O que significa to be in hot water?

Imagina que você descobre que o seu irmão adolescente sai às escondidas na noite passada pra ir a uma festa. Quando ele volta lá pela manhã do outro dia, só você vê ele chegando silenciosamente pela janela do quarto. É aí que você diz: you're in hot water with mom and dad for sneaking out last night. A expressão em negrito signfiica estar numa fria, encrencado com alguém. O interessante de se notar é que, enquanto em Português nós dizemos que alguém está numa fria, em Inglês acontece praticamente o contrário. To be in hot water, se traduzido literalmente, seria algo mais ou menos como estar em água quente. Estranho não é? É por isso que a melhor coisa a se fazer é ficar de bem com o Inglês e aceitá-lo do jeito que é [sem contestar o tempo inteiro porque dizemos assim e não assado]. That's it for now. Take care!

Uma maneira simples de melhorar a forma com que você se comunica em Inglês

Quando comecei a estudar Inglês, eu tinha o hábito de me delongar em tudo que dizia. Eu achava que isso partia apenas do meu desejo de conseguir reproduzir sentenças mais avançadas, mas então eu percebi que também era influência do Português. Claro que você não precisa levar isso ao pé da letra, mas você já notou o quão objetiva a língua inglesa é principalmente se comparada ao Português? Eu não quero levantar a discussão sobre se isso é um ponto negativo ou positivo. Isso realmente vai depender duma série de fatores. O fato é que, o que geralmente dizemos com mais palavras em Português, na língua inglesa ganha um poder incrível de concisão. Pra ilustrar o que eu estou dizendo melhor, veja só a forma correta e incorreta de se expressar em Inglês:

Incorreto:
As a matter of fact, I'm absolutely tired. Actually that's the reason why I don't really want to go to the movies tonight.

Correto:
I don't want to go to the movies tonight because I'm tired.

Perceba que as duas sentenças transmitem absolutamente a mesma ideia, mas o que torna a segunda alternativa correta é a sua característica concisa que representa muito bem a língua inglesa. Você pode estar se perguntando: mas por que considerar a primeira alternativa errada se todos os aspectos gramaticais estão corretos? A gramática não tem nada a ver com esse ponto de vista. Só quero demonstrar que, o que vimos na nossa língua como uma sentença complexa e digna de admiração, em Inglês é considerada errada. No Brasil, quando alguém não entende um texto complexo, a culpa é dele por ser um mau leitor; por outro lado, se um texto em Inglês é escrito de maneira complexa ao ponto de fazer o leitor confuso, a culpa é do escritor que não foi conciso o suficiente. Eu sei que essa é uma ideia que pode parecer tola para muitas pessoas, mas é capaz de fazer total diferença na vida dum estudante de Inglês recém chegado!

Por isso, tente se expressar com mais clareza. Se sentir que sua sentença não foi clara o suficiente, a refaça usando termos que você está mais familiarizado. Isso não significa que você vai se privar de conhecer vocabulário mais complexo e deixar de se expor a sentenças mais elaboradas. Isso significa que você vai começar a entender que entre o complexo e o simples, a melhor escolha é sempre a segunda. Se você levar isso em consideração, você vai ganhar aquela fluidez que todo mundo quer. That's all for today. Take care!

O que significa to touch base with someone? Expressões com a palavra BASE

I was watching one of the episodes of The Middle, a very cool american sitcom, and an expression came up: to touch base with someone. One of the characters was going through a tough time and she believed it was all because she had asked God for the wrong thing. So in order to take the weight off her back, she said she needed to touch base with God and straighten things out. When you touch base with someone, you talk briefly with him/her [usually as an attempt to know what the other person thinks about something]. So imagine you're working with a few people on this very important project at school and now you need a minute of their time to discuss an issue that just came up. You need to know their opinion on the matter and what they think you should do. So while you're walking through the halls of your school trying to find them, you ask someone: Have you seen my project group? I need to touch base with them about something.

Still talking about that situation, imagine the issue you needed to talk to your group about was that you just found out you'd have to ask for the principal's permission to perform an idea you had. Suppose that idea included bringing a band into school to help promote your project, but now you know that won't be possible if the principal doesn't allow it. While touching base with your project group, one of them says: We won't even get to first base with the director if we propose something like that. When you can't reach/get to first base with someone or something, you don't begin to have success especially in the early stage of something. So take your project as an example. You come up with the idea of the band and now you need to talk the principal into it, which is very unlikely to happen. Your project group thinks they won't even get to first base with the principal because he won't even want to know about it. As soon as he understands what the proposal is, he'll interrupt them and they won't even reach the first base. That expression is based on the literal meaning of first base [the first place a player must run to after hitting the ball in a game of baseball]. Take a look at the picture below to understand better what I'm talking about. That's it for today guys. Take care!

Expressões com a palavra BUTT [very informal]

If this was a movie and not a post, some kind of warning would pop up saying viewer discretion is advised. Okay, that's actually a bit of an exaggeration. I'm saying that because all the expressions we're going over today contain a very informal word, sometimes considered offensive: BUTT. Therefore, if you don't want to take the risk of sounding rude or impolite, please don't use these expressions. On the other hand, I think it's important for you to know and understand them in the case you hear them [and you probably will]. So without further ado, let's dive straight in!

You know when someone is being bullied? There are actually many things that can happen when that's happening. One of the most common practice among bullies is to make someone the main target of ridicule, wit, etc. So suppose you get into your classroom and a friend of yours is the aim of every joke. Everybody seems to be enjoying that moment, but you are very bothered by the way your friend's embarrassed. As soon as your class is over, you call your friend aside and give him a piece of advise. You say: I don't think you should be the butt of every joke. If I were you, I'd go straight to the principal and let him know about what's happening to you. But wait, what do you mean by "the butt of every joke"? When you're the butt of a joke, you're the one people are laughing at, making fun of. Maybe they say something funny or embarrassing about you, and you become the butt of the joke. That's a position nobody likes to be in, but it's very usual to see people having fun at other people's expense. When was the last time you became the butt of a joke?

Since we're already in the context of a school, imagine you've been paired up with some of your classmates to do an assignment. You're actually not very happy with a specific person you've been set up with, so you tell one of your friends: Have you seen who's working with us? He can't find his butt with both hands in broad daylight, let alone contribute to this assignment. That's actually something very rude to say. When someone can't find his butt with both hands in broad daylight, he's very stupid and incompetent. Just take the literal meaning of the expression and imagine how stupid someone would have to be to not be able to find his butt with both hands. You can replace the word butt with ass. But make sure you're using caution with these expressions. Butt is not as offensive as ass, but it is also very offensive to some people. That's all for today guys. See you next time!

Expressões com a palavra FLIRT

English students usually get in contact with the word flirt very early. That's because not only is flirt a very basic word, but also a very common practice among people. Do you know what flirt means? In a very technical way of putting it, flirt means to tease or trifle with someone alluringly. You go out with your friends and spot a really fine woman sitting at a bar. You approach her and start flirting with her. That means maybe you make a pass at her [dar uma cantada], buy her a drink, tell her nice things so she'll trust you more. There are actually many ways of making people think you're attracted to them. It goes by your personality and the way you deal with the opposite sex. But there's something more to the word flirt that I'd like to share with you guys. It's an expression I found very interesting: to flirt with the idea of doing something.

So imagine you've been stuck in this dead-end job for a lot of time and now you're kind of thinking of quitting it. The problem is that although your job doesn't give you much joy, you don't have a lot of perspective towards any other direction; plus you need a job to pay your bills. So you keep getting up every morning to go to work, but always flirting with the idea of quitting it. But wait, what does that mean? Well, when you flirt with an idea, you consider it briefly but not too seriously. The reason differs depending on the situation. In your case, it's not that you don't want to quit your job badly enough, you just don't know what to do once you quit it. Maybe one day, when you figure out a way to get a job you really like, you'll stop only flirting with the idea and take real measures. Have you been flirting with any idea lately? Many English students flirt with the idea of going on a trip abroad. What about you?

Você acha que a sua língua determina a forma com que você pensa e lida com as coisas?

No vídeo que estou compartilhando com vocês hoje, Rosana Hermann, que é jornalista, escritora, blogueira, bacharelada em Física e tantas outras coisas, fala sobre o efeito que a nossa língua tem sobre a forma com que nós pensamos. Na lógica dela, que aliás vai de acordo com desde linguistas renomados até meros curiosos das línguas como eu, as diversas línguas fazem as pessoas reagirem e encararem as mesmas situações do dia a dia de maneira diferente. A língua dos chineses, por exemplo, que é expressada através de ideogramas, faz com que eles pensem duma maneira muito mais simbólica e romântica, e aí por diante. A palestra é dada na língua portuguesa e não é focada na língua inglesa, mas mesmo assim interessa a qualquer estudante de Inglês por nos fazer refletir sobre as diferenças que nós temos que lidar e nos acostumar todos os dias entre a nossa língua materna e a língua alvo. Enjoy the video!

Expressões bíblicas usadas atualmente com a palavra CAST [cast your bread upon the waters; cast pearls before wine; cast the first stone]

All the expressions we're touching on today have some kind of influence from biblical quotations. Everybody knows how applicable Bible can still be today even though so much time's separated us from the day it was written. For example, the Bible teaches us how to act generous for simply being right and not because you expect a reward. Suppose you're a jack of all trades [a person able to do a variety of jobs acceptably well], and whenever your neighbors need a little help with a leaky shed or a faulty gate, you make no excuses before giving them a little hand without expecting anything in exchange. When people wanna talk about you on that sense, they say you cast your bread upon the waters. That's a proverb from the Bible you can still use today like any other modern expression. It refers to that very honorable action of giving without expecting. Let's move on to our second biblical expression with the word cast.

Suppose you're a very considerate person who's always trying to give your friends and family the best of you. One day you find out one of your very close relatives is in need of good advice and there you go again feeling like it's your place to help him out. After many pieces of advice, you realize he's not taken any of your words and that makes you very frustrated. When a friend of yours sees how frustrated you are, he tells you: Giving him advice is just casting pearls before swine. He doesn't listen. Can you understand that expression? When you cast pearls before swine, you waste something good on someone that doesn't care. Just imagine how much of a waste it would be to literally cast pearls before swine.

And finally our third and last expression: to cast the first stone. You must have heard of this one. We say it all the time in Portuguese. To cast means to throw something. So in what situation would you tell someone not to cast/throw the first stone? That's right: when you don't want them to make the first criticism, to be the first to attack. So imagine you did something wrong and people are about to judge you. Before they do though, as an attempt to get away with your mistake, you say: Alright, cast the first stone if you've never done something wrong before. Jesus once said that to teach people only those who are faultless have the right to pass judgment upon others, implying that no one's faultless and therefore has no right to judge. That's it for today guys. Talk to you next time!

O que significa catch-22 ou catch-22 situation?

How many times you find yourself struggling to find the right word to best describe a certain tricky situation in your life? Truth is, sometimes there's no such word in the language and you have to find different words to put it in a way so people can understand you. For example, sometimes we get ourselves in situations where one thing must happen in order to cause another thing to happen, but because the first thing does not happen the second thing can't happen. Did you know there's a specific word that can perfectly describe that kind of thing? Keep reading and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Many people graduate from college thinking that will be it for them to finally get a bit of a kick start in life. The problem is that we all know that's not always how things work in the market place. There's a vicious circle that always pulls the rug from under people's feet. That is, in order to get a job you need experience, but to acquire experience you need to get a job in the first place. That's what in English we call a catch-22 situation, or simply a catch-22. When you're in a catch-22 situation like that, you're not really taking control of things. It's the rules or conditions that create such a situation and make a victim out of you. Do you want another example? Read on!

You really want to start your own business to make more money, but then you realize you need to have money to make more money. You can say you're caught in a catch-22 situation too. In formal language, we can call that a paradoxical situation because you can't escape the contradictory rules. That's it for today guys. Take care!

Como dizer cheiroso em Inglês?

Ainda me lembro que no começo dos estudos de Inglês fiquei intrigado ao tentar traduzir literalmente a palavra cheiroso do Português para o Inglês. Quando eu falo literalmente, eu quero dizer que eu estava tentando encontrar um adjetivo correspondente ideal para esse que nós usamos na nossa língua. A verdade é que eu já sabia como passar a ideia de que alguém ou alguma coisa cheira bem, mas por que de repente chamá-la pelo adjetivo cheiroso em Inglês parecia ser tão desafiador? Continue lendo e você descobrirá!

Se você ousou simplesmente colocar a palavra cheiroso no tradutor, acabou levando um baita de um susto. A palavra que ele sugere é odoriferous. Que tipo de palavra é essa? Que tipo de contexto tão técnico e formal nós deveríamos estar para usar essa palavra sem despertar estranhamentos? Bom, eu não faço ideia. O fato é que existem algumas maneiras alternativas de se dizer que alguém cheira bem sem propriamente usar um adjetivo em Inglês. A mais popular delas é "you smell great!", "those people that just walked by me smell wonderful!". A verdade é que essa expressão é muito mais comum de se ouvir do que qualquer outra coisa que eu venha comentar aqui. Mas atenção para uma observação: a expressão deve ser sempre constituída pelas suas três partes... pronome + smell + advérbio/adjetivo, como nas expressões que você acabou de ver [apesar do uso do adjetivo ser gramaticalmente incorreta neste caso, é muito comum encontrar pessoas dizendo algo como "you smell so good".] Se você disser simplesmente "you smell", o significado assume o sentido contrário. Você está dizendo que a pessoa ou alguma coisa fede. Your shoes smell; your hair smells; that man smells, that place smells. Todos esses exemplos assumem o significado negativo da expressão.

Mas depois dessa falatória toda, você ainda quer saber como dizer o adjetivo cheiroso em Inglês. Infelizmente, não existe uma correspondente comumente usada que equivalha exatamente a palavra cheiroso em Inglês. O que existe na verdade é o que chamamos na gramática inglesa de compound adjectives, ou adjetivos compostos. Esses são adjetivos diferentes que contém duas ou mais palavras que se juntam para passar a mesma ideia. Chamar uma mulher em Inglês de "a mulher mais cheirosa do mundo, por exemplo, seria "the best smelling woman in the world". O adjetivo que nos interessa aí é "good smelling". Finalmente achamos algo que se aproxime da palavra cheiroso em Inglês. Vamos praticá-lo: a good smelling person; a good smelling girl; I can't resist good smelling women; They told me I'm a good smelling man. Isso é tudo por hoje pessoal. See you next time!

Maneiras de parabenizar alguém pelo aniversário em Inglês [como escrever um cartão de aniversário em Inglês]

É muito comum ter um certo bloqueio na hora de desejar feliz aniversário duma forma mais original e criativa. Isso pode acontecer com qualquer pessoa, desde o próprio nativo da nossa língua alvo, que é o Inglês, e especialmente nós, estudantes da língua. Como você já deve ter percebido, Inglês é uma língua bastante objetiva e, portanto, é muito mais comum ouvirmos o velho e clássico "happy birthday" na maioria das ocasiões. Algumas vezes, entretanto, quando a situação requer um pouco mais de criatividade, principalmente ao que se refere à línguagem escrita, como num cartão de aniversário por exemplo, dizer um pouco mais que happy birthday demonstra, além de um melhor domínio na língua, consideração pelo aniversariante. Por isso, aqui vão algumas alternativas categorizadas pela sua intenção:

Mensagens para o dia:

“Hope today’s filled with all your favorite guilty pleasures!”

“Eat. Drink. Drink a little more. Then take a nap. That’s what I’d suggest if you wanna have a really great birthday. :)”

“Hope you make your [25th] a birthday to remember!”

“Wishing you good friends, big laughs, spicy wings and lots of ’em on your birthday!”

“Hope your day is as sweet, fun and all-around amazing as you are!”

“Today is all yours! We hope it’s great!”

Mensagens para o ano:

“Here’s to another year of living your dreams. Cheers!”

“Here’s wishing you another stupendous year on this planet.”

“You deserve everything happy. Wishing you that all year long!”

“Hope this year is your most laughter-, adventure-, and fun-filled yet!”

“Know what I think you deserve this year? Every single thing you want.”

“Couldn’t resist this little puppy. I hope you feel the way he looks all day long. Just tail-waggingly ecstatic to be alive in the big, beautiful world. That’s the whole kind of year I wish you.”

Elogios:

“Another year older, and you just keep getting stronger, wiser, funnier and more amazing all around!”

“Here’s to another year of wonderful you.”

“You’re one tough cookie. Celebrating you!”

“Celebrating another wild and wonderful year of you.”

“You should be getting paid for how good you look. Seriously.”

“You could run circles around most people half your age, but you’re way too nice to show them up like that.”

“Don’t think about anything today but having a good time—and of course, soaking up the compliments that will be coming from everybody. You deserve them!”

“Every time I get down about the world, I remember there are people like you, going around being good in the world and counteracting the dark forces. You should be on a sci-fi show or something, being the super-powered opposite of evil. Happy Birthday and long may you shine!”

Amor e gratidão:

“Happy Birthday to one of my favorite people in the history of ever.”

“Thanks for being here, for being you.”

“I’m so glad you’re on this earth.”

“I hope you feel loved and appreciated today. Because you are.”

“Thanks for being wonderful. Thanks for being you.”

“With love that will never stop growing,”

“Love you oodles and oodles.”

“With warmest wishes and love on your birthday and always,”

Vamos celebrar!

“So happy to be celebrating your [28th] with you!”

“Woot! Woot! Thanks for giving me an excuse to eat cake and drink martinis!”

“Do any damn thing you want to today!”

"Can’t wait to celebrate with you and ‘Rita’! (Salt or no salt for you?)”

“Go a little wild on your birthday! You have my blessing.”

“Here’s to you on your birthday, [Alex]! I hope you’re doing it up big!”

Para mais opções, vá para http://www.hallmark.com/birthday/ideas/birthday-wishes/

Expressões com a palavra GEAR

Have you ever heard of the word gear before? If not, let's learn its meaning first and only then we'll be talking about the expressions. If you can drive a car, you're pretty much used to that word in your language. In Portuguese, that word means, among many other things, marcha. So if you want to say, for example, dar marcha ré in English, "to engage reverse gear" is the correct way. The same logic applies to the other gears, like to engage the first gear, the second gear and so on and so forth. We could go over many other combinations with the word gear in its literal meaning, but this post aims at bringing you some new expressions with it. So without further ado, let's learn them!

I was watching an american talk show one day and after a long time discussing a single topic, the host was desperate to move on to a different topic, so she said: Let's shift gears now and talk about something else. But what does she mean by shift gears? You usually say that when you suddenly change what you're doing or what you're talking about. Imagine yourself hanging out with a friend of yours in your place. You guys have been listening to rock and roll all day long and then you feel like shifting gears and listening to blues. As you must have figured, shifting gears is nothing but a break from what you've been doing in a little while. That expression is based on the idea that a vehicle will change speed when you change gears.

Now suppose you're one of those people who need a little time every morning to make yourself start thinking clearly and effectively. Better yet, suppose you spent the whole night out partying and drinking a lot and now are having the world's worst hangover. The problem is that you just got a call from your boss telling you about this last-minute meeting you're supposed to attend in less than an hour. He tells you over the phone: if you don't get your arse in gear you'll be late for this meeting. Bot wait, what does that mean? If you try to get your arse in gear, you force yourself to start working or to hurry. There are actually many ways to say that. If you're having a hard time trying to stay focused, you might be told to get your brain into gears or simply get into gears. If you're in the middle of your day struggling to keep yourself awake and then you take some coffee that finally wakes you up, you can say after drinking coffee you've swung into high gear. That means you've begun operating at a fast pace and increased the rate of activity. That's it for today guys. Take care!

vocabulário relacionado ao mundo dos patins [como dizer andar de patins em Inglês e o que significa a expressão to stand with feet shoulders width apart]

O que me encorajou a criar esse post foi justamente o fato de eu estar há uma semana tentando andar de patins. Enquanto conversava com um americano sobre isso, várias expressões e palavras relacionadas aos patins surgiram, assim como muitas dúvidas também. A dúvida mais básica de todas é: como dizer andar de patins em Inglês? Isso é bem simples. A expressão é to roller skate. Então imagine que você está conversando com alguém em inglês e quer perguntar se a outra pessoa sabe andar de patins. Você pode dizer: Can you roller skate? Se a resposta for sim, talvez você queira convidá-lo para andar de patins algum dia contigo. Então você diz: Do you want to go roller skating with me tonight?, ou simplesmente "We should roller skate together sometime, what do you think? Vamos conhecer outras expressões relacionadas.

Imagina que você está aprendendo a andar de patins e, portanto, precisa de alguém te dando instruções sobre como se portar em cima deles. Em algum momento, essa pessoa pode te dizer algo como: stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Será que você conseguiria entender essa instrução? Isso significa ficar de pé com os pés separados paralelamente aos seus ombros. Isso faz sentido na hora de andar de patins e praticar vários outros esportes já que isso proporciona melhor equilíbio [se você ainda não entendeu a postura direiro, apenas dê uma olhada na figura acima]. Além de fazer esse movimento, você também precisará dobrar os joelhos, que em Inglês é to bend your knees, além de se acocorar para alcançar maiores velocidades, que é to squat. Ah, sem esquecer de manter sempre o equilíbrio/to keep your balance. That stance will prevent you from toppling over [essa postura vai te empedir de tropeçar]. Os principais equipamentos para andar de patins com segurança são capacete/helmet, joelheiras/knee pads, protetores de pulso/wrist guards e, claro, um par de patins/a pair of skates. Por hoje isso é tudo pessoal. Leave your questions on the comment section below. Take care!