Podcast Inglês Online

What’s up? No podcast de hoje, eu falo sobre uma situação que aconteceu comigo essa semana – e que eu achei bizarra! Ouça!

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 if you have been following Inglês Online for a while you may know two things about me: I live in London, and I like taking my laptop to coffee shops to work. Sometimes I work from home, and sometimes I go out to a coffee shop.

So last Thursday I went to my usual coffee shop, not too far from where I live, and started doing some work. Everything was going swimmingly: I talked to a couple of people about work on Skype, completed some tasks, reviewed a couple of things… And then my phone rang, and it was a call I wanted to take.

The coffee shop was pretty noisy, so I knew it was going to be slightly challenging to hear the other speaker clearly. So I looked around and trusted my intuition that it would be OK to leave all my stuff at the table and get out of the shop for two minutes to have this chat in a quieter place.

Now, I know I’m speaking mainly to Brazilians here, who listen to this podcast. In Brazil – at least in big cities – it would be really risky to get out of a coffee shop and leave your stuff behind, even for a few minutes. In London.. it’s risky too. Not as risky as Brazil, but still risky.

Now, I’ve lived here for almost five years now, I’ve had my phone nicked in a coffee shop, so I’m pretty aware of what can happen. Still, I quickly assessed the situation when that call came in, and, fully aware of the risks, decided it would be OK to get out for a minute or so.

So after I was done with the call I came back in and walked over to my table, and my stuff was GONE. Everything. I stood there in shock for quite a few seconds, and then I said “Oh my god” as I looked over to the two women sitting at the table next to me. They were there when I left, so I thought they must have seen the person who stole my things.

Several seconds later, one of the women looked at me and said “Oh, we took all your stuff to the barista. You shouldn’t leave your computer and your bag unattended.” Well, there is something I didn’t know!

Now, my first impulse when this kind of thing happens is to try and acknowledge any good intentions behind it – so all I could say while they were talking was “Thank you” and “I know, you’re right, but you scared me to death.” One of the women said “You’re lucky we’re not thieves.” It took me a few seconds to process that they were actually trying to teach me a lesson and by then I was ready to leave. Sure, great intentions, but making me stand there for several seconds unnecessarily thinking that all my stuff had been stolen? A bit much.

So I said “Thank you for the lesson” and walked off. I didn’t say it rudely, but I was being sarcastic. Sadly, I don’t think they got the sarcasm. One of the women said “You’re welcome!” So I went over to the counter, got my stuff from the barista and left.

I’m sure I’m going to hear a few different kinds of opinions on this one, so TELL ME! Tell me what you think about this one and talk to you next time!

Vocabulary

swimmingly = very well, perfectly

my phone was nicked = meu telefone foi roubado; nick = roubar (UK slang)

barista = palavra usada para as pessoas que trabalham num café preparando as bebidas

How are you? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre mais uma expressão super comum do inglês, além de um produto usado para limpar o box (de vidro) do chuveiro… 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!

So let’s get right into today’s expression, or idiom: imagine you’ve been consuming a certain product for years. Same brand, same product for, say… a couple of years. Not just you, by the way. Let’s say you and your friend Jenny buy the same product. And, let’s say we’re talking about a… limescale remover. Yeah, I’ll take the opportunity here to talk a little bit about what a limescale remover is, ’cause… I don’t think you’re going to learn this at your English course.

Crédito Roemspzoo | Creative Commons

First of all: limescale is that sort of white deposit that builds up over time especially on shower doors that are… made of glass. The last place I lived in Brazil had a glass door near the shower – so if you have the same I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, trust me – limescale is one less problem for you to deal with.

So in case you can’t find limescale removers in your local supermarket, I’ll just go ahead and share with you some useful information that I found… Lemon juice and vinegar will apparently do the trick if you’d like to remove limescale from the glass doors.

Now, here where I live I can find a couple of different brands of limescale removers in the cleaning products section of my local supermarkets. So let’s go back to my little story from the beginning of the episode, where you and your friend Jenny have been using the same limescale remover for a couple of years.

Jenny recommended this product to you two years ago, and you started using it. And then, what happened yesterday was that you bumped into Jenny when you were both at the bank – she had just paid some bills, while you were just about to go in and get some cash. And.. somehow, you guys got to talking about house-cleaning and limescale just came up.

Jenny said the following to you: “My friend, I would like to ask you to forget all about limescale remover ABC, which we have been using for a while, and give limescale remover XYZ a try. I found out about XYZ a couple of weeks ago… My glass door in the bathroom needed a good scrub so I thought, why not? Let me try XYZ out – it IS a little bit more expensive, but you will see it is worth every extra penny! Limescale remover ABC pales in comparison to XYZ. It just pales in comparison!

Many times when people watch a movie, and then the sequel, they think the sequel pales in comparison to the first movie. Or when you read a book and then watch the movie adaptation, you think the movie pales in comparison to the book. Here’s a dictionary definition: to pale in comparison is to be or seem less important, impressive, or otherwise deficient when compared to someone or something else. You know, it’s like limescale remover ABC and limescale remover XYZ: ABC pales in comparison to XYZ.

So, what is it that you used to do or consume that pales in comparison to the thing you do or consume now? In other words… it’s like you had an upgrade. You used to do something or go somewhere and now you’re doing something else or going to a different place. And the previous thing pales in comparison. Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

say… = vamos dizer…

do the trick = resolvem, funcionam, são o suficiente

you got to talking = vocês começaram a conversar

it is worth every extra penny = vale cada centavo a mais

What’s up? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre dois idioms super comuns na língua inglesa com a palavra scratch… Não perca!

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 do you know what scratch means? If you feel an itch somewhere in your body, you’re probably going to scratch it. And you know those cards that you get sometimes when you buy something, and there’s this silver-coloured surface and underneath the silver layer there might be a prize for you? So you have to scratch those bits of silver off to see if you’ve won anything. To sum up, think of a dog scratching itself. Dogs do that a lot. I think you get the gist.

So here’s sort of a funny expression, if you think about it: do something from scratch. So here’s an example: when you make lasagna from scratch, that means you make the pasta yourself. That’s right: you don’t go to the store and buy the lasagna sheets that have been pre-made and packaged for your convenience. No, you use flour and eggs, and whatever else is needed to make the sheets, and then you make the tomato sauce using the tomatoes you bought at the market and you grind the beef, and then you cook it, and you put it all together to form your beautiful lasagna. That is lasagna that you made from scratch.

So when you make food from scratch, for example, that means you, yourself, make the parts that will be used to put together the whole thing. This expression is obviously very common when you’re talking about creating, or building, or making something. Food dishes are a perfect example. Nowadays there’s so much prepared food available, and some of it is really great quality food, that I end up not cooking a whole lot of food from scratch. Other people are more old-fashioned when it comes to food: they like cooking basically everything from scratch.

Here’s another example where you can apply this idiom: let’s say you’d like to log your monthly expenses into a spreadsheet to have a better sense of where your money’s going every month. You browse the internet for a few minutes looking for a template for your spreadsheet. Maybe there’s something out there that someone built for that purpose and you could copy it or buy it. After a half hour you realise there’s nothing you like, and you decide to build your spreadsheet from scratch. So you will decide how many columns you’ll use, the formulas, the labels and everything else. You’ll build the spreadsheet from scratch.

And here’s another great idiom that you’ll hear a lot – let me start with an example. Let’s say you just took a course on how to cook with chayote. If you don’t know what chayote is, I’ll tell you right now: chuchu. So you took this one-week course that taught you all the culinary secrets you need to create marvellous dishes with chayote. So you’re in market now to buy… chayote, of course, and you bump into your friend Mary, who wants to know all about the chayote secrets.

Well, you’re kind of in a rush so you only have time to tell her secrets number one, two and three. Mary is blown away. She says “I never knew there was so much you can do with chayote!” You tell Mary that the two of you should get together so you can further discuss the culinary role of chayote, because secrets one, two and three that you just told her? That’s just scratching the surface of all the possibilities.

There’s so much to learn! There are about fifty great tips that you learned that really turned you into a chayote expert. Mary is blown away by the first three secrets! That’s nothing. You’re just scratching the surface. It’s just the beginning. There’s a lot more beneath the surface. The first three tips are just a taste, just an introduction – they’re just scratching the surface of the wealth of knowledge you acquired in your chayote marathon.

So tell me: do you usually cook things from scratch? Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

you’re kind of in a rush = você está meio com pressa

blown away = incrédula, estupefata

How’s it going? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre dois idioms comuníssimos no inglês, que tem a ver com as opções que você tem na vida.

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

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 you know when you’re sort of looking at your options for… something, whatever. Let’s say you’d like to throw a big birthday party for yourself! So you’ve been looking at the options. Where to do it? There’s your place, obviously, but let’s say you live in sort of a quiet building, in a quiet neighbourhood, and you’re afraid the music might get a little out of control, and some of the neighbours might want to call the police… so you’re still thinking. Your place is an option.

There’s also the bar where you’re a regular. You go to this bar after work, every other day, to have a beer and relax with your office mates. It’s small bar, no frills, nothing fancy about it but that’s part of the appeal. You’re thinking it would be nice to have your party there and enjoy their selection of nibbles with a beer.

And then there’s your friend Larry who just started renting out his garage for events. He’s fixed it up a bit and it looks great, actually. You’re not sure though… This would be the priciest option out of the three, and you’re not sure it’s worth it. Not because Larry’s place isn’t great, but because you think your place or the neighbourhood bar are excellent options. So what do you do? Nothing for now. Your birthday is two months away, so for now you’re keeping your options open.

That means you’re not committing to anything at this moment. You’re still shopping around, you’re still thinking, musing over your choices, collecting some more information – you are keeping your options open. Who knows? You might wake up tomorrow with an answer. For now, you’re keeping your options open – you don’t need to decide right now.

Now picture this: your friend Lola works as a shop assistant. She’s only working part time, though. She made sure to find a job where she only has to work five hours a day. Why? Because she’s also looking for a job as a Math teacher. Yeah, she happens to be good at Math and she thinks she can make some money teaching it. So she’s been interviewing at different schools and thinking about part time jobs in teaching.

But there’s more: Lola also works as a part-time phone psychic. That’s right. She’s got some psychic abilities and she was hired last month by a famous phone psychic network to give consultations to clients. She’s able to do that during her lunch hour, for about forty minutes, every day.

So Lola is pretty busy… She’s got two jobs and looking for a third one. She’s doing that because she doesn’t want to put all her eggs in one basket. She wants a safety net, so to speak. If something happens to the shop assistant job, she will have the other two jobs to fall back on. She could increase her psychic hours.

If the psychic job goes belly up, she’s got teaching and the shop job. Lola likes to be safe, so she’s not putting all her eggs in one basket. She has given this a lot of thought and she likes spreading the risk. She doesn’t want to have all her eggs in one basket. So that’s her plan: have three jobs to go to and if something goes wrong with one of them, she has the other two.

Tell me: do you have an example of your own for keeping your options open? I’m sure you do, so let me know in the comments! Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

no frills = só tem o básico

that’s part of the appeal = é uma das coisas que te atrai (no bar)

nibbles = comidas mais do tipo aperitivo

he’s fixed it up = ele reformou (melhorou) a garagem, nesse caso

to fall back on = para se apoiar

go belly up = dar errado

How are you? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo – em inglês, é claro :-) – sobre cinco situações em que eu perdi alguma coisa ou fui roubada. Veja se você consegue adivinhar onde foi que cada uma aconteceu: no Brasil ou em Londres, onde eu moro?

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o áudio 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!

So today I’ll give you five situations that I’ve been through in my life, all relating to losing a wallet or my cell phone… or having it stolen, and you try to guess whether each one of them happened when I still lived in Brazil, or more recently after I moved to London. Here we go:

There you go. These are five situations I’ve been through that involved either having something stolen, or leaving a personal belonging somewhere. Which ones do you think happened in Brazil and which ones in the UK?

I’ll tell you: #1, where I left my wallet in a toilet and it was returned to me, was in São Paulo when I was a college student. #2, where two women stole my phone at a café, was in London. #3, where I dropped my wallet on the way from the supermarket and someone found it and turned it in to the police happened in London. #4, where I left my phone on the bus and whoever found it kept it instead of returning it to the company, happened in São Paulo. And, finally, #5, where I left my laptop in a supermarket and they kept it safe for me was in London.

Did you guess correctly? These are situations everyone has been through before at least once – I think. What was your experience when you forgot your wallet or your phone somewhere? What happened? Let us know and talk to you next time.

How are you doing? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre idioms relacionados a dizer alguma coisa e dar opinião. Não perca!!

Se você está recebendo este episódio por email, clique aqui para ouvir o áudio 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 here’s our first idiom of today: has the cat got your tongue? Or just “cat got your tongue”? That is mostly similar to what we say in Brazil – see the title of today’s episode to see what I mean. People say “Cat got your tongue?” a lot when they sort of want someone to react to something and that person is keeping quiet.

For example, let’s say your friend Mary is very opinionated about tomatoes. She thinks everyone should eat green tomatoes. Yes, it’s very important to her that everyone around her knows that green tomatoes have some kind of nutrient that you can’t find anymore when the tomato has ripened and turned red. Mary keeps yapping about it everywhere you go. Whenever you’re around food she’ll say “They should be serving green tomatoes. Green tomatoes are so important for your health.”

So it turns out you all go to a party one night and there’s food at the party. You see a beautiful bowl of salad full of leaves and vegetables, including tomatoes. Red tomatoes. You know Mary is going to say something about it. So you’re just waiting. You’re helping yourself to the salad, of course – it looks delicious. However you fully expect Mary to say something.

Well, she doesn’t! This is so unexpected, it’s almost unsettling. You look at her and she’s helping herself to the salad, then she grabs a bit of pasta, all without saying a word about the lack of green tomatoes! All you can say is “Hey, Mary? Cat got your tongue? Where’s your commentary about the importance of green tomatoes in a healthy diet?”

And Mary says “Oh. Yes, for sure. They should have green tomatoes in this salad, absolutely. I just can’t stop thinking about our exam tomorrow! I’m so worried that I didn’t even pay attention to the colour of the tomato. You’re right, though. I’m going to have a chat with the caterers and explain to them why they should include green tomatoes in all dishes.”

“Cat got your tongue?” You could say this every time you’re in a meeting, or with a group of people and you expect someone to have an opinion about something that they’ve been waiting to voice, and then when the moment comes, they don’t. Of course, it can be a bit of a pushy thing to say and it can sound rude depending on the context, so be careful! You wouldn’t say that to someone you don’t know, for example.

Here’s another related idiom: chime in. Let’s say you’re having a discussion at work. It’s you and three colleagues, and you’re talking about next steps regarding a plan of action to increase sales. You’re presenting your ideas about the product, and they’re listening. However, you know that one of them, Richard, knows the product a little bit better than you do. You would like Richard to correct you if necessary – just in case you say something that is not entirely accurate. So you begin: “Let me tell you my ideas for increasing sales for our product – Richard, feel free to chime in if necessary.”

You’re asking Richard to contribute, to give his opinion, even correct you if he sees the need. “Feel free to chime in” is an invitation for someone to contribute and give their opinion or share their knowledge about the topic of discussion. We can also use this idiom any time someone gives their opinion in a discussion: “John and Nick were talking about the history of football, and Andy chimed in a few times. All three of them know quite a bit about football.”

Do you usually chime in in discussions? Let us know and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

helping yourself to the salad = (você está) se servindo de salada

unsettling = desconfortável de uma maneira que te deixa sem jeito

How are you? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre expressões com a palavra ODD. Não perca!!

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!

How about we take a quick look at the word odd? O-D-D, odd. One of the most common meanings of odd is… strange. Unusual, peculiar, strange, all of that. Now, I hear the word odd with that meaning way more frequently in British English than American English, so. For example, you may hear “What an odd coincidence!” or someone you know may be a bit blunt all of a sudden and say “You look odd in that jacket”.

Or something very unexpected happens, that you think was really not supposed to happen, and you say… “That’s odd. I left the bike inside the apartment. How come it’s outside now?”… or “Look! A racoon! That’s odd. I’ve lived here for twenty years and it’s the first time I’ve seen a racoon.” It this was the US, I would probably hear “strange” or “weird” rather than “odd”.

So I’ve talked about the word odds before, in the idiom “What are the odds?” Here’s another term with the same word: the odds are in your favour. You can understand odds, O-D-D-S, as chances or probability. So when someone says “I think your plan will be successful. The odds are in your favour!”, they’re saying it is likely that things will go your way. Likewise, if someone says the odds are against you, they think you’re going to face some challenges and the probability of your success doesn’t look very high.

So if you have to drive in the São Paulo traffic at rush hour for the first time, without a map or GPS, and you have one hour to get from a neighbourhood in the northern part of town to a neighbourhood in the southern part of town… The odds are against you. What if you have twenty minutes to buy five different kinds of fruit, and you’re taken to a supermarket and left there? I’d say the odds are in your favour.

And now, you have to complete a school assignment over the weekend and you’re afraid that you’re going to be so distracted by browsing the Internet that you’re not going to get anything accomplished. Well, you’re in luck because due to a technical glitch in the service provider, you’ll have no Internet access over the weekend. The odds are in your favour now!

And, finally, let’s say you have to find a particular John Smith who lives in… Canada. And, you know, you have five days to find him. That’s all the information you have: his name is John Smith and he lives in Canada. You don’t even know where in Canada he lives. And you’ve got five days. I would say the odds are against you on that one.

Of course, it’s always nice when the odds are against you and you go ahead and accomplish whatever it is that you wanted to accomplish anyway. Has that ever happened to you? Please tell me your story in the comments! Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

likewise = da mesma maneira

Hello! Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre o pânico causado por uma briga no metrô em Londres. Não deixe de ouvir :-)

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, everyone… I’d like to tell you guys today about an incident in London, and the general reaction to it. So what happened in the afternoon of November 24th, at the Oxford Circus tube station platform?

I’ll read out a couple of tweets written by an eye witness. Here’s the first one, by someone called Regan Warner:

https://twitter.com/reganwarner/status/934124249056411648

So this is basically what happened: for whatever reason, some guy started a fight by bumping into another guy. They exchanged words – I would assume they were probably insulting each other or, at the very least, not being very kind – and then one of them punched the other in the gut – that means belly. And the whole thing developed into a full-out fight.

Now, the second tweet:

https://twitter.com/reganwarner/status/934124719355424774

As you can see, people were sort of panicking. Someone fainted, kids were crying, people running away… And I immediately thought of fights I’ve witnessed in the past, in Brazil, and how people would sort of just step away a bit and kind of watch the fight unfold, really.

Well, I’m sure that’s what many people would have done at a different time and different context here in the UK as well. However, these is 2017 and this is London. We’ve had horrible terror attacks fairly recently – the biggest ones being on Westminster bridge and in London Bridge (the neighbourhood), both in the city of London, and a horrific one in Manchester during an Ariana Grande concert.

People are obviously on edge, as you would be, and when you’re basically trapped on a tube platform and have to walk for a few minutes before you’re even able to get out… A fight on a crowded platform will likely startle most people and send them into a panic.

Listen how this local TV personality, Olly Murs, recounted what happened on Twitter:

“Everyone get out of @Selfridges now gun shots!! I’m inside”

“I was shopping and then all of sudden the whole place went mad, I mean crazy people running & screaming towards exits.”

“We found a small office to hide to which loads of staff and people were saying there was shots fired”

What is interesting here is that he was inside Selfridges, a big department store on Oxford Street, and he thought he heard gun shots! And he reported the same kind of panic happening inside the store. The police, however, confirmed later that there had been NO gunfire and no casualties, apart from a woman who suffered minor injuries during the evacuation of the station. When we’re in a state of panic, we may hear and even see stuff that actually never happened… Of course, we also see and hear stuff that definitely happened!

Have you ever found yourself in that kind of situation, where something triggered a collective state of panic? Let me know and talk to you next time!

Vocabulary

full-out = complete, total

as you would be = como é de se esperar

watch the fight unfold = ver a briga acontecer (se desenvolver)

people are on edge = as pessoas estão tensas, nervosas

How are you doing?

Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre dois idioms super comuns no dia a dia do inglês. Não perca!

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, there’s a term in English that pretty much corresponds to what we say in Portuguese – “má fé”, and the term is bad faith. Check this out: my neighbour hired a contractor to do some work in her kitchen. After months had gone by, this guy was still working on her kitchen – and it was not a big kitchen, trust me. Part of the work he was supposed to do was install a heating system under the tiles on the floor. After almost three months – I kid you not – he said he was basically done. He also said that he had installed the heating system but there was some problem with it. It was just not working.

My neighbour spent a fortune on this system, so she was not happy. She got a hold of a woman who worked with this contractor before, and the woman told her the truth: this particular contractor wasn’t skilled in electrical systems. That means that he should not have agreed to install the heating system, right? So my neighbour had another contractor come over and take a look at the system. This new contractor said there was nothing wrong with it – the problem was the installation.

So there you go: the first contractor knew he didn’t have the skills and agreed to do the job anyway. Then, he didn’t do it right, and blamed the system instead of owning up to his lack of skills and returning the part of the payment that corresponded to that job (I think this is the least he could have done.) My neighbour spent her money on this guy, and then some more money on the second contractor for his professional opinion.

The first contractor acted in bad faith. To act in bad faith means to conduct yourself with a dishonest intent. Basically you know you’re doing something wrong, but you go ahead anyway with some kind of transaction – where the person at the receiving end will not get exactly what they are being led to believe they’re getting. I’m pretty sure this is something everyone has been through – dealing with someone who acted in bad faith and deceived you, gave you their word on something while knowing they weren’t going to hold up their end of the bargain.

So here’s another idiom, another term that is very appropriate as it helps explain what it means to act in bad faith: you enter a transaction with someone, you make a deal, you agree to collaborate in some way and you don’t hold up your end of the bargain. The difference here is that when you act in bad faith, you know, really, that you’re not going to be holding up your end of the bargain. You know it’s coming. You’re acting in bad faith.

Other times, people start out with good intentions, or so they say, but they end up not fulfilling their obligations or keeping their word about something they agreed on – here, again, they’re not holding up their end of the bargain. Whenever you don’t fulfill an obligation or any kind of agreement, whether or not you’re acting in bad faith, you’re not holding up your end of the bargain.

How about you tell me your examples? Let me know and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

Vocabulary

I kid you not = sem brincadeira

Hello! Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre idioms super comuns com as palavras light e lighten – 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 you know when you tell someone about a problem that you’re having, and then… they go ahead and make a joke about it? Or they think it’s not that bad – maybe you’re exaggerating. Doesn’t sound that important! You happen to know all the particulars of the problem though, and therefore you’re aware that it’s actually kinda serious.

That other person is making light of your problem. To make light of something means to treat something as if it were nothing. It’s unimportant. Ok, maybe it has some importance, but it’s not that serious. This is how someone sees that thing, if they’re making light of it. They treat it as something… trivial.

Maybe the other person doesn’t mean to be disrespectful, of course. Maybe they just don’t know or they don’t understand what you’re saying. You could say “I wish you wouldn’t make light of this issue. It’s actually quite serious.” And then they may ask you for further information and you can gauge whether or not to share additional details.

Let’s say you told your friend that you’re quite upset because you can’t find your pen anywhere. Yes, a pen. Your friend finds this funny and points out the fact that there’s an office supplies shop just around the corner where you can get ten pens for a dollar. You say “Well, I wish I could make light of it… It’s an heirloom pen that has been passed down in my family for generations.” Obviously now your friend understands the importance of the pen. It would actually have been a good idea to lead with that bit of information. Now your friend knows, so he’s not making light of your problem anymore. He actually thinks you should go to the police.

Now, our next idiom is a bit different in meaning and in form: lighten up, or, as you’ll hear often, lighten up a little. The word lighten derives from light, obviously, and “lighten up” can be used in the literal sense. An example: the walls in your bedroom are gray and it all looks a bit lifeless. If you hang a few colourful paintings on the wall, they might… brighten it up a little bit, and if you painted the walls white, that might lighten it up a bit. Do you hear a pattern? Brighten up, lighten up. Colourful paintings may brighten up your room and white walls will lighten it up. White walls may brighten it up as well, to be fair.

And what about a person? When someone lightens up, it means they’ve become less serious, or demanding, or worried – in other words, they have relaxed a little bit. If someone says to you “Lighten up!” basically they’re saying “Oh, chill” or “Relax!” Relax, however, can be totally friendly and even comforting, when you realise that someone’s tense and you want to assure them that everything is going to be fine. You can tell them “Hey, relax…” When someone tells you to lighten up, on the other hand, it’s like they’re kind of, sort of giving you a little tap on the shoulder and going “Please calm down. You’re overreacting a little bit. Lighten up!”.

So there you go! Let me know what you think of today’s idioms and talk to you next time.

Key expressions

Vocabulary

gauge = avaliar, medir

to lead with that bit of information = iniciar a história com essa informação

brighten (something) up = dar mais brilho, cores vivas, vivacidade a algo