Podcast Inglês Online

How’s it going? Hoje eu falo sobre idioms que as pessoas usam para dizer coisas como “deixe o que já passou no passado”. Curioso/a? Então ouça já!

How are you? 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 had a row with a friend last month, ok? You and your friend argued over where your group of friends was going to spend their next holiday. That’s it: you’re both in the same group of friends and every year you guys organise a trip somewhere over a long holiday, and this year you and your friend… Mark ended up in a row over the location of your holiday.

You wanted a beach, Mark wanted the mountains. You said everyone preferred the beach, whereas Mark insisted it was time for a change and other people in the group were on board with that idea. And it got a bit heated! Pretty soon you both were nearly shouting at each other and a couple of people had to intervene and ask you guys to cool off!

Well, turns out that you did cool off eventually and so did Mark. You’re both in the same group of friends and, more importantly, same soccer practice team so… let’s be honest, it’s just easier if you guys get along. So, in that spirit, the next time you saw Mark you said “Hey Mark, are we cool?” and Mark said “Yeah, we’re cool. Things got a bit heated but it’s water under the bridge now.” And because your mutual friends are great people, they actually picked a vacation place that is neither a beach nor the mountains for your next trip.

So when Mark said “It’s water under the bridge now” – well, if you’ve seen the title of this podcast you know exactly what this means. Even if you haven’t though, I’m sure you’ll get it: we say something is water under the bridge if that thing caused some upset, or trouble in the past… But it’s resolved now. You’re over it, or you don’t care anymore. It doesn’t upset you anymore. It’s water under the bridge.

So, your little brother stole your favourite toy when you guys were toddlers and after thirty five years he decides to give you a heartfelt apology about it. You say “Hey bro, don’t worry. It’s water under the bridge. Really.” Your neighbour backed into your car last week and because of that you were late to a meeting and so on. The neighbour paid for the repair but he still feels bad for causing so much trouble. What do you say? “It was an accident; it’s water under the bridge.”

And here’s a related idiom, although it means something slightly different – and just like water under the bridge, we say something very similar in Brazil: cry over spilt milk. For this one we say, I think we say literally the same thing in Portuguese: cry over spilt milk. Once you spill milk, it’s there: it has been spilt. You can see it there on the floor, and even if you start crying the milk will still be there.

You’ll hear this expression very often like this: OK, let’s not cry over spilt milk. Or, “Look, it’s no use crying over spilt milk so let’s see what we can do moving forward.” If something can’t be rectified; if it’s done and there’s no going back – that is when people will sometimes say “C’mon. It’s no use crying over spilt milk. It’ll blow over.”

Check out what this person tweeted out: It’s no use crying over spilt milk. Don’t express regret for something that has happened and cannot be remedied. Easier said than done, I guess, but there you go.

What do you think? Do you cry over spilt milk? Let me know and see you soon.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

row = briga, discussão

to be on board with something = concordar com algo, com uma ideia

to cool off = esfriar a cabeça, acalmar-se

toddler = criança pequena

it’ll blow over = a situação vai se acalmar, vai passar o efeito ruim

easier said than done = mais fácil falar do que fazer

How’s it going? Hoje eu falo sobre mais idioms a respeito daquela intuição que a gente tem de vez em quando – algo aqui não está cheirando bem, ou simplesmente um palpite sobre o que vai acontecer. Não perca!

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 check this out: we say ‘I smell a rat’ when we think something’s off. We have a feeling that someone is being deceitful. They’re hiding something; they’re not being completely truthful… Something is wrong, and you smell a rat.

That means that you have this feeling; you can tell that something is wrong. You can tell maybe from the way people are speaking, maybe from the body language of that person – you can tell they’re lying.

I think this is something everyone can relate to, right? You’ve been through this before. Sometimes you can just tell that person is hiding something. Let’s say your work colleague promised to help you with something, and you keep reminding them of it. Then after the second time you’ve brought it up, you notice that you’re the only person talking about it – your colleague Nathan is being very noncommittal. He’s not saying anything now although a couple of weeks ago the two of you agreed that he was going to train you on something. You bring it up and Nathan doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t say yes either. Nice.

You smell a rat. You think Nathan doesn’t want to do it anymore, but doesn’t have the guts to tell you directly. You can just tell by his body language that he’s acting all noncommittal. You smell a rat. So you confront him about it, and he says “Well, I probably won’t have the time to train you since I’ve been asked to participate in a task group”. Whatever that is.

Anyway, I’m thinking you’ll be able to come up with an example pretty easily of a recent situation where you smelled a rat, and you were right! So tell me what your story is in the comments if you feel like it.

What about having a hunch? Having a hunch is sort of similar to smelling a rat, though not really the same thing. Also, when you smell a rat – that is more specific to knowing that something is off. Something is wrong. A hunch, on the other hand, can be about anything, it can be quite positive!

A hunch could be your intuition speaking to you. You’ve got a feeling, you’ve worked out something inside your head and it’s coming to you in the form of a hunch. Your friend Layla tells you “I got a new job! It’s my dream job, and you’ll never guess what it is.”

Well, you have a hunch since Layla has been talking nonstop about how all she wants to do in life is knit little dog jackets, so I don’t know. That could be it. So you say “I have a hunch, Layla. You’ve been hired by a pet shop to knit dog jackets?” and Layla says “Yes!”. So there you go. Obviously, in this case it’s not a real hunch since you already knew what Layla’s dream job was.

A real hunch is when you sort of guess something, seemingly out of nowhere. And your hunch may be wrong, of course. Let’s say you’re playing some kind of friendly game against your friend, and you’re trying to anticipate their moves. You have a hunch they’re gonna go this way. Now, you have a hunch they’re going to go a different way. Sometimes you’re spot on and sometimes you’re wrong.

What do you think – can you apply today’s terms in your life? Let me know and see you soon.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

Noncommittal = qualidade da pessoa que não quer se compromoter com algo; não dá uma resposta firme ou se comporta de maneira a não se comprometer

to have the guts = ter coragem

to come up with = sugerir, propor ou ter uma ideia

something is off = tem algo errado, algo suspeito, estranho

to knit = tricotar, fazer tricô.

to be spot on = acertar na mosca, ser preciso, exato em algo

Hi, what’s up? Hoje eu falo sobre um idiom muito comum, mas a melhor parte é uma maneira de usar a palavra already que você não aprende em nenhum livro de inglês. Não perca!

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.

Hi, 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!

Let’s dive right into our first term of today: cut to the chase. Cut to the chase is one of the many ways to tell someone to get to the point, to quit going around in circles maybe, to just get to the message, just say what they want to say.

This is one expression that is usually said when the speaker is getting a bit impatient, so they will either tell YOU to cut to the chase, or say something like “Let me cut to the chase”. When someone asks you to cut to the chase, they’re asking you to get to the core of your message. The thing that really matters. The thing that you want to say, but for some reason you’re not saying yet.

Maybe you’re making small talk, you know? Maybe you’d like to explain something before getting to the point. Maybe you haven’t found the right words to say it. But that person you’re talking to is aware that you want to say something, or at least that you would like to say something, so they ask you to basically skip the small talk and get to the point. They’re in a rush, or they’re just plain impatient. “C’mon, cut to the chase already.”

Notice the use of the word ALREADY in this case. This is a very interesting way to use it, and it’s one that you will rarely ever be taught about in an English course. When someone asks you to do something already, that means they want you to do that immediately – they have waited long enough, they don’t want to wait any more!

In fact, they think you should have already done it. They can’t believe you haven’t already done this thing. That is what they’re communicating when they say “Do it already!”

You’ve been telling your sisters for weeks that you would like to start learning Polish. So this morning while you guys were having breakfast you brought up your desire to learn Polish again, and your sisters said, ok, “Find a Polish teacher already! Here. Have a look at learnpolish.com”

Your friend Matt has been telling you for months now that he needs to get through all the books on his reading list. He’s been adding books based on recommendations from friends and the list has grown now to almost twenty books that he’s got to read. Matt has always been an avid reader but work has kept him so busy lately that he barely has time for his favourite hobby: reading.

You can tell he misses his regular reading routine, so when he brings that up yet again you say “Matt, just read those books already. Make the time. Put it on your calendar. Get reading already!”

Right now, think about a few things in your life or in the lives of the people you know – things about which you’d say “Do this already!” You know, the stuff people have been saying for a while that they’d like to do. What did you come up with? See you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

Small talk = conversinha que você tem pra quebrar o gelo, sobre o tempo etc.

make the time = arruma tempo

to come up with = sugerir, propor ou ter uma ideia

Hello! No podcast de hoje você vai aprender como dizer ‘desabafo’ em inglês. Não perca…

Hello! 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’m talking about this little word, vent. It’s so common in everyday speech that… you don’t even know how common it is. If you read Internet forums in English, if you watch movies or sitcoms or anything especially from the United States, you’ve come across it.

To vent means to talk about how you’re feeling when you’re upset, or stressed out, feeling pressured, exhausted… Anything really that has been making you feel basically not well and that you’ve been enduring for a while.

Then one day you decide to vent. You decide to vent your feelings. Maybe you’re out with a good friend, and you guys weren’t even talking about anything difficult or unpleasant. You were just catching up, having a nice conversation and drinking beer… when all of a sudden it just comes to you.

You’re relaxed, you trust your friend, he’s told you about what he’s been up to, the latest ups and downs in his life, and all of a sudden you feel relaxed enough to open up. You start venting.

You vent about this situation you’ve been having at work that… is not easy. You’ve been having some kind of problem, let’s say with a coworker. That’s it, a difficult coworker. This is someone you’ve had to work very closely with and it hasn’t been easy. There’s not much you can do about it – you guys are in a project together and it’s your responsibility to make sure the project gets completed successfully. At the same time, you don’t really get to pick who you work with.

So you’ve been putting up with some bad attitude and lack of cooperation from this coworker, and it has been a hindrance to the execution of the project. It’s been tough, and you’re not the type to complain too easily, but today seems like a good opportunity to vent. Your good friend is all ears, so you vent about how tough it’s been to make sure every phase of the project gets completed on time and how this has been actually making you lose some sleep!

Yep, you’ve actually lost sleep over this – you’re so stressed. So you vent to your friend for a good ten minutes. You get your feelings out… you get it off your chest. Those feelings you had been bottling up because you didn’t want to complicate things even further? They’re all out now. You get them off your chest by telling your friend all about your work woes.

It’s like when you have a pressure cooker that’s been cooking for a while and then you spin that little thing on top to release some steam, right? Which explains the second term of today: blow off steam.

When people have some pent-up anger or are very stressed or tense, anything like that… they may do something to blow off steam – like a pressure cooker that lets off some steam. Many people go to the gym and exercise a lot as a way to blow off steam.

The tweet below is a very nice example for the term ‘blow off steam’: it reads A great way to blow off some steam! And the attached video shows a family happily stomping on this big puddle of water with their wellies. So, that doesn’t mean everyone in the video was necessarily super angry before and they’re doing this in order to release the anger!

Like I said before, and you’re probably aware of, idioms and expressions are used in a variety of situations and their meaning will sometimes be a softer version of the original meaning that you’d find in a dictionary. In this example, these kids are blowing off some steam by playing in the puddle. Maybe they’re just releasing some built-up energy. Or they’re just having some fun after a rainy day.

https://twitter.com/Poca_ES/status/997248823838691328

What do you do in order to blow off some steam? Let me know! See you soon.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

to come across = se deparar ou encontrar alguém ou algo por acaso

to catch up = pôr a conversa em dia, ficar por dentro do que está acontecendo

ups and downs = altos e baixos, bons e maus momentos da sua vida

to put up with = tolerar, aguentar, aturar algo ou alguém

A hindrance = um obstáculo

woes = problemas

pent-up anger = raiva contida ou acumulada

wellies = galochas

How have you been? Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms que tem tudo a ver com tentar abandonar um vício ou hábito fortemente enraizado… e as sensações desagradáveis que às vezes aparecem depois disso. Não perca!

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.

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!

Ok, everyone. Our two idioms of today can easily go together in a story. They don’t always have to, but they make sense together and you’ll see why very soon. Also, if you watch TV shows and movies regularly, you’ve heard these before… guaranteed.

Ok, imagine that you know someone who’s depressed. I mean, clinically depressed. Let’s say it’s your friend… Mary. She went to the doctor and was diagnosed with depression, and then she started taking anti-depressants. And she took anti-depressants for several months and then one day, for whatever reason, she decided to stop taking them.

She thought “I’m going to stop and see what happens. I’m curious. Maybe I’ll feel better – maybe I’ll realise that I don’t need anti-depressants any more and if I realise I still need them, I’ll go back”. Ok, so, to recap, Mary had been taking anti-depressants every day for months, and one day she thought “I’ll stop and see what happens.” The next day she stopped. Mary stopped taking anti-depressants cold turkey. She went cold turkey off anti-depressants.

Going cold turkey off something means suddenly stop taking that drug that you depend on, or supposedly depend on. It means you’ve been taking it for a while, you’re used to it, you think it helps you, it provides some kind of relief, it makes the annoying symptoms go away… and then for some reason you stop cold turkey. Overnight. That’s what going cold turkey means.

Look at what this person tweeted out: “Top tip: don’t go cold turkey off your anti-depressants”. A “top tip” is a tip that is really valuable – and this is the top tip: don’t go cold turkey off your meds. So I’m thinking that this is exactly what this person did, and they had first-hand experience of the withdrawal symptoms which must not have been pleasant.

So, this is our second term of today: withdrawal symptoms. Have you heard it before? Even if you haven’t, by now you know what it means. That’s what people usually feel when they stop something they’re, well, addicted to. Smokers who use will power to stop smoking, or anyone who stops consuming whatever they were addicted to cold turkey… these people will usually experience withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal symptoms are obviously not pleasant, right? When you’re addicted to something and you stop cold turkey, you should probably expect some discomfort or even some pain. Even people who cut coffee off their lives sometimes report some withdrawal symptoms. In many cases, these symptoms will go away in some time.

And, of course, the term ‘withdrawal symptoms’ can be used metaphorically as well – for example when you really like something or are used to it, and it suddenly goes away. You could sort of joke and say you got withdrawal symptoms, like this girl who tweeted “I honestly get withdrawal symptoms from my boyfriend when I don’t see him for a few days”. So there you go… as with many, many expressions, you can use withdrawal symptoms in a couple of different ways.

I think most people will have a personal story involving quitting something cold turkey. And, maybe, experiencing withdrawal symptoms. I’ve gone cold turkey a few times in my life – sometimes I was able to keep it up, other times I wasn’t. I usually find it harder, though, to gradually decrease the intake of whatever it is I’m trying to cut off. I find that it’s just easier to stop once and for all to go cold turkey.

What about you? What is your story? Let me know in the comments and see you soon.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

Go away = desaparecer, sumir, ir embora

Overnight = da noite para o dia

Meds = Maneira informal de dizer “medicine” que significa remédio ou medicamento

First-hand experience = experiência própria

Addicted to = viciado em alguma coisa

Intake = consumo ou ingestão de algo

Once and for all = de uma vez por todas, de forma definitiva

What’s up? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre mais duas expressões do dia a dia de falantes nativos do inglês. Uma delas é um idiom muito usado para expressar “Não consigo compreender!” Não perca.

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.

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 let me tell you about a very, very popular idiom in English. We use it in situations where you just can’t understand something. It may even be mind-boggling to you. But… it may not; it may just be something that sort of stuns you temporarily, and you can’t comprehend how that can happen, or how a certain person made the choice that they made… You can’t get your head around it.

That’s our first expression of today. When you can’t get your head around something, it means you find that thing challenging to comprehend. You have this situation in front of you, and it feels completely foreign to you – like something you would never consider, maybe you didn’t know it was possible. And then, all of a sudden, someone you know tells you that they decided to abandon their 20-year-long successful career as a… doctor, let’s say and start up a new career in street art.

Let’s say this is your friend Lucas. Lucas was a happy doctor, by the way. He never complained about being a doctor and the long hours. That is what is most mind-boggling about it. And you know Lucas well. He’s an expressive guy. You believe that if he had been unhappy he would have let on that he was unhappy.

In other words, you can’t get your head around your friend’s sudden change of heart about his long-running, successful career as a doctor. He wants to be a street artist now, and you just can’t get your head around it.

So the same way we say “get your head around it” you can say “wrap your head around it”, “wrap”. Same thing, so let’s use that for the remainder of this episode. Sometimes people feel like they can’t wrap their heads around how something works, for example.

Let’s say you bought a new kitchen gadget. It’s supposed to be wonderful and make your life so much easier. The only problem is, you tried switching it on, and nothing. You then went ahead and read the manual, and tried to follow the “easy start guide” step by step. Nothing! That thing looks like it’s… dead. You know it’s in good condition, though, because it’s brand new and the sales assistant tested it in front of you.

You, however, can’t make it work. You can’t wrap your head around those instructions. You know you’re missing something but you don’t know what it is. You read through the instructions again and feel like they’re about launching a spaceship rather than making a kitchen gadget work. You can’t wrap your head around them. They don’t make a lot of sense to you.

Has this ever been you? Some things are mind-boggling – they boggle the mind, and you can’t make sense of them. Sometimes we can’t wrap our head around someone’s decision; sometimes we can’t wrap our heads around how something works; sometimes we can’t wrap our heads around an event – how could it happen? It’s mind-boggling.

So here’s what I’m asking you: try and remember the last time something happened in your life that really made you think “I can not wrap my head around this – I can’t comprehend it!” Let me know what that was. Talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

Stuns you = deixa você chocado, estupefato ou pasmado com alguma coisa

Let (something) on = deixar transparecer

Change of heart = mudança de ideia, opinião ou atitude

Brand new = novo em folha

How are you doing? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre o idiom super comum no inglês “beat someone to the punch”.

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.

How are you doing? 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 think about the last time you had a brilliant idea during a conversation, or an amazing suggestion that you were about to make… Then, before you could open your mouth, your friend or a coworker went ahead and said the exact same thing. Just a few seconds after you had that brilliant thought, and you were getting ready to say it. Somehow, your coworker… Todd had the same thought, and he was faster than you. Todd beat you to the punch.

I think many of you listening today will be able to relate. The situation I just described is not uncommon; it happens fairly often. It’s kinda funny how sometimes people have the same idea at the same time.

I remember listening to an interview with a TV director once and he was telling the interviewer about this great idea he had for a TV show. It was something he had been thinking for a while, really original and interesting. And, what do you know? Just when he was about to start developing the idea he heard about this new show that another TV producer was working on. Guess what: it had the same premise. So his amazing idea wasn’t new or original anymore… The other producer beat him to the punch.

We also use this idiom in a figurative way, of course. Not everything is a competition, but if anyone, let’s say… achieved something faster than you, you can say “Hey, you beat me to the punch!” So let’s say you and your friend Sam were chatting the other day about making ice cream yourselves. So today you bump into Sam and he tells you he’s made ice cream. You haven’t yet, so you say “You beat me to the punch! How was the ice cream?”

Or let’s say that you and your brother still live at home and depend on your dad for money and other stuff. You’re getting ready to ask your dad for a relatively large sum of money to buy a bike, and then you learn your brother has done just that while you were thinking. Your brother beat you to the punch.

If you’re used to watching American TV shows, you’ve probably heard it before: “You beat me to it”. Someone was going to say something and then someone else said it first. It’s interesting that there’s another expression with beat that almost means the opposite: beat around the bush. When someone’s beating around the bush, they’re sort of like going around in circles and not getting to the point. They’re either afraid of saying something or they’re not sure how to express their ideas… sometimes you can tell, though, that the other speaker wants to say something but for some reason keeps hinting at it, rather than just communicating it clearly. They’re beating around the bush. You can check out a previous episode with this idiom.

I’m sure you can think of an example when someone beat you to the punch. Was it your brother or sister? Was it a coworker, when you were ready to give your boss an idea and he or she beat you to the punch? Let me know! Tell me your story, and see you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

to bump into someone = maneira informal de dizer: encontrar com alguém por acaso, esbarrar com algúem

large sum of money = grande quantia de dinheiro

to hint at = dar a entender, insinuar ou sugerir algo

How have you been? Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms em inglês usados para dizer como alguém é conhecido. Não perca…

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.



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

Let’s get started with a really informal way to, sort of have good-natured fun with someone by telling them that they’re famous for something. This term is so informal that it’s not even an entry in dictionaries at this point.

So let’s say your friends Mary and Tom, who are boyfriend and girlfriend, had this big trip to… Paris! Yeah, they went to Paris and spent two weeks there. And, when they came back, you learned that Mary and Tom are engaged. Tom proposed to Mary by the Eiffel Tower. So Mary is now telling you all about it and how Paris is so beautiful and romantic, and it’s the perfect place for a marriage proposal… And you say “Well, they don’t call it City of Love for nothing!”

So what are you saying? First, you’re saying that Paris is called City of Love, and people don’t call it that for nothing! There’s a reason Paris is called City of Love, and the reason is that it is a beautiful and romantic city. So you tell your friend Mary “They don’t call it City of Love for nothing.”

Another example: in your group of friends one of you has the nickname of “the Hulk”. That’s a pretty common one. I think when I was in school everyone knew a Hulk. So that’s usually the tall, muscular, strong guy who can lift a heavy table or something. So you guys all call your friend Tony “the Hulk”. One day you guys are all having a beer in some bar and two people walk in carrying what looks like a pretty heavy box. One of them trips on a broomstick and loses their balance, but before the heavy box lands on your friend Christine, who’s sitting pretty close to the scene, the Hulk swoops in and grabs it.

People cannot believe it. It’s a really heavy box. Jaws are dropping. You say to the woman standing by your side “They don’t call him the Hulk for nothing.”

Ok, and here’s a simple idiom, sort of related to the one I just explained. It’s a term I’m pretty sure many of you have heard before. My question is, though: are you using it? Does it come to you naturally? If you said no, listen on. This is the goal of this podcast: to provide you with comprehensible input to the point where you’ll be so familiarised with idioms that you’ll speak them naturally.

So I’m talking about the idiom well-known for. I’m just going to go ahead and give you examples: Silvio Santos is well-known for being one of the most successful entertainers in Brazil. Robert de Niro is well-known for being a talented actor. Rio de Janeiro is well known for its beautiful scenery and beaches. Brazil is well-known for its tropical weather. Investment banking is well-known for being a very competitive career.

What else? What else is well-known, and what is it well-known for? Let me know. See you soon!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

good-natured = agradável, bem-humorada

lose your balance = desequilibrar-se, perder o equilíbrio

marriage proposal = pedido de casamento

broomstick = cabo de vassoura

swoops in = “vai lá”, entra em ação rapidamente

jaws are dropping = pessoas estão ficando de boca aberta

How are you? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre duas expressões pra lá de comuns com a palavra JUMP. Não perca!

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o podcast no site.



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!

Jump the gun. Jumping the gun is our first expression of today. I’ll give you an example and it’ll be easy to understand: one day my friend told me that his company was developing a new web application that was really cool. Everyone in the company was pretty excited about it, as they were sure their customers would love it. They were so excited that when the tech staff told them that the web app would be ready in a couple of weeks, he and his team (who are in Marketing) started planning a beta test.

Now, a beta test – I’ve recently learned – is something you do to have your customers test your new product before the official release… But at that stage the product should be about ready to be released in the market. So you get the product about ready, nearly finalized, and that’s the beta version. Then you go ahead and you ask your most enthusiastic customers to take it for a spin and give you their feedback.

So what happened was that my friend’s team started planning the beta test and even announced it to their customer base. Several customers reached out to say they wanted to participate in the test.

Then, it happened. A few days later they heard from Tech and the news wasn’t good: “We’ve found a number of bugs and the app isn’t ready to be released.” My friend’s team had now to get in touch with all the customers and explain that the test was being delayed. My friend said “Clearly, we jumped the gun. Got excited and started planning the test but it was too soon.”

True story, everyone. They jumped the gun on the announcement of the beta test, and I think this happens a lot – it seems to happen frequently. Have a look at this tweet by someone named Samuel:

https://twitter.com/SamECheung/status/984125868107882496

Ok, and here’s our second idiom of today, one that I’m sure you guys will get very quickly: jump to conclusions. You know when someone doesn’t have all the facts pertaining to a situation but they’ve already concluded this or that and are actually taking action based on their premature conclusions?

That happens everywhere, and I think it happens a lot. To be honest, I’ve done it and it’s usually not a good thing. Depending on what’s being discussed, if you jump to conclusions before knowing all the facts you could get in a state of panic, or fear… very often unfounded, but you don’t know that yet, right? Because you haven’t heard all the details.

So in looking for examples I found out that the Book of Proverbs from the Bible has this quote: Don’t jump to conclusions, there may be a perfectly good explanation for what you just saw. That about sums it up. Here’s another one: you see your friend’s boyfriend talking to an attractive woman in a restaurant. You want to talk to your friend immediately and tell her what you just saw, but then you learn he was talking to his sister. You jumped to conclusions right there.

Can you give me a true example from your life? Let me know! Talk to you soon.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

take it for a spin = testar algo pela primeira vez (gíria, metáfora de quando alguém dá uma volta em um carro para testar)

to reach out = iniciar contato com alguém, entrar em contato

unfounded = sem fundamento

That about sums it up = isso resume/diz tudo, basicamente é isso

*  Observação: No tweet, Samuel escreveu ‘haitus’, mas a escrita correta da palavra é ‘hiatus’.

How are you? Hoje o podcast foi inspirado pela pergunta de uma leitora e aluna de longa data, a Patricia Infanti. Como dizer aquele termo que todos nós conhecemos, “Não é uma brastemp”, em inglês? Não perca!

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

As I said in the little intro above, today’s topic came from someone from the Inglês Online community! Patricia sent me an email wondering how to say “Não é uma brastemp” in English. The English idiom I would use to say that immediately came to mind – and I can tell you that the one I thought about is one possibility. There are other ways to convey the message of “Não é uma brastemp” but you’re about to hear my choice.

Ready? Here it goes: it’s nothing to write home about. Nothing to write home about – it’s a metaphor, right? Basically, it means you wouldn’t take the time to sit down and write a letter to tell your family about it, because whatever it is, it is not that great. It’s mediocre… Or just not as good as it could be, or not as good as you expected.

You bought a new mobile phone because the last one you had was stolen, let’s say. Everyone knows about your stolen phone so when your friends first see you call someone up on the new one, they ask you if you’re happy with the new phone. And you look at it and think “Meh..” and then you say “It’s nothing to write home about, but it does the job”. True story, by the way. That happened with me.

It’s not the best phone you could have bought. It’s a replacement phone, you’re a bit short on cash and therefore you ended up buying a cheap, no-frills model that will allow you to make and receive calls but not much else. You knew that, though. That’s what you were going for. It’s not like you’re disappointed, but you know your new phone is nothing to write home about.

And you know how I used the word “meh”. That’s something people say when they want to convey this feeling – the feeling that whatever they’re talking about is nothing special. Nothing to write home about. It’s not great, it’s not horrible either. It’s just… meh. So you may ask someone if they liked this big, much-hyped blockbuster movie and they look at you and say just “Meh. After so much hype I was expecting a lot more.”

Now, back to the first idiom. I’m sure you can think of something in your recent past that you could describe as nothing to write home about. Maybe something you bought and it was satisfactory. Average. It would be boring to talk about about it, really since there’s nothing interesting to mention..! What is it? In my case it would be some strawberries that I bought in the supermarket the other day.

I was looking forward to eating them, I can tell you that. They looked bright red and juicy, but when I took the first bite, it was like I was eating strawberry-flavoured water, or something. They weren’t bad, but the flavour was barely there. If someone had asked me “So how are the strawberries? “, I would have said “Hmm.. nothing to write home about”. For a short answer, I would have said “Meh”.

Have you felt like saying “Meh” recently? What was it? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

no-frills = básico, sem nada de especial

much-hyped = algo sobre o qual foi feito barulho, estardalhaço no sentido de promoção

the flavour was barely there = quase não tinha sabor