By yourself vs on your own

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 217: “’By Yourself’ versus ‘On Your Own’ in English.”

In today’s episode, you’ll listen to us talk about our travel experiences and we’ll also talk about some different activities that we like to do in groups or on our own.

Hey, guys. Remember your English is a Porsche and if you wanna (want to) keep tuning up your Porsche, if you wanna (want to) know all of the TOP 15 FIXES today, go straight to AllEarsEnglish.com/TOP15. And you can get that in a free e-book right away.

Hey, Gabby.

Hey, Lindsay. What’s up?

Not much. Feeling good, feeling good.

Great.

Excited to talk about traveling today and accomplishments. Do you think it’s better, Gabby, to travel, (um), by yourself? Or do you think it’s better to travel in a group?

Well, I think it really depends. That’s a great question. I think it depends on the goal of your trip. So, for example, (um), the first step I would say is to think about what you want to get out of your vacation or your travel. So if I am in a reflective mood, sometimes at the end of the year I like to just reflect and think about my goals for the next year and that’s something that I like to do on my own or by myself.

By yourself.

Right. Exactly. And so sometimes I like to travel somewhere that’s really quiet and just have some quiet time by myself, but, (um), if I want to take a trip where I’m gonna (going to) have some fun, then I definitely want to travel with a group and share the experiences and maybe, (you know), go out to party with friends. It’s definitely not as fun if I go out to party by myself.

Right. So if you’re traveling on New Year’s, you don’t necessarily wanna (want to) be by yourself. Maybe some people want to be by (their-), by themselves on New Year’s, who knows. But in general, you don’t wanna (want to) be by yourself. I would say the same thing. I think it depends on… I think it also depends on the trip, not just the purpose of the trip, but the actual trip.

Yeah.

(Um), a few years ago I hiked the Camino de Santiago.

Yeah.

…which I’m sure a lot of our listeners in Spain know about.

Yeah.

It was awesome, but I’m so thankful I did it on my own because it is, it’s a reflective trip. It’s a spiritual trip.

Nice.

(I mean), it’s the kind of trip that you… when you wanna (want to) work through something in your mind, you do it. You don’t do it with a noisy group.

Yeah.

(Um) because you’ll disturb other people, you’ll disturb yourself, and that’s just not the point. Everyone is by themselves on the Camino de Santiago or maybe they’re in a group of two. But the people I think who really benefit the most tend to be on their own.

Yeah. So…

And…

Oh, go ahead.

(Uh-huh).

No, you know my friend Anne. (Uh), Anne and Amy are mutual friends.

(Um), they both went to Spain together to hike the (uh) Camino de Santiago and they, they went together, but they chose… they, they made the decision together to, (uh), do portions of the trail by themselves.

Right because maybe they got there and they realized it’s really a solo journey.

Exactly.

They may have thought – who knows what they, what they thought before they went, but when you get there, you realize it’s a solo journey.

Yeah, yeah.

(You know).

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Now did you…

Yeah.

…I, I know you told me that you hiked Mt. Fuji. Is that something you did on your own?

No. So that one I did, (uh), with two other people, so in a group.

Okay.

And that’s the thing I wouldn’t… Yeah, that was a little bit more of a group thing.

(You know), you need the supports. You’re…

Maybe…

…climbing a mountain.

Maybe for safety, right.

For safety…

Yeah.

…because one of us – ironically, the guy who… the guy in the group who was in the best shape, he’s really a jock, a basketball guy of six feet tall – he was the one who ended up with altitude sickness and had to sit down and was totally dizzy. We had to feed him pills.

Oh my god.

…(you know), in his mouth. He couldn’t even hold the bottle of pills.

Wow.

(Um), so he needed us in that case. So that’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t recommend doing by yourself. And you’re not. And it’s so many people are climbing Mt. Fuji anyways in the summer, and so you’re likely to be around a lot of people.

Sure.

But it’s good if you have a group of good friends and you’re not on your own.

Yeah. So…

Yeah.

…we talked a little bit about traveling by yourself versus in group. What are some other things that you like to do by yourself?

(Uhn), well, let’s see. So, (I mean), business building is something that I’ve seen the benefits of working on a team and I’ve also seen the benefits of working alone, (right).

I like both.

(I mean), I love working on a team because there’s the (crea-), creative aspect that you have when you put two heads together…

Sure.

…so you’re not by yourself coming up with everything. On the other hand, working on your own, you have that ability to make decisions quickly, (right) which is something that we’re talking about these days trying to clear out our bottlenecks here.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And learning language can be something that you do both on your own and with the help of others. So…

Absolutely.

…I guess, (you know), there’s a time for doing things on your own and a thing – and a (ti-), (eh), and a time for doing things with others in a group.

(Um), just some other quick examples of things I like to do on my own would be reading. (I mean), I think reading is more of a solo activity. You can go at your own pace.

No one else can read the book for you.

No. (Um), jogging. I, I, I tend to be a slow jogger, so if I run with someone else, it can be good because they, they push me to go faster, but I tend to just enjoy going at my own pace when I’m by myself.

How ‘bout (about) biking? Would you prefer to…

Yeah.

…bike by yourself or with someone?

Well, (um), I actually enjoy biking in groups. I think it can be fun, but if I’m trying to do a workout, I guess I’d prefer to go at my own pace by myself.

Yeah. Yeah, I think for sure, for sure. It really depends. so it depends on where you’re going, the (t-), the trip as we were saying before…

Yeah. The purpose.

…the place you’re gonna (going to) – and the purpose.

Yeah.

…your state of mind. What kind of state of mind are you looking for? I think both can be good.

Yeah.

(I mean), like we said before, traveling by yourself allows you to meet new people, which is awesome.

Yeah.

(Um), but traveling, (um), (you know), at the same time with other people can be good too. So…

Yeah. So in this episode, this is actually Number 2 of our TOP 15 FIXES and in this episode, we’re talking about two phrases that are pretty much interchangeable.

They’re – I don’t know if you caught them, but they’re ‘by yourself’ and ‘on your own’. So that’s why we’ve been talking about activities that you might do in a group or by yourself, individually, alone, independently.

So we were talking a little bit before recording if there’s any difference between the two of them, but (I mean), we, we pretty much decided that they’re interchangeable. (Um), perhaps with some very small, minute detailed difference, but pretty much 99% interchangeable, right Lindsay?

Yeah. I think so. So I think the important thing to get from this episode guys is to remember to not confuse the prepositions. I hear students mixing them up…

Yeah.

…by changing – (Um), I don’t wanna (want to) repeat a mistake that I hear.

Don’t do it, don’t do it.

Okay, okay. So we won’t do it. So I hear mistakes all the time by getting the prepositions confused all the time.

Yeah.

So just learn the chunks and listen to this episode three times.

Yeah.

If you can stand it.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, guys, if you’re listening right now. Fill in the blank. Say it out loud if you, if you can. On my . Okay. By my . Okay.

They got it.

That was awesome. Good job.

So, so there we go. We have some great examples, and the key guys, is just listen to the – go out and practice, try to use them and then it’ll become a habit just like anything else. Learning languages is just building habits.

Yeah, very cool and if you’re interested in all the TOP 15, come to AllEarsEnglish.com/TOP15. That’s T-O-P 15.

See you guys soon.

See you.

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