Podcast Inglês Online

Hi, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online a gente discute a experiência de assistir filmes ou seriados em inglês com nossos aparelhinhos conectados do nosso lado.

Transcrição

Hey, everyone, what’s up? 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 this week I was listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts when one of the hosts brought up an interesting topic. He basically asked the other hosts if they thought our generation is different from the generations that came before us in that we watch movies at home, with our mobile devices nearby, and we don’t spend one hundred percent of the time focused on the movie. Can you relate? I know I can. If I’m home and watching some movie or TV show and I got my iPod near me, it won’t be long till I start looking stuff up. It won’t be long till I fire up  the browser and google something.

Think about your own behavior while watching a movie; especially when you’re home. Do you have a smartphone? Do you use it while you’re watching the movie? Do you look stuff up? Or are you a hundred percent focused on the film?

Here’s what one of the other hosts said; and I’ll paraphrase. He said that he and his family had a conversation about this on Thanksgiving and his uncle is of the opinion that when you watch a movie, you should do it like you’re in a theater. In other words, you should give a hundred percent of your attention to it. No iPad, no looking stuff up.

Honestly, nowadays I think that is almost impossible for me. When I’m at the movie theater, yes. I’m focused – if I think the movie’s interesting, that is. When I’m home, though… No way. First of all, if I think the movie is boring, I’ll fast forward through the boring part. Yep, it’s kinda difficult for me to sit through a whole movie. What about you?

So back to the podcast hosts: one other host said something that I could have said, “I think when you’re home it’s a lot easier to think “Who is that actor?” and pull it up while you’re watching the show.” Again: I think when you’re home it’s a lot easier to think “Who is that actor?” and pull it up while you’re watching the show. “Pull it up” – what does that mean? Here, it means something like, extract that information, get that information out of some… big pool of information. And what would be a big pool of information? The internet, of course.

Pull it up, pull something up… these are very common things to say when we’re talking about some something we searched on the internet, or some website we visited, or when someone tells you “You should check out this page about… socks I told you about” and you say “What’s the URL? Oh, socks.com, let me pull it up.” That means you gonna type the URL of the site on the browser window and hit ENTER. So now you’re pulling up socks.com. That guy from the podcast said that nowadays it’s very easy to pull up the name of an actor while you’re watching a film with that actor. Or maybe you’re a web developer who’s doing some work on a website, and when you get done you pull it up on Firefox or Chrome to see if it looks alright after all the changes you made.

So, tell me, which camp are you in? Are you always super focused through the end when watching a film, or are you the kind of person who’ll look stuff ...

Hey, everyone. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu dou exemplos da estrutura “I was asked”.

Transcrição

Hi, 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, if you’ve been following the tips on the blog, you’ve probably seen my recent post on “I was told” and “He was asked” and etc. So I thought I’d do a podcast on that, ’cause there’s nothing like listening to a new structure to really get used to it. So this one goes to everyone who’s not that familiar with this kind of structure. So let’s get on to some examples with the verb ASK.

Let’s say your friend Michael took an exam this morning. It’s a tough exam and it’s the same you and all your friends are going to take next year. So you’re all, of course, very curious to know what the exam was like. Well, to your surprise, Michael says that the exam was easier than he expected. He says that the worst part were the security checks he had to go through before entering the exam room.

So you and your friends are really surprised to hear that, and Michael goes on to say “I was asked to leave my mobile at the door”. You think that’s reasonable. And then Michael says “I was asked to wait in a little waiting room next to the entrance while they searched my backpack”. Now that seems like a little too much. You say “What? You were asked to wait in another room while they searched your backpack?” You can’t believe your friend was asked to go to another room while his backpack was being searched.

OK, so notice that Michael said “I was asked to wait in another room”. Asked. Michael was asked to wait in another room. That means, someone asked him to wait in another room. Someone probably said “Sir, please wait in that room for a couple of minutes”. Who asked Michael to do that, to go wait in that room? I don’t know; maybe a security guard. That wasn’t really what Michael was trying to communicate; that wasn’t the point. He just wanted to say that someone asked him to wait in a room while his backpack was searched. An even better way to say that is, “He was asked to wait in a room while his backpack was searched”.

I was asked to do something, or he was asked to do this or that, or they were asked questions… That kind of structure works really well when the “asking” is something impersonal; it’s part of a standard procedure, or… just something maybe impersonal that you had to go through. Sometimes you just don’t want to mention who did the asking; for example: “I went to a party last Saturday where I was asked twice whether I was a reporter”. What does that mean? That means you went to a party, and you talked to people, and two people asked you “Are you a reporter?”. Or maybe the same person asked you the same question twice: Are you a reporter? So right now you’re telling… your mom about the party and you say “I was asked twice whether I was a reporter”. Can you see how the focus here is on the question being asked, and not on who asked it?

Can you think of any examples from your own life where you were asked to do things? Or, you were asked a strange question. Once, in college, I was asked if I was of Japanese descent. I kid you not! Tell us about a time when you were asked to do something really unexpected. Talk to you next time.

Hello, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre maneiras de usar a palavra bother em inglês.

Transcrição

Hello, everyone. 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.

Are you familiar with the word “bother”? That’s b-o-t-h-e-r, bother. When you bother someone, you disturb them, basically. If you’re bothering someone, maybe you are irritating them, or causing them some kind of trouble, even. Or maybe you’re just… disturbing their peace a little. You could say “Something about this just bothers me”. There’s something about this whole situation that just bothers me. You might be talking about your new job – let’s say you just found out you have three bosses. Three. You now report to three different people. That’s right, you go to work every day, and you do your job, and then you have to talk to three different managers about your work, and not just once. All the time.

In the beginning you thought it sounded like a good idea, but after two weeks you feel a little… strange. Something about this arrangement bothers you. All three managers seem like good people, but the whole situation just bothers you. You’re used to having only one boss, reporting to only one person, and working for three different people just bothers you. So, in this case, when you say something about it bothers you, you mean that you don’t feel comfortable about it, you feel this is odd, it just bothers you that you have to report to three different people at work.

Now, when someone tells you “Don’t bother me!”, that’s a bit stronger. That means “Leave me alone, go away! You’re annoying me”. Quit bothering me, I’m trying to study.

Here’s my favorite meaning for “bother”, though… It’s when you use it like this: let’s say you’re helping a friend move. Let’s say you friend is moving house tomorrow and right now you’re lending him a hand – let’s say your friend’s name is Paul. So you’re lending Paul a hand and you’re helping him pack up his stuff. And then you open a drawer in Paul’s nightstand, and it’s full of papers. You turn to Paul and ask him “Should all these papers go in your backpack?” And Paul says “Don’t bother. Those are just old bills”.

What does that mean? Paul said “Don’t bother”. That means, it’s not necessary to do what you were thinking about doing. It is not worth the trouble, it’s not worth the effort. The effort you would make in order to put those papers in a box, or in Paul’s backpack? That would be way too much effort for the result you would get: just a pile of old bills in the new house… that are basically useless. So, why go through all the trouble of grabbing those bills, taking them out of the drawer and putting them somewhere else? Don’t bother, just leave them there. Don’t bother taking them out of the drawer, don’t even bother touching them. Not worth the trouble. And, just as a reminder, when we say that something is not worth the trouble, that thing is not necessarily a problem, nor are you necessarily going to get in trouble for doing it. Taking old bills with you to your new house is a perfectly OK thing to do, if you want to do it. But in this case? Paul thinks the bills are useless and that’s why he said “Don’t bother packing them. Just don’t bother”.

Here’s one more example: you signed up for French classes but you suddenly realize that classes...

Hi, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre um poeminha em inglês que brinca com as formas irregulares.

Transcrição

Hi, all. 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.

Let me read you parts of a little poem that’s floating around on the Internet about the so-called hardships of learning English:

We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,

But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,

But I give a boot… would a pair be beet?

If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,

Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

If the singular is this, and the plural is these,

Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be kese?

Then one may be that, and three be those,

Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.

So our English, I think you will agree,

Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

So this entire poem basically revolves around one thing: the exceptions to the rules, especially the rules of plural forms. And let’s not forget all the irregular verbs that were not even mentioned in this little poem. The past form of make isn’t maked; the past form of take isn’t taked, and we could go on.

Of course the poem is supposed to be humorous and not taken that seriously, but… any time someone states that English is difficult I feel compelled to say something about it. So let me just present a different point of view. I’m not denying all the exceptions to the rules, of course! I’m just saying that they’re not the reason English is hard to learn. In my experience, English is hard to learn for people who get very little exposure to the language – in other words, the majority of English students. Go read my tips on how to make progress with your fluency. That should get you off to a good start.

I just think it’s a little funny to consider English a particularly difficult language to learn when… we’re all fluent in Portuguese. And yes, I know, we all learned Portuguese at a time when our mental barriers were practically non-existent. But that just goes to show that nothing is really that hard when we’re truly open to it – not even a language that has structures such as the following ones: “Se a gente fosse estrangeiro…” and “A gente estava lá”. “Fosse” and “estava”: how do we say that in English? If we were foreigners… and We were there. We use the same word, “were”, for “fosse” and “estava”.

“Vocês estão cansados”; “Se vocês forem chamados…”; “No caso de vocês estarem cansados…”; and “Espero que vocês estejam confortáveis”. “Estão”, “forem”, “estarem” and “estejam”: that’s our Presente Simples, Futuro do Subjuntivo, Infinitivo Pessoal and Presente do Subjuntivo for you. Four different tenses, four different words in Portuguese, and they all become ARE in English. “You are tired”, “If you are called…”, “In case you are tired…” and “I hope you are confortable”.

There are more examples of “hard” words on both sides. I’m just saying I would 

Hi, everybody. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre algumas expressões com SPEAK em inglês.

Transcrição

Hi, all. 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 I thought I’d center the podcast around the word speak. The reason for that is, I had an e-mail exchange with my web developer this week and I ended up using a very common expression with that word. So here’s the backstory: I asked him to implement a new feature on the website, and he did. He sent me an e-mail saying he’d done what I asked and I was out in a mall when I got his email. I was using the mall’s wifi and the connection was a little iffy, so I took a quick look at the website and I had the impression that everything was working the way I wanted it to.

I shot him an email saying “Looks good… Good job” and he responded saying he was glad everything worked well. Well… The next day I was home and decided to take a better look and check the new feature. And as it turns out, it was NOT working so well. I checked the website pages in detail and I was able to find a few errors that I failed to spot the day before. So I fired up Gmail and sent my developer a message that started with “I spoke too soon. The new feature is actually not working”.

I guess that’s kind of intuitive. “I spoke too soon”. What did I mean by that? I meant what I had said the day before was a mistake. I didn’t have all the information I needed when I said that everything was working. I thought I knew what was going on; I thought the new feature had been perfecly implemented. Turns out I was wrong, so when I shot him that e-mail saying that everything was perfect? Now I know, I spoke too soon.

So I told him, “I spoke too soon”, and I explained that I had found a few errors. Can you think of an example of your own? You know when you say “This is great!” or the opposite “This sucks!” and then a few seconds later you get some new information and you realize you were completely mistaken? That’s when you can say “I spoke too soon”. Let us know in the comments. I can tell you that it’s not uncommon for me to say or think that phrase…

And here’s another one with SPEAK: “speak of the devil”. Have you ever heard that one? Imagine you’re with a friend at a bar and you guys are talking about a third friend… John. John isn’t at the bar right know. You don’t know where John is, but you and your friend are talking about John’s… victory in the latest table tennis championship. Your friend is really impressed by John’s table tennis skills, and you’re agreeing with her, when all of a sudden… who enters the bar? John himself. You’re facing the door so you see him and you say “Ha! Speak of the devil…”

What does that mean? Of course, it does not mean that John is the devil. It means that someone that was mentioned in a conversation all of a sudden appears, or enters the room. The person you guys were talking about suddenly shows up, and you say “Speak of the devil… There’s John”. I think everyone can relate to this. It’s a pretty common thing to happen, right? I can’t remember the last time this happened to me – you know, the last time I was talking about someone and that person suddenly showed up. Can you remember the last time it happened to you?

Hello, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre as palavrinhas his, hers, theirs, etc. em inglês.

Transcrição

Hello, everyone. 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 there’s a group of words that I’ve written about before: I’m talking about mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. Ring any bells? These are not your regular possessive adjectives: this is my car, that’s her house, this is our dog… No, this is not what I’m talking about. I’m focusing today on the so-called possessive pronouns, those little words that are usually taught as a group in English classes, and that you do a couple of fill-in-blanks exercises and… that’s it. We can tell that it isn’t enough just by noticing that very few English learners employ them correctly in conversation or in writing.

OK, so just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, these are the possessive pronouns:

mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs

They are obviously used in ways that are different from the way we use my, your, her, our and etc. I’ve written a post about the most common ways we use possessive pronouns in English, so I suggest you take a look – here’s the link. Now, of course just reading about them once or twice isn’t gonna make much of a difference, so I thought I’d use today’s podcast to give you some audio on this topic. So I’m using that post as the basis, and this podcast is going to be all about those little words – to be more specific, and because we have limited time, I’m gonna concentrate on these three: yours, mine, and theirs.

Here’s the first one: imagine you’re at the school cafeteria with your best friend and you’ve both ordered a sandwich. The lady at the cafeteria hands you both your sandwich and your friend says “Hmmm my sandwich is bigger than yours!” What is he saying? He’s saying “My sandwich is bigger than your sandwich”. My sandwich is bigger that yours. “Yours” is the same as “your sandwich”.  “Yours” may also be the same as “your car”, “your bicycle” and “your teacher”. Listen to these examples: “I parked my car just around the corner. Where did you park yours?” Where did you park your car? Where did you park yours?

“I bought my bicycle at Arnie’s bike shop. Where did you buy yours?” Where did you buy your bicycle – where did you buy yours? And how about this one: “Hey, I found this wallet in the restroom. Is it yours?” Is it your wallet? Is it yours?

And then the other person might say “Yep, it’s mine”. Yep, it’s my wallet. Mine means “my wallet”. I found this wallet. Is it yours? Yep, it’s mine. And let’s say you’re in class and Ms. Simpson, the teacher, is handing back exams she graded. You grab one and Ms. Simpson says “That one is Mary’s. Here’s yours” as she hands you your exam. So what happened? You took Mary’s exam by mistake, and Ms. Simpson said “That’s not your exam. That is Mary’s. Here’s yours”. Here’s your exam. Here’s yours.

Now let’s say you’re in a different class… Mr. Thomas is the teacher. He’s just handed back some homework to the students, but you didn’t get anything. Where’s yours?

Hi, everybody. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre algo que ouvi numa sitcom hoje que me fez morrer de rir.

Transcrição

Hi, 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 I was watching an episode of an old sitcom when the lead character just said something that cracked me up. First things first: what does “cracked me up” mean? That means that what that character said made me laugh very hard. I was watching the sitcom, and all  of a sudden I was laughing out loud, all because of that one line the character said.

“It cracked me up” is a very common thing to say. You know that person, that friend you got… and whenever you’re around him or her you always end up laughing your head off? So that friend is someone who cracks you up. Listen again: he or she cracks you up. Why? Because your friend is really funny, and whenever you’re around them, they crack you up. Some jokes crack me up every time I hear them. Seriously, some things are so funny that no matter how many times you watch them, or hear them, you still laugh your head off. Chandler, a character from Friends, cracks me up. I’ve watched every Friends episode multiple times, but it doesn’t matter… Chandler cracks me up every time.

OK, on to the sitcom I was watching. It was an episode of Spin City, which started airing in 1996 and went on for six seasons. This is what the character said that cracked me up: “I’m not the club kinda guy. If I wanna shout in someone’s ear I’ll go visit my grandma”. So if you got what he said, great. If you didn’t get what he said, let’s break it down.

First thing he said was “I’m not the club kinda guy”. “Club” here means “nightclub”, a place where you go with your friends at night and there’s a lot of very loud music, and lots of people dancing… So when he says “I’m not the club kinda guy”, what he means is, he’s not into nightclubs. He doesn’t enjoy nightclubs. If someone tells you “I’m not the salad kinda guy”, what does it mean? It means this guy doesn’t like salad. Someone else might say “I’m not the book kinda guy”, which means he’s not into books. So “club”, “salad” and “book” become something like an adjective in these sentences. “I’m not the club kinda guy” means “I’m not the kind of guy that enjoys or goes to clubs”.

Alright, so after the character says he’s not into clubs, he says “If I wanna shout in someone’s ear I’ll go visit my grandma”. Ok, so anyone who has ever been to a nightclub can relate, right? You don’t really talk to other people when you’re in a nightclub, you have to shout and then that person will shout back to you. Actually carrying a conversation in a nightclub can be really annoying, so… if you enjoy going to clubs I’ll bet you’ve got some reason other than talking. Maybe you enjoy dancing, flirting, but you certainly wouldn’t go to a nightclub to have a long conversation with someone.

So there you have it – when the character said that, I could relate. I knew immediately what he was talking about, and that is why it cracked me up. By the way – that’s what “I can relate” means. I know exactly what you’re talking about, I get it, I’ve been there, I’ve had the same experience and I understand what you’re saying. I can relate. That’s how I felt when I heard him say that – I could relate. So I thought it was funny when he said that if he wanted to s...

Hi, everybody. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre expressões do inglês com a palavra rub.

Transcrição

Hello, 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.

Today I’m gonna talk abouta couple of idiomatic expressions with the word RUB. R-U-B, rub. I guess the most trivial meaning of rub… Probably one of the first meanings you’re gonna find in the dictionary is “to apply pressure and friction.” You know when you rub your friend’s shoulders? Or your boyfriend’s, girlfriend’s, your spouse’s shoulders? You rub their shoulders to help them relax, for example.

That’s not really the meaning we’re focusing on today, so let’s move right along and I’ll give you an example to illustrate the first expression. Imagine there’s a new guy at work. He started in your department a couple of weeks ago and at first he seemed like a really nice guy but after two or three days you started to feel a little annoyed by him. After a while you figure it’s something about the way he talks – you think he is being insincere to everyone.

So your friend Melissa says “Michael seems like a nice guy, don’t you think?” And you say “Hmmm, I don’t know. There’s something about him I don’t like”. And Melissa asks you “What is it?” You’re not even sure about the reasons yourself, so you say “He just rubs me the wrong way”. Again: He just rubs me the wrong way.

When someone rubs you the wrong way, you’re not very inclined to like them. Sometimes you know you don’t like them. You may not know exactly what the reasons are for that because… you haven’t given it much thought, but you know that they’re not your favorite person in the world. “He just rubs me the wrong way”. So when a person says that about someone else, they usually can’t be very specific about the reasons why they don’t like the other person. This is more generic in meaning than “I don’t like him because he stole my money”.

He rubs me the wrong way, or she rubs me the wrong way, is for… when you have a feeling about that person; something about them bugs you. Maybe it’s the way they talk, maybe it’s the way they act… They just rub you the wrong way.

And here’s another one with RUB: rub it in. The dictionary definition says that “to rub it in” means to make someone feel worse about something or to keep talking about something that makes that person feel embarrassed or upset.

Here’s an example: let’s say your friend Jane was supposed to make reservations for your friend Mark’s birthday dinner. Well, she screwed up. She forgot, she thought you were supposed to do it, then she remembered but it was too late… So you see Jane today and you say “Well Jane, I’ll never ask you to take care of reservations again…” And then on Saturday when you and Jane meet with some other friends, you bring it up again: “Don’t ask Jane to make reservations… She’ll screw it up” Now Jane is upset and she says “Hey, I know I screwed up but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in”. You don’t have to keep talking about this thing that makes me feel bad; you don’t have to keep reminding me of my screw-up. Stop rubbing it in! One way to say this in Brazil is “Não precisa ficar esfregando na minha cara”.

Here’s another situation where people might say that – let’s say your friend had the opportunity to meet a famous actor and now she wants to rub it in on her friends.

Hello, all. Hoje minha voz está diferente por causa de um resfriado… Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre duas experiências que eu tive quando dividi uma corrida de táxi com outra pessoa.

Transcrição

Hi, everyone. How are you? 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 a couple of weeks ago I got off a plane at Guarulhos airport, near São Paulo. For those of you who don’t know, there’s a bus called Airport Service that will take you from the airport into the city (the city of São Paulo) for… thirty something reais. I’m not promoting this bus service and, for the record, I still think it’s expensive, but it sure beats the hundred reais or so you’ll pay to cab it to São Paulo.

Anyway, I got off the plane, went through Customs for the passport check and picked up my two bags at the baggage claim area. Once I got out of the building, I headed straight to the bus ticket office. It was around 11 in the morning, and I was anxious to hop on the bus and get home. Then I heard the guy in front of me ask the sales assistant when the next bus was leaving. “In one hour and thirty minutes”, she said. Oh, oh… one hour and thirty minutes? The guy thanked the woman and turned around to leave the office. I did the same thing… I wasn’t about to stay there for ninety minutes waiting for a bus.

Then it occurred to me that that guy and I were standing in the same line, which meant he wanted to buy a ticket for a bus that would pass through my neighborhood. So if he and I were headed in the same direction, why not share a cab? I tapped the guy on the shoulder and asked him if he was going in the general direction I was going. He said he was, and then I asked him if he would like to share a cab. He immediately agreed, and we walked to the little cab booth in order to pay for the fare in advance.

So we took care of that, and then got into the line of passengers who were waiting for a cab. Not two minutes had passed before we were on our way home. We began to chat and I found out this guy was a publisher from Espírito Santo and he was in São Paulo to take care of some business. He was actually just starting out in the publishing business and he said he’d been keeping an eye out for work that would be a good fit for his publishing company.

So after we dropped him off, I asked the cab driver if it was a common thing for people to share a cab from the airport into São Paulo. I was totally expe cting the driver to say ‘yes’. I mean, the cab fare from Cumbica to São Paulo is over a hundred reais… Come on! That’s more expensive then some airfares for local travel inside Brazil. So I was surprised when the cab driver said “No, it’s not common at all for strangers to share cabs.” I asked him why he thought that was the case and he said that people were suspicious and scared, and they’d rather pay full fare than share the cab with a stranger.

When I heard that, I remembered something that happened in Rio de Janeiro not too long ago. I was leaving an event and I couldn’t get a cab… There were tons of people competing for a cab and even if you called a company on the phone it was no guarantee you’d get one. Finally I spotted a girl nearby hailing a cab, and when she was about to get in I asked her where she was headed to. It turns out she was going somewhere not too far from my final destination, and so I asked her if we could share.

Hi, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre mais expressões em inglês com o verbo lose, como “não vou esquentar a cabeça com isso” e “fulano não sabe perder”.

Transcrição

Hey, everybody. How have you guys been? 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.

Today we’re tackling a couple more expressions with lose. When someone tells you to not worry about something they may say Don’t lose any sleep over it. That’s easy to understand, right? Don’t lose any sleep over it. Example: your wife tells you that your kid Timmy has been getting in trouble in school and today he came home with a note. His teacher, Ms. Johnson, says Timmy pulled Mary’s hair and Mary started to cry. Your wife is kinda worried about it, but you tell her “This isn’t a big deal. Remember a while back when Mary pushed Timmy and Ms. Johnson called us? Even we didn’t think it was a big deal. I think Ms. Johnson is overreacting again and, frankly, I’m not gonna lose any sleep over this. Unless Mary’s parents give us a call… then it’s a different story.”

So what did you just say? You just told your wife not to worry. You just told her you were not going to lose any sleep over it. This is a very common and useful idiomatic expression when you want to express that you don’t think something is that big of a deal, when you don’t think something is that serious. You may say “Hey, this isn’t a big deal and I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”. And you will also notice that you frequently hear people say this in the negative form, to communicate they aren’t gonna worry much about something. It’s not that common to hear people say “Oh, I’m gonna lose sleep over this problem”, but you might hear someone say “I might lose some sleep over this” or “This is gonna make me lose some sleep”.

So if someone tells you “They said schools are raising tuitions again next year”… You hear that and figure there’s a lot that can happen before the end of the year. So you tell your friend “Hmm… we’ll see. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over that.” Another friend says “I’ve heard it on the news that the so-called potable water we drink is actually full of nasty bacteria”. You look at your friend and say “Yeah, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. We’ve been drinking this water for a long time and… we’re fine.” And yet another friend says “Some South-American civilization predicted the world would end in 2012”. You ask your friend “Did they give the exact date?”. Your friend doesn’t know, so you say “I’m not losing any sleep over that. With any luck, if that really happens I’ll be asleep and won’t even know the world has ended”.

So can you think of anything someone’s told you recently, and they thought you would be super worried about it, and your reaction was more along the lines of “I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”?

And here’s another thing people say a lot: someone is a ‘sore loser’ when they have lost… some kind of competition, let’s say, and they keep saying that it wasn’t fair, and that they should have won, and that the person who won did something wrong… Some people call that “whining”.