چگونه خودمان را مانند یک بومی انگلیسی زبان توصیف کنیم؟

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 10: Teaching Tuesday.

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real native English conversation.

Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel’, coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn how to express that you want to do something and we’ll give you a couple of phrases to express yourself in a more native-like way.

Okay. So in our last episode, in Episode 9: Meeting Monday, we talked about the dangers of falling in love abroad and we want to pull out some phrases, some expressions that can help you communicate better with native speakers.

So we want to start with the expression… Gabby: ‘Tongue-in-cheek.’ Our title for Episode 9, “Is it Dangerous to Fall in Love Abroad?” is a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ title because we’re not talking about romance.

We’re talking about getting to know a culture and really appreciating or falling in love with a place, um, and the culture, not one person. So it’s not a serious title. It’s a humorous title, so something that’s ‘tongue-in-cheek’ is funny or humorous, not serious.

Lindsay: Yeah. And then we also used the term ‘rich experience’.

So we said that going abroad is a ‘rich experience’ and when something’s a ‘rich experience’ it’s intense. We get a lot out of it.

Yeah, you learn a lot. Uh, you might have many different experiences within that ‘rich experience.’ Like, like studying abroad is a ‘rich experience’ or living abroad is a ‘rich experience’ and within that time period, you’re gonna (going to) have a lot of new experiences, activities, and so on.

So just um, a very diverse and intense experience would be a ‘rich experience.’

Right. And we can also use this to talk about – for example a piece of chocolate cake.

Yeah.

that’s just very, it’s very intense. And it’s made with lots of extreme flavors.

Right. Very sweet. Um, very – it could be very fattening, but it tastes good.

Yummy.

Yummy. Yeah.

Rich. It’s a rich piece of cake.

Yep.

Good.

Our next phrase is “I’ve been meaning to do something.” When we use the verb ‘to mean’ in this way, (it) means that I’ve been wanting to do something. I’ve been intending, or planning, or thinking about doing something.

So I’ve been meaning to do something and you wanna (want to) use it in that tense, to like, you know, in the – what is it?

The present perfect.

Present perfect. Exactly. So I’ve been meaning to um, travel to Turkey, for example. What’s something you’ve been meaning to do?

Yeah, like you’ve been meaning to return someone’s phone call.

Yeah, it could be something small or something like more longer-term.

Usually maybe um, like on a day-to-day basis. Like “I’ve been meaning to travel to Turkey” is kind of a long term…

Yeah.

bigger idea.

Yeah. You can say that too. Or you’ve been meaning to email someone. Or just you’ve been wanting to do something.

Exactly, but you just haven’t done it yet, but you will soon.

Yeah. Perfect. And another one was ‘to get to’ something. For example I said, you know, “I’ve been meaning ‘to get to’ one of those meetups,” right. So this actually means to actually go to one of those meetups, right?

Can you think of another example of where we would use this?

‘To get to’ um, to one of those meetups, yeah, it’s just to finally arrive. It’s a little different than ‘to go.’ I mean the feeling – well, the meaning is very similar, but the feeling is different. It’s like you’ve been meaning to go, so finally you’ve made the time to get to a meetup.

Yeah, that’s right. It kind of has this feeling of like achieving the ability to go.

Right.

It has a sense of like achievement to it right?

Yeah.

Or like crossing a task off of your list.

Yeah, yeah, whereas going is not special necessarily, but ‘to get to’ somewhere is yeah, the achievement. You’ve reached your destination. So before we end, let’s just give you a second to repeat after us. Um, the first phrase was ‘tongue-in-cheek.’ And Lindsay, what was our second one?

The next one was a ‘rich experience.’

Next, ‘I’ve been meaning to do something.’ Lindsay: And the next one was ‘to get to’ a meetup.

Awesome. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you soon.

Okay. So I have a question for you guys today. Are you wondering how to maximize your time and learn English as quickly as possible and as easily as possible?

I know everyone’s busy these days, so you might be wondering this. So here’s one way. We have a free e-book and we have your – some top – the top ten ways to learn English with a podcast.

So we’d like to offer that to you as a gift, for, just for being a listener of the All Ears English Podcast and you can get that by going to www.allearsenglish.com/free.

Thanks for listening to the All Ears English Podcast. We’re here to help you learn English and you can help us by leaving a five star review on iTunes.

See you next time.