Introduction
Learn useful idioms you can use to talk about social relations in a new English Express episode—a podcast from English Plus Podcast Network.
Interactive Transcript
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to a new English Express episode. In this episode, we will talk about idioms on social relations when we want to describe social relations, but we use idioms to do that. Well, we do that every day, and I’m not gonna tell you about idioms you will never use. No, just the idioms. You are going to need an everyday English.
[00:00:20] You can find the transcript of this episode on my website, englishpluspodcast.com. And now without further, let’s talk about social relations idioms.
[00:00:35] So first let’s talk about friends. We’re talking about social relations, right? And what’s better to talk about social relations than a friend, a good friend, actually. What do you think a good friend should be like? Well, a good friend is someone who will always be there for you when you need them. Don’t you agree?
[00:00:52] But what is that be there for? What’s be there for? Just be there. Or does it have a different meaning or does it have a deeper meaning? That’s what I’m talking about. A good friend is indeed someone who will always be there for you when you need them. And when you say be there for, that means be ready to help.
[00:01:10] Not just be there, not just stand there. When someone is there for you, that means this person is ready to help. If you decide to be there for people, for your friends, for your family, that means you are ready to help them. It’s not just be there, be in the room. That’s a different story. Be there for someone. That means be ready to help.
[00:01:27] And what about this one? You might not agree with it completely, but it’s an opinion. After all, you might agree, you might disagree. It’s up to you. But we are focusing on the idiom. Don’t forget about that. A good friend is someone who sees eye to eye with you on most things. What does that mean? When you see eye to eye with someone, that means you agree with them.
[00:01:46] Now, of course, a good friend doesn’t have to agree with you, especially not all the time, but you will need to have a lot of things in common, right? You need to see eye to eye on many things, maybe not most things, but many things. If you don’t have anything in common with this friend, I find it hard to believe that you will ever become good friends.
[00:02:05] But here, let’s focus on the idiom we just learned. See eye to eye with someone. That means you agree. And a good friend is not perfect and not the same as you. Obviously not, but is good at give and take when you are good at give and take. What does that mean? That means you are good at compromise and cooperation.
[00:02:25] You just say no and you are just stubborn and you never change your mind. You know you are good at give and take. When you are good at give and take, you have one of the qualities needed to be a good friend. So of course we’re not saying that these are the only qualities of a good friend, but these are some of them.
[00:02:40] And we learn to be there for someone, to see eye and eye with someone, and to give and take. And since we’re talking about social relations, let’s talk about something else and what we can say in certain situations. Social situations, obviously. How can you say no to an invitation, especially if you want to keep the invitation open for another time.
[00:03:00] Now, of course, sometimes you might be invited to something. It might not be a date. It might be just an invitation. But anyway, it’s a social invitation and you just don’t wanna say no. If you say no, that means this person is never gonna ask you again, especially if it is a date. But you really can’t do it this time, but you want to keep this invitation open for another time.
[00:03:20] What do you say? What’s the idiom? What’s the expression? You can say, can I take a rain check? Can I take a rain check? That means keep the invitation open. That means I can’t do it right now, or I can’t do it when you want to do it, but I would really love to do it at some other time. I want to keep the invitation open.
[00:03:36] Can I take a rain check? That’s an expression. Let’s talk about another situation. What can you say if someone invites you to an event that is dependent on something else, such as good weather? What do you say? Because you really want to go and you are really hoping that the weather is good and you can go.
[00:03:52] So you can use the expression, fingers crossed, or let’s keep our fingers crossed. Now you don’t have to say, let’s keep our; you can just say, fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Because you are hoping for the best. That’s the meaning of this expression, fingers crossed. And finally, if someone offers to pay for drinks or a meal, but you really want to pay yourself, what do you say?
[00:04:12] You can simply say, this is on me. When you say, this is on me, that means I’ll pay. And never say that if you don’t really mean it, because people might simply give in and tell you, okay, if you don’t really mean it, don’t say it. Because when you say it and you mean it, you will have no problem. When people say, no problem, okay, you pay.
[00:04:30] But when you. This is on me. That means I will pay. So don’t forget, we talked about take a rain check, fingers crossed and on me. And of course we talked about a good friend and I hope you learned something useful in today’s episode because that was everything I wanted to share with you in this English Express episode.
[00:04:46] Don’t forget to visit my website, english plus podcast.com, not only for the transcript of this episode, but you can also check on the great learning opportunities you can find there. All the links you need are in the description of the episode. So what are you waiting? Take your English and learning to the next level and never stop learning with English Plus.
[00:05:03] Thank you very much for listening to this episode. This is your host, Danny. I will see you next time.
0 Comments