O podcast de hoje mostra como dizer coisas assim: “Calma, você está exagerando!” e “Fazer tempestade em copo d’água”.

Transcrição

Hey, how’s it going today? This is Ana Luiza with 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, picture this: your friend finished reading a book last week and he loved it. So two days ago he told you about the book and you asked him if you could borrow the book. He said “Sure! Here it is”. So you grabbed the book and then you walked to the nearest bus stop, waited a while and when your bus came, you hopped on.

But here’s what happened then: there were no seats available so you just stood near the back exit and you decided to check out your friend’s book while riding the bus. That was a bad idea. The bus driver was apparently in a hurry and, at one point, he made a really sharp turn. In that exact moment, you were trying to hold on to the railing with one hand, and trying to turn a page with the other hand. As the driver made the turn, the book just flew off your hand and out the window. Your friend’s book? It was gone in one second.

So you got home and first thing you did was, you gave your friend a call and told him what happened. Now, people react differently to these things, right? Let’s talk about two opposite reactions people may have.

The first one would be like this: you call your friend and he says “Oh, no worries. It’s not that big a deal.” Your friend says this is not that big a deal. When something is not a big deal, that means it’s not that important, it doesn’t have serious consequences, it’s something that can be easily fixed. You know, it’s not a serious problem, it’s not a big deal, it is not that big a deal.

You know that last sentence – “it’s not that big a deal”? This isn’t very intuitive for us, Brazilians or Portuguese speakers in general. If we try to translate that literally into Portuguese, we’ll end up with something that doesn’t make sense. So, don’t do that! Maybe one day I’ll do a podcast on that particular structure, but for now just know that “it’s not that big a deal” means something like “não é tão sério assim”. You can say “This isn’t a big deal” or “No big deal” or “It’s not that big a deal”, for example.

Now, maybe your friend has the opposite reaction. You tell him you lost the book and he goes ballistic. “He goes ballistic” – that means, he gets insanely angry. He starts yelling at you over the phone! And you tell him “Jack, relax! I’m gonna get you a new copy immediately! In fact, I’m gonna get you two copies of that book.” But that’s not good enough for your friend. He’s still mad at you, and you ask him “Don’t you think you are overreacting? It was an accident!”. Listen again to this question: Don’t you think you are overreacting? This is a very common use of the word “overreact”. Don’t you think you are overreacting?

So, can you guess what overreact means? You think your friend is overreacting. That means that you think he is exaggerating in his anger. You were holding his book and it flew out the bus window. It happens! Why is he that angry? It’s not that big a deal. I mean, you would understand if he got a little upset. But he’s so mad, he’s yelling at you.