s it going? No episódio de hoje, você ouve mais sobre duas partes do corpo (na perna) sobre as quais a gente não fala muito, e fica familiarizado com estas palavras.

How’s it going? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

So today I’d like to talk about some body parts that I know are not that well known by English students. What inspired me to talk about them was the term keep your chin up. The chin – c-h-i-n – is the part of the body that is right below our lower lip.

So ‘keep your chin up‘ is an expression of encouragement, right? It means, remain confident and maybe cheerful in whatever tough circumstance you’re going through. Keep your chin up.

Chin, then, made me think of shin, which is a body part that is in the leg. Look at the picture and you will see where the shin is. OK, so notice that I just spoke about an idiom with “chin”, which is below the mouth. Chin.

Now I’m talking about the shin, which is right below the knee. Shin… S-h-i-n. And notice that I am not saying “sheen”, as in “Charlie Sheen”. I’m saying ‘shin’  – check out my pronunciation tip to learn more.

So apparently shin splints are a very common form of leg injury. I looked for the expression in Portuguese and found “canelite” – I’ve never heard this word before so if you have, please let me know if that is what we really say for shin splints.

Basically, almost any kind of pain you feel in your shin as a result of exercising will fall under this category – shin splints. And I found out that most shin splints occur when there is more stress on the tibia than it can handle, so – there you go.

I’m thinking here about football players – or soccer players, if you like – do they wear any protection for the shin, like shin pads? If you know the answer, please educate me :-)

So the shin is in the frontal part of the lower leg, right? On the other side we have the calf. Calf – c-a-l-f. The calf is the back part of the leg. Notice the way we pronounce calf – it’s the same as half. Also, the plural form is calves, just like the plural of half is halves. One calf, two calves; one half, two halves.

Calves are very fleshy and muscular, and of course, calves can be injured as well. You can strain your calf, for example. Apparently that happens a lot to tennis players. I don’t think I’ve ever strained my calf, but it sounds painful.

So let’s talk about calves a little bit more. Here’s a popular way to make your calves more muscular: are there any stairs where you live? If so, stand on the edge of a stair step. Be careful – don’t lose your balance! Then, stand straight and lift your heels until you’re standing on your toes. Stay there for two seconds, lower your heels and repeat the movement. That’s it – simple.

Tell me – do you know anything about shin or calf injuries? Do you exercise your calves regularly? Let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key terms

Vocabulário

strain your calf = distender a batata da perna

don’t lose your balance = não perca o equilíbrio

What’s up? Sei que o título de hoje pode chocar um pouco :-( mas o assunto é atual e importante! Todos ouviram falar dos ataques terroristas em Paris, e o governo britânico já está orientando a população sobre como proceder em caso de ataques similares por aqui. Eu aproveito para falar sobre o vocabulário!

What’s up? This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.

Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglês Online podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes.

Thank you for telling your friends, your neighbours, your family and keep listening.

OK, so I know today’s topic is a bummer: I’m gonna talk about the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, specifically here in England, where I live. Keep listening though – the vocabulary involved is pretty interesting and not something you hear every day.

So last Friday, the thirteenth of November 2015, a number of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, France. There were mass shootings, suicide bombings, and many people were held hostage.

As expected, ISIS, the islamic state terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks, and as it turns out other European capitals are at risk. So now the British government has released some advice on how people can prepare for similar attacks here in the UK.

The main piece of advice, or at least the piece this newspaper article chose to highlight is, victims should run and hide rather than play dead. What that means is, rather than falling on the floor and pretending you’re dead, you should try and run away from the shooting and hide away somewhere.

But the UK Security Chiefs actually provided a lot of detailed advice, which is pretty interesting to go through – well, for me, I’d say it’s kind of important to go through all of it… as you may know, I live in London – but for you and all other English learners it’s a nice opportunity to get some more exposure to this sort of vocabulary, which you might have already heard on TV shows.

So I’ve selected some of the advice, which they summed up in the following instruction: RUN, HIDE, TELL. So here we go:

RUN: Escape if you can; consider the safest options; is there a safe route? Run, if not, hide. Can you get there without exposing yourself to greater danger? Insist others leave with you; leave belongings behind.

So the first part is all about escaping and running away. Alright, makes sense. Here’s the next part:

HIDE: If you can’t run, hide; find cover from gunfire – if you can see the attacker, they may be able to see you; cover from view does not mean you are safe, bullets go through glass, brick, wood and metal; find cover from gunfire e.g. substantial brickwork or heavy reinforced walls; be aware of your exits; try not to get trapped; be quiet, silence your phone; move away from the door.

So there are some interesting bits here – for example “cover from view does not mean that you’re safe”, meaning, if there’s a wall between you and the attacker and they shoot, the bullets might still get through the wall and hurt you, so what they recommend is that you hide behind substantial brickwork (like a very thick wall).

And the much needed instruction in our time of mobile phones – silence your phone if you’re trying to hide from attackers.

Finally, the third part of the advice is TELL: call 999 – What do the police need to know? Location – Where are the suspects? Direction – Where did you last see the suspects? Descriptions – Describe the attacker, numbers, features, clothing, weapons etc. Further information – Casualties, type of injury, building information, entrances, exits, hostages etc., and stop other people entering the building if it is safe to do so.

So that’s quite a lot to remember in case you find yourself in the middle of a terrorist attack, however if you can remember at least a few instructions that would probably be very helpful. So what do you think about all the advice? I have to say, it’s nice to remind people that they shouldn’t simply fall to the floor and play dead – try and run away if you can!

Let me know your thoughts. See you next time!

Vocabulário

the aftermath = as consequências e/ou efeitos de algum acontecimento desagradável

e.g. = for example

brickwork = qualquer coisa construída com tijolos