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quarta-feira, 13 de março de 2013

Phrasal Verb: TO DIG UP

In Portuguese, when we wanna refer to someone insisting on finding out the truth, we may choose to say something like: Ele cavou, cavou até descobrir a verdade. In English, it's the same thing. We just have to use the phrasal verb TO DIG UP. Suppose for instance you're a columnist struggling to find out about a supposed affair of a celebrity. When you finally get it, you comment with one of your coworkers:
I eventually DUG UP the truth about the affair.
O phrasal verb TO DIG UP também pode ser levado literalmente. Como você já deve saber, o verbo TO DIG se refere ao ato de cavar. Junto com a preposição UP, remete ao ato de cavar e trazer algo para a superfície. Policiais, por exemplo, podem cavar buracos para descobrir evidência criminal (como corpos). Veja esse exemplo:
The police DUG UP a body.

Phrasal verb: TO DASH DOWN/OFF

Suppose your mom has told you to go to the supermarket to buy a dozen of different ingredients, stop by the bakery to buy some cookies and drop off your little brother at school. It's too much for you to remember. So you decide to DASH DOWN a memo to prevent you from messing things up.

O phrasal verb TO DASH DOWN se refere ao ato de escrever algo de forma ligeira, prática, geralmente um bilhete, uma nota. É também possível utilizar esse phrasal verb para se referir a algo mais elaborado como um relatório. O que é necessário manter em mente é que esse relatório (ou qualquer outro tipo de texto) será escrito de maneira bem apressada. Veja este exemplo:
He DASHED DOWN the report in a couple of hours.
É curioso notar também que, em ambos os casos, TO DASH OFF pode substituir o phrasal verb TO DASH DOWN. Ou seja, you DASH OFF the report, you DASH OFF a memo.
A diferença é que TO DASH OFF também pode se referir ao ato de deixar um lugar rapidamente, como em:
It's late - I'm going to DASH OFF home.

segunda-feira, 11 de março de 2013

Phrasal verbs: TO PAL UP

There's a girl living next door you've never talked to. The problem is, both of you are really shy and although you two would like to become friends nobody has had the heart to strike a conversation yet. Talking to another friend though you explain that there finally came a chance for you to become friends with her. She's been hired from the same company you work for. You say:
We will finally have the chance to PAL UP when I start working with her.
O phrasal verb to pall up significa se tornar amigo. Há também alguns outros phrasal verbs formados a partir do verbo PAL. Por exemplo: to pal about/around significa passar tempo com alguém. Lembra muito o tão famoso phrasal verb TO HANG OUT, não é? veja alguns exemplos:
We used to PAL ABOUT when we were at school.
We PALLED AROUND at university.

sábado, 9 de março de 2013

What the idiom "I hate to eat and run" means and when it should be used

In spite of being very busy lately, you agree with your friends inviting you to go out to dinner. It's supposed to be a lovely and pleasing social event, but you can't turn your thoughts away from your agenda. Actually you're still to get a lot of things done today, which puts you in a very uncomfortable dilemma with your friends: How can you leave a social event sooner after eating without being offensive?

There's an idiom that comes in handy in situations like that. All you have to say is: (I) hate to eat and run, as in: I'm sorry guys, I hate to eat and run, but it's getting late. Did you understand what's been just said here? If you take it literally, it's got a very funny meaning. When you say you hate to eat and run, it reminds us of the bad sensation of running with a full belly. You don't have to literally run to leave an event after eating, but it gives people the impression you're really in a hurry.

quinta-feira, 7 de março de 2013

Idiom: Tomorrow's another day

Your friend's been desperately looking for a job. Since he got fired from his previous job, the one he was so passionate about, he's had a hard time trying to get another one. Today, when you were in the streets you happened to bump into him and he was just about to do an interview in a big company. You were very happy for hearing that and said he should call you right after he's finished with the interview to let you know how it was.

When you get home, you receive a call from him sounding very depressed. He says the interviewer didn't even bother to give him some hope.They said he wasn't the type they were looking for and therefore that was one more job opportunity he wouldn't be getting. In the attempt to calm him down, you tell him: Tomorrow's another day. Don't worry!

You might think that what you just said was a little obvious because, after all, everybody knows tomorrow's always another day. But as an expression, it means that things might turn out better or there might be another opportunity in the future. What you actually meant was that your friend will wake up in the next morning and have a whole new chance to chase around after as many interviews as he wants. So there's no reason to be discouraged.

EngVid: Já ouviu falar?

EngVid.com tem se tornado um canal de vídeos muito conhecido por estudantes de Inglês no Youtube. Mas como precaução, caso você ainda não tenha ouvido falar dele, essa é uma grande oportunidade de você melhorar o seu Inglês de forma bem prática e divertida. Lá, você encontrará diversos professores nativos dando aulas sobre centenas ou milhares de assuntos que, dependendo da sua necessidade, vai cair como luva pra você. O bom de tudo isso é que, enquanto você aprende sobre gramática ou diversos outros assuntos que parecem soar um pouco mais monótono, você tem a oportunidade de treinar seu ouvido para o rítmo e pronúncia dos professores.

Hoje, como o canal EngVid faz parte dos meus favoritos no Youtube, eu fui informado de um novo vídeo falando sobre como melhorar a habilidade de listening de um aluno num nível mais avançado. Eu achei que as dicas foram preciosíssimas para quem, assim como eu, preza tanto a habilidade de entender o Inglês falado e informal dos nativos. Confira o vídeo você mesmo:


quarta-feira, 6 de março de 2013

Página do Inglês Favorito no Facebook

Já faz alguns dias que eu adicionei o botão curtir do Facebook na sidebar do blog. Eu achei que isso seria necessário porque, como você deve imaginar, ajuda muito na divulgação. Já que as atualizações do blog acontecem em rítmo diário, as pessoas que curtem/seguem a nossa página lá no Facebook tem a chance de serem avisadas sempre que algo novo é publicado aqui. Se você tem acompanhado o blog há algum tempo ou está aqui pela primeira vez (e gostou do que viu), clique aqui para ser direcionado e curtir a nossa nova página no Facebook. Thanks a lot.


Idioms with the word KNEE

You're now a fiancée planning on your bachelor party with your friends. Everybody has a lot of ideas for that special night, but you're very convinced it's going to be a very simple event. Your friends, on the other hand, have a total different perspective towards it. They have actually crossed the line when one of them suggested bringing a striper into the party, and everybody agreed joyfully. With a knee-jerk reaction, however, you rained on their parade by saying immediately no.

But what's a knee-jerk reaction by the way? To answer that question, let's get back to the story and imagine that what was suggested by your friends sounded so absurd that, as an automatic or reflex reaction, you answered no. That's what a knee-jerk reaction is: an instant, instinctive response to a situation. People usually tend to have that kind of reaction when something affects their beliefs.

Now that you've learned a brand new expression, let's go to the second idiom of the day: Weak at the knees. Let's suppose for instance you're to give a lecture in a couple of days and you're not that confident about it. You feel the subject you'll be covering is not very clear in your mind and certainly that's gonna affect the quality of your speech. When the day of the lecture has come and you're finally confronted by all of those looks of judgment, you panic. Actually you feel like you're going weak at the knees.

When you go weak at the knees, it's very easy to understand that what is actually happening here is that you're having such a powerful emotional reaction to something that it feels like you might fall over.  That's when we usually have that famous jittery feeling, sweaty palms, jagged nerves, choking insecurity and a heart pounding out of our chest. All of those emotions mixed together make us go weak at the knees.

Now I wanna know from you. Tell me about the times when you had a knee-jerk reaction or when you were so nervous that you went weak at your knees. Talk to you next time!

One more great website for you to explore and improve your English skills

The website I am going to be sharing today with you guys is one of the very first things i found out during my studies in English. Since then I've never lost a chance to visit it. It is StumbleUpon.com what I am talking about. Just by its name, can you imagine what that website is about or what its concept is?

When you stumble upon something, you find something accidentally. See this example: I STUMBLED UPON these photos when i was clewring my room up. That's just what the website is about. When you're on StumbleUpon.com you've got the chance to explore the whole internet without knowing for sure what you're going to see next. All you have to do is to click the stumble it button and a new page will appear for you to explore. You can also choose from a set of categories which websites you'd be most interested in. It is addicting because the more you find out, the more curious you become. And everybody knows internet has content enough to keep you going forever. For us ESL students, it doesn't only represent a source of entertainment and knowledge, but a great way to practice most of the skills, especially reading one.

So enjoy it! It's StumbleUpon.com

A couple of expressions with the word rock

To rock the boat: If you try to take this idiom literally, you'd imagine someone in an actual boat trying to affect its balance by rocking it. But the meaning of this idiom goes beyond that concept. Imagine for example you're in a group discussion and, even though you're trying as hard as you can to preserve the harmony, there's someone else trying to take it away by playing off one against the other. You're so pissed off by that person that you end up telling him: Don't rock the boat! Can you imagine what's been just said? You just told him he shouldn't be trying to destabilise the group by making trouble. The same way that it happens to a real boat, if you rock the boat in any situation, you lose its balance.

The next idiom may not be a very polite thing to say. Actually it's used to describe somebody's intelligence in a very rude way. If you say someone is dumb as a rock, it means that besides having no common sense between you two, you think he's very very stupid. If it makes any easier to understand, in Portuguese we say it like "você é burro feito uma pedra".

Imagine you're in a very stormy relationship. You fight a lot, there's hardly a common sense and you think nothing else could happen to make it worse. Well, soon you find out you're very mistaken about that. Your partner has actually been cheating on you and just now you've discovered. When things like that happens and makes you feel like you've reached a point in life or in a relationship where things could not get any worse, you could say you've hit rock bottom. In Portuguese, we'd say "você está no fundo do poço".

Phrasal verbs: Gang up on/against

Hey guys. Today I want to talk about phrasal verbs. Unfortunately there's a very known practice by the name of bullying. You must have heard of that term because it's become very popular throughout the world. I'm talking about it because the phrasal verbs we'll be studying today have everything to do with it. They can convey the idea of intimidating others.

If somebody said "they BULLIED him because of the way he spoke", you'd pretty much understand that the verb to bully means to intimidate or harass someone. However, there's a phrasal verb that can replace the term bully, as in "They GANGED UP ON him because of the way he spoke. The verb gang reminds us, brazilians, of what we call "gangue", which according to Dictionary.com refers to a group of youngsters or adolescents who associate closely, often exclusively, for social reasons, especially such a group engaging in delinquent behaviour. So if a group gangs up on someone, they're actually harassing or intimidating him. You could also use the phrasal verb TO GANG UP AGAINST someone to say the same thing, as in "They GANGED UP AGAINST me because I wouldn't accept their ideas".

But when you're part of a group, you're not necessarily a hooligan. Maybe it's a group sharing the same ideals fighting against something or someone. People can share the same line of thought for example to try to stop a system. See this sentence: They GANGED UP to try to stop the new system. As you might have noticed, TO GANG UP can also mean to act together as a group in opposition. People usually GANG UP in order to defend their interests.

Can you rap that fast?

I know today's post has nothing that useful to offer, but even so I decided to share this video with you guys just to make you wanna keep practicing your speaking skill. Take a look at how fast that pale kid raps! If you keep practicing, that's just how you'll be in a while.

terça-feira, 5 de março de 2013

Phrasal verbs com o verbo ZONE

To zone pode ser um verbo menos conhecido, menos ainda se formos considerá-lo dentro de um phrasal verb. No post de hoje, entretanto, nós vamos lidar justamente com esses phrasal verbs formados com o verbo to zone. É interessante notar que zone é uma palavra que, dependendo da sua posição numa sentença, pode ser tanto um verbo quanto um substantivo. Como substantivo, significa zona, como em littoral zone (zona litoral), buffer zone (zona de segurança), disaster zone ou marginal zone. Como verbo, um dos primeiros significado de to zone (isoladamente) que você irá encontrar num dicionário é relacionado ao ato de marcar um espaço/local específico através de uma faixa, exatamente o que os policiais fazem na cena/zona de um crime.

O que interessa para nós hoje, no entanto, são os phrasal verbs TO ZONE IN (ON) e TO ZONE OUT. Se você prestar atenção no formato desses phrasal verbs, especialmente as suas preposições IN e OUT, perceberá que se tratam de dois phrasal verbs indicadores de ações opostas. Quando você zone in, por exemplo, você passa a prestar atenção em algo (Conversa, apresentação, palestra) depois de algum tempo desconcentrado/desligado; quando você zone out, você deixa de prestar atenção em alguma coisa e entra naquele estado mental de "sonhar acordado".

Isso pode acontecer dezenas de vezes com estudantes num dia só: uma hora você está prestando muita atenção, outras horas seus dilemas pessoas lhe levam mentalmente pra bem longe da aula. Preste atenção nesta sentença: I was bored at first but then ZONED IN when things started getting more interesting. (Eu estava entediado no começo, mas depois eu passei a prestar atenção quando as coisas começaram a ficar mais interessante) Se você quiser ser mais específico em relação ao que você deixou de prestar atenção, você adiciona a preposição ON. Veja: I ZONED IN ON what they were saying when they started gossiping. (Eu passei a prestar atenção no que eles estavam dizendo quando começaram a fofocar) Perceba que nesses dois exemplos dados o que aconteceu foi que, depois de algum tempo desligado, algo na conversa ou situação lhe chama a atenção e você passa a ficar ligado, você ZONE IN or ZONE IN ON alguma coisa.

Agora ficou moleza. Se ZONE IN indica a ação de pretar atenção depois de um certo período de tempo, ZONE OUT significa justamente se desligar/deixar de prestar atenção depois de um certo período de tempo. Veja este exemplo: She ZONED OUT during the lecture because it was so boring. (Ela se desligou durante a palestra porque estava muito entediante) TO ZONE OUT, além desse dignificado, pode se referir a um tipo de situação um pouquinho diferente. Por exemplo: as vezes, você intencionalmente decide se desassociar de uma situação que não lhe interessa, ou lhe ofende, lhe agride ou te entedia. Então você ZONE OUT da situação. Veja este exemplo: I put some ambient music on and ZONED OUT. (Eu coloquei música ambiente e me desliguei)

That's it for today guys. Have a nice day!

segunda-feira, 4 de março de 2013

Idioms com a palavra SHOULDER

Hoje eu trago pra vocês algumas expressões bem úteis com a palavra shoulder. Caso você desconheça essa palavra, shoulder significa ombro em Português. Tentei lembrar de algumas expressões idiomáticas na nossa língua com a palavra ombro e não consegui pensar em muitas. A língua Inglesa, por outro lado, tem feito um uso mais criativo e idiomático dela e, talvez por isso, seja um pouco mais desafiador para nós, brasileiros, associarmos essas expressões que não se encontram na nossa língua (pelo menos necessariamente com a palavra ombro) ao seu sentido.

A primeira expressão é to rub shoulders. Quando alguém rubs shoulders com outras pessoas, significa que ela tem relações mais próximas com elas, convive de perto. Algo a se notar, entretanto, é que geralmente você rub shoulder com pessoas de poder, famosas, que representem algum tipo de importância ou consideração social/profissional. Veja este esse exemplo: Art dealers rub shoulders with people from all the professions. (Comerciantes de arte convivem de perto com pessoas de todas as profissões.)

To rub shoulders me lembrou da expressão tu rub the wrong way. Apesar dessa segunda expressão não conter a palavra shoulder como sugerido no título do post, as duas expressões compartilham o mesmo verbo "to rub". Achei que valeria a pena abrir uma exceção aqui e citá-la ainda neste post. Sabe quando você encontra alguém pela primeira vez e não bate a química? Em português, você poderia encontrar algumas forma de transmitir esse sentimento, como: Eu não fui com a cara daquele sujeito ou O santo dele não bateu com o meu. To rub the wrong way passa exatamente esse sentido. Veja: That waiter rubs me the wrong way. He's too impatient. (Eu não fui com a cara daquele garçom. Ele é muito impaciente.)

Focando novamente nas expressões contendo a palavra shoulder, vamos à próxima expressão: to stand head and shoulder above. Não é muito intuitiva, não é mesmo? Mas imagine que ultimamente você tem se doado de corpo e alma aos estudos de Inglês. Como se é de imaginar, finalmente tem notado resultados positivos e consegue sentir mais confiança ao se expressar na língua estrangeira. Na sua sala de Inglês, entretanto, seus colegas parecem não demonstrar tanto encorajamento e disposição para fazer o mesmo que você e você acaba se destacando em relação a eles. Seu professor, em uma conversa informal, comenta sua performance para um colega de trabalho dizendo: With his amazing dedication on the subject, John stood head and shoulders above the rest. (Com sua dedicação no assunto, John se destacou do resto) O sentido literal do idiom não interessa tanto assim, muito menos a sua origem. Só entenda que quando alguém stands head and shoulders above the rest, está na verdade se destacando, é conhecido por ser o melhor.

Nossa última expressão é a weight off one's shoulders. Na introdução do post de hoje, eu comentei que eu encontrei um pouco de dificuldade pra lembrar de algumas expressões contento a palavra ombro no Português que correspondessem as que achamos na língua Inglesa. O último idiom de hoje, no entanto, representa uma exceção. Se eu te disser, por exemplo, que concluir a faculdade foi um peso a menos nos meus ombros, você entenderia facilmente que o que eu quis dizer na verdade foi que eu me aliviei de uma obrigação, algo que me preocupava muito ou me deixava cansado. No Inglês, poderíamos dizer essa sentença da mesma forma: Finishing college was a weight off my shoulders. (Concluir a faculdade foi um peso a menos sobre os meus ombros.) Como dizemos praticamente da mesma maneira na nossa língua, essa expressão é mais auto-explicativa. Só preste atenção a maneira correta de usá-la e voilá.

That's it for today guys. Hope you liked it.

Idioms com a palavra SWEET

Those who have followed my blog for a longer period of time must have realized how obsessed with idioms I am. I try to go with other topics sometimes, but I'm always pulled back to idioms by some force even I don't know. I think that happens because idioms are a great way to learn how to speak naturally and simply because they're fun to learn. Usually I try to arrange the idioms by a word in common. Today's idioms aren't going to be different. This time I'll bring you some of them with the word SWEET. Can you think of anyone already? Let's see!

If someone tried to sweet-talk to you, would you know why they'd do such thing? The idiom to sweet-talk must be deliberately deceiving because sweet generally is a word attached to a positive and nice meaning. In the idiom to sweet-talk, however, it actually means to use persuasion, charm or even sweetness to get what you want out of someone else. If your boy/girlfriend is sweet-talking to you, they're just using their charm to get what they want or talk you into something. Not a nice thing to do huh?

To have a sweet tooth is our second idiom. This one is very simple. It's generally used to describe children, but doesn't mean it can't be used with adults too. I am one of those who have a sweet tooth for example. That means I like eating food with lots of sugar in it. Do you have a sweet tooth too? I guess so. Who doesn't?

Suppose now you've been dating this girl for a while. Suddenly she tells you she's not loving you anymore and actually chooses to be with someone else. As soon as she leaves you and turns to this other guy, you discover that he didn't accept her as his girlfriend and tells her she was just fun. After being rejected, she tries to come back to you but of course you don't take her back. Talking to a friend of yours, you try to describe the sensation you felt when she came back: I was feeling very blue before I found out what had actually happened to her. Now all I can say is that revenge is sweet. This idiom is very self-explanatory because, as you might have noticed, what was actually said is that the feelling that comes after revenging yourself on someone gives you some pleasure.

That's it for today guys. Talk to you next time!

sábado, 2 de março de 2013

Expressões com a palavra skin

I was wondering what interesting expressions with the word skin I could think of. When I had just started studying english, I remember I got puzzled by the idiom I found in one of Frank Sinatra's songs that goes like "I've got you under my skin". As any beginner student I tried to figure it out literally, but obviously I just could imagine someone living underneath one's skin, which doesn't make any sense at all.

Only after a while I came back to the song and understood what Frank Sinatra really meant by saying that. Imagine him looking at her woman and saying: I've got you under my skin. As I said previously, it's impossible to picture her living literally under his skin, but can you think of what could be attached to him in such permanent way? Yes, tattoos. They're a good way to understand the idiom. Just like tattoos, which is indelibly lodged with you, if you've got a girl under your skin, you can't get unattached to her because you keep thinking about her, you're very attracted to her, she's almost a part of your body, and you became very dependent of her love. So, when Frank Sinatra said that to her babe, he was trying to say he was falling head over heels for her, very in love with her.

There's a very similar idiom to "to have someone's under your skin" but whose meaning is the complete opposite. If having someone's under your skin means you're very attracted to someone, if somebody gets under your skin, it means they can really annoy you. As you can see, there's nothing lovable or sweet about that idiom. Suppose for example you hate your boss because he's always looking over your shoulder. You could say: My boss really gets under my skin. If I was asked about what really gets under my skin I would remember of those times when someone is standing behind us looking at our computer screen. I think that's really annoying and I'm not the only one thinking that way.

That's it for today guys. I'll be back with some other bunch of idioms soon. Keep tuned!

sexta-feira, 1 de março de 2013

Expressões com a palavra FOOT em Inglês

Em Português, também existem algumas expressões com a palavra que usamos com muita frequência. Na verdade, seria muito bom se todas as nossas expressões encontrassem uma correspondente literal ou muito aproximada na línga Inglesa, mas infelizmente nem sempre funciona dessa maneira. Hoje, no entanto, eu quero facilitar a nossa vida e apresentar 3 expressões que são muito intuitivas para nós, brasileiros e, portanto, mais fáceis de aprender.

Por exemplo, quando você está com "um pé atrás em relação a alguém ou alguma coisa", é bem óbvio entender que o que realmente está acontecendo aqui é que, devido a prévias experiências, você assumiu uma postura mais defensiva. No Inglês, dizemos que "you are on your back foot".

Agora, imagine que um dia você "acordou com o seu pé esquerdo" porque tudo está dando errado e as coisas parecem ter conspirado contra você. Em Inglês, se você tiver algum dia desses, "you started the day on the wrong foot". Se, diferente dessa situação, você na verdade acha que está sendo muito produtivo e sortudo desde que o dia iniciou, a expressão sofre uma mudança bem óbvia: "you started the day on the right foot".

Em Português, quando aconselhamos alguém a manter os pés no chão, estamos na verdade dando-lhe encorajamento para ser mais realista e manter-se firme e responsável em relação aos seus problemas. No Inglês, é a mesma coisa: "to keep your foot down". Eu não sei quanto a origem dessa expressão, mas a gente pode imaginar que, se alguém não manter os seus pés no chão, irá às nuvens, o que é algo (literalmente falando) que pessoas sonhadoras e facilmente iludidas fazem.

Mas imagine que, se alguém keeps his foot down (mantém seus pés no chão) e age com muita sabedoria e disposição pra realizar determinados afazeres, está também "putting his best foot foward". Ao contrário da expressão "start the day on the right foot", que é basicamente uma expressão ligada a sorte de acordar num dia onde tudo dá certo, quando alguém puts his best foot foward, ele intencionalmente está dando o seu melhor para que as coisas se saiam bem, sem necessariamente contar com a ajuda da sorte.

Como dizer "quem tem telhado de vidro não deve jogar pedras no vizinho" em Inglês?

Sometimes we're confronted by people that have the habit of judging others. Although judging people is somewhat a natural part of human nature, we are taught since very little that we shouldn't do it especially if we make the same mistakes ourselves. That is what we would call hypocrisy.

But if you know someone who criticize other people for faults that they have themselves, here's what you can tell them as a piece of advice: People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. That reminds us of our Portuguese expression that goes like "quem tem telhado de vidro não deve jogar pedras no vizinho", which is almost the same thing as the English expression if we take it literally. The idea of that expression is that we are all subject to doing the same mistakes. Having a house made out of glass, as you can imagine, is not something very secure, it doesn't give you the right or confidence enough to throw stones at other people's glass houses. Imagine that in the case you did that, maybe you'd be hit back. Therefore, it's a wise decision to not do so.

O que significa "to have a finger in the pie"?

Imagine your son was told to prepare a science project in order to join a contest from his school. It's an annual event that engages the students and even their parents to come up with the best piece of art. At the same time you want your son to make it all on his own, you don't want him to lose the contest. So in order to make sure he's going to do well, you end up getting involved and putting your influence over most aspects of his project. The problem is that your son doesn't like it when you turn into this unwelcome competitive intruder. He says you always want to have a finger in every pie.

What did he mean by to have a finger in every pie? You can imagine what an intruse act it would be someone having a finger in your pie, both literally and figuratively speaking, right? If you hear someone saying that expression, it means they're very intruse and do things in a way that other people do not approve.

Talking to foreigners

I could say that where I live running into foreigners in the streets is not one of the most regular things. But if you live in a big town where it is routine to go out and be confronted by foreigners asking you for directions or just zipping around, it is very important to know how to get the conversation going. If you're an English student, this is even more important. Not only will you root for that to happen, but need to make it happen in order to get some practice.
But let's suppose you've got this foreign friend who's just arrived in Brazil. He is very excited about everything he's found so far but need someone to guide him to the right places. You feel like there is a whole bunch of other options for him to get know yet and might wanna say somethhing like this: you have to try.../you know where you should go? There is a... and the name of the place recommended. To make things easier, let's imagine you're in Rio de Janeiro, one of the most sought tourist destinations. Your foreign friend must have visited Christ, the Redeemer. On the other hand, you've tried some other less known places that in your opinion are worth visiting. To make sure your friend hasn't heard of those places you're about to recommend, you might wanna ask: where have you been in Rio de Janeiro? After his answer, you can add: have you been anywhere else? Make sure you go to... And the place. If he tells you he's been there already, you're gonna wanna know what he thought of it by asking: how did you like it?
Sometimes, if the foreigner is not very resistant towards our language, he might have learned some Portuguese. To make sure, you ask: do you know any Portuguese yet? How's your Portuguese? Finally, to keep in touch with him, maybe you wanna give him your phone number by saying: let me give you my phone number. Call me and we'll do something. You could even suggest this: it would be my pleasure If I showed you around the city. Welcome!

Como se diz "um bando de vagabundos" em Inglês?

You and one friend of yours are halfway to college when a group of teenagers appears out of nowhere. They seem to be troublemakers because they're fooling around, very noisy, making a lot of mess, swearing and you're scared of being harmed. Your friend on the other hand seems to be taking it very naturally. When she notices your dismay, she tells you:
Don't worry! They're junt a band of hooligans.
 A band of hooligans se refere àquele grupo de pessoas que parece estar sempre em bando. Não se refere a qualquer grupo de amigos, no entanto, é mais voltada aos vândalos que quase sempre são barulhentos, violentos e causam muitos problemas. Hooligan também pode se referir individualmente a qualquer pessoa que, mesmo não fazendo parte de um bando, demonstra sinais de vandalismo.

O que significa TO HOLD THE FORT?

You're all tied up at work talking on the phone, answering e-mails and just when you thought things couldn't get any worse your boss asks you to sort out a few things outside. Before you leave, to make sure everything's going to be alright while you're gone, you tell one of your coworkers:
Can you hold the fort for me for a couple of hours? (Você pode cuidar das coisas pra mim durante algumas horas?)
To hold the fort tem uma origem muito antiga. Foi usada primeiramente por um general durante uma guerra em meados de 1860. Sua intenção era que outra pessoa aguentasse firme em sua posição enquanto estivesse ausente ou ocupado. Hoje em dia, pode ser usado nas situações do Inglês do dia-a-dia por qualquer pessoa.