Como dizer "se dar mal" em Inglês?

A linguagem do dia a dia está repleta de gírias e expressões idiomáticas. Como esse tipo de coisa diverge duma língua pra outra e não se traduz ao pé da letra, eu diria que é aí que mora uma das partes mais desafiadoras de se aprender uma língua estrangeira. É preciso paciência e determinação pra adquirir tanto vocabulário e assimilar a cultura do outro.

Hoje, a expressão "se dar mal" ilustra bem esse desafio. Existem várias maneiras de se expressar essa ideia em Inglês. Veja só: 

to be/get screwed (up)

In that country, there was one doctor for every 50.000 people that lived there. So when you got sick, you were screwed.

You got screwed up by trying to flirt that girl.

to get burned

He got burned in the game yesterday.

She went to the party and got burned really bad.

to get your fingers burned

His mother told him not to go there to drink; but he didn't listen to her and got his fingers burnt.

to get fucked up (offensive)

He was too naive to see that vendor was pulling a fast one on him. He got fucked up.

to get into trouble

Watch what you say or you'll get into trouble with the teacher.

lower the bloom on someone: o que isso significa?

No post anterior, eu falei sobre uma expressão que, informalmente, significa criticar ou punir alguém de uma maneira bem severa. Hoje, eu tenho uma outra expressão que quer dizer mais ou menos isso, mas talvez com um pouco menos de severidade [vamos colocar desta forma]. A expressão que eu estou falando é "lower the bloom on someone". Como disse, ela significa punir. Mas esse ato de punir ao qual eu me refiro não é necessariamente físico. Você pode punir alguém com críticas e sermões de lição de moral. Veja os exemplos a seguir e memorize a expressão de uma vez por todas:

1. If Bob won't behave better, I'll have to lower the boom on him. [Se Bob não se comportar bem, eu terei que puní-lo.]
2. The teacher lowered the boom on the whole class for misbehaving. [O professor puniu a classe inteira por mau comportamento.]

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!

Você sabe o que smarty pants e fancy-pants significam?

By the title of the post, you must have noticed how similar the two expressions are. They can really have a lot to do with each other, but there are certain things we should always take into account. Let's start with smarty pants. That's a very well known expression I hear all the time on movies and the like. Try to see yourself in this situation: you're in classroom and there's this little guy next to you who's always raising his hand to answer all the questions. You think he's a real apple polisher [someone who attempts to curry favor with authority for personal gain], but what he's really trying to do is to seem cleverer than everybody else. That's a smarty pants. A smarty pants is that person who makes a point to cause a good impression and make everybody think he's smart. Are you a smart pants? Do you know a smarty pants? Many people consider that kind of people very irritating. What do you think?

Now let's move on to our second expression "fancy-pants". You might be wondering why that expression has a hyphen and the first one does not. Well, that's one of the differences between the two expressions [besides their meanings]. Smarty pants is a noun, whereas fancy-pants is an adjective and therefore should always be used before a noun. If you want to make it a noun, all you have to do is drop the hyphen and there you have it. The same way in order to turn smarty pants into an adjective, include a hyphen and use it before a noun. Simple as that. But back to fancy-pants, if something or someone is fancy-pants, it tries to seem too attractive or too clever in a way that is false. What does that mean? Let's use an example to understand the expression better. You go to a very fancy restaurant and you order some expensive french dessert you quite don't understand. All you know is that it is pretty pricey. When it finally comes to your table, you realize it is nothing but a mango cut into little pieces, a fruit that is actually very common in the place you come from. You can't believe you're paying 10 times as much for something you get for free straight from your own mango tree at your backyard. When someone asks you about your experience at the restaurant, you say: The place was great, but not the fancy-pants food. That's it for today guys. Take care!

O que significa "to put it in a nutshell"?

Do you know what a nutshell is? If you have never heard of that word before, just take a look at the picture above. That's what a nutshell is. Simple huh? But now you may be wondering what that has to do with the expression of the day. Well, technically nothing. An expression doesn't have to be necessarily attached to the literal meaning of its words. That's actually one of the main characteristics of an expression/idiom. But let's learn the expression with the word nutshell!

You know those moments when you want to be as straightforward as possible with someone? Maybe you're in a very complicated situation where you have to say something really embarrassing to someone. You want it to be really quick, so you make sure you use as fewer words as possible. For example, you're the boss at a very important company and now you have to lead a meeting with several of your employees to fire them. So, in the middle of the meeting, while you're trying to finally get to your point, you say: To put it in a nutshell, you're all fired.

In a nutshell means very briefly, something you say when you want to be very concise. So maybe during that meeting, you would have to go through all the explanations as to why your company needs to make many employees redundant. So to make things faster and easier [at least for you], you put it all in a nutshell and get it over with. The idea behind the expression is that a nutshell is very tiny and therefore it would hold a very small amount of anything. So imagine that when you use that expression, you're using a very small amount of words so it will fit in a nutshell. That's it for now guys. Take care!

O que significa "sticky hands"?

First of all, do you know what sticky means? If you're an intermediate English student, you must have realized that many adjectives tend to end with the letter y. Those are usually adjectives that come from a verb. Sticky, as our example, is actually everything related to something that sticks, that is to say, something that has the property of adhering to a surface. The thing is, sticky is part of many idiomatic expressions. Today we're going to learn one of them. Stay around and you won't regret.

What would you think if someone told you a friend of yours has sticky fingers? We've learned in the introduction of this post that something sticky is everything that has the property of sticking to a surface. So, does it make sense in your head if you said someone has sticky hands? Don't rush into thinking that that person is like spider-man that can crawl up buildings by just sticking to their walls. As an expression, when someone has sticky hands, it means he has a tendency to steal. It comes from the idea that everything that person touches sticks to his hands. So, imagine you're at work and something's been stolen. The thing is, over the past months, people from your work, including you, have missed something from their desk at some point of the day. So, People are starting to believe there might be someone in the office that has sticky hands. That's it for today guys. Take care!

O que significa "pet peeve"?

Can you remember of something that's constantly annoying you? No matter what you do, there's no way you're getting rid of it for good. It will always come right back at you and haunt you once more. That's basically what we call a pet peeve. Bu let's dig into it a little further. It will be fun.

Let's think now about women. Everybody knows that women go through a certain sensitive period every month and we as men should therefore be more careful with every move we make around them. Many things can piss them off. One of the biggest pet peeve of theirs is men not putting down the toilet seat for them. We call it a pet peeve because it's a frequent annoyance, a very often encountered annoyance. But everybody has one or more pet peeves, not only women. For me, for example, one of my biggest pet peeves is waiting in line. I'm from Brazil and everybody knows how obsessed with lines we are. Even in places where lines are not even required, people make a point to form them. I just don't get it. It's a big pet peeve of mine. So what about yours? Tell me one of your biggest pet peeve in the comment section below! See you next time!

Você sabe o que significa a expressão "hit and miss"?

The expression hit and miss has basically two meanings. We're going to get to know both of them through the examples I'm about to give you. I got those examples from Twitter, which is actually a very good way to look for an idiom and be certain of how native English speakers use it. I highly recommend it. One of the twits was like this: Blog awards can be really hit and miss. Do you understand what that means? Let's break it down.

When you call something hit and miss, you're saying it was carelessly planned. What the person from twitter meant to say by calling the blog awards hit and miss was that we shouldn't trust it, because it is actually made in such a random way that it shouldn't even be taken seriously. Let's think of a different example. Suppose you're given the mission of putting on a surprise party for one of your friends. All your mutual friends give you their contribution in money and you're expected to think about everything. The thing is, you didn't mention you would be very busy during all the preparations and the party ends up a total failure. The friends who entrusted you with that task get so shocked at how careless the place looked that some of them criticize you very harshly. One of them says: We entrusted you with that very special task and now everything seems like there was no planning. This party is just hit and miss!

A different twit shows the second meaning for the expression hit and miss. This time, we have someone speaking harshly about an actor and his works. The twit goes: He's not done anything funny since his last movie, and that was largely hit and miss. What does that mean? He was saying the only funny movie that actor's been part of was a success that happened by total chance, that is to say, by pure luck. There's another thing that's commonly called hit and miss. You know weather forecasting? it's become more accurate over the past years, but it used to be very hit and miss. It was as likely to be bad as to be good and people couldn't really trust it very much. Do you have your own examples? Leave us in the comment section bellow. See you!

Você sabe o que significa o termo "backseat driver"?

The idiom of the day called my attention in a special way because I know someone who's a real backseat driver: my mom. I don't have my licence yet, but my brother's had his for a while and since the very first day he stepped into a car to drive, my mom's been giving him instructions from the backseat although she can't drive herself. In English, we call someone like that a backseat driver. Those are the people who continuously tell the driver how they should drive and can be very annoying at times. Do you know anyone like that?

The interesting thing about that idiom is that you can use it with anyone who tries to control things even though it is not their responsibility. People like that usually like to be the leader of everything and have a lot of trouble being controlled. I personally like a very famous brazilian TV show called O Aprendiz, which is actually based on the american TV show The Apprentice. The show stars some business people splitted into two teams competing in an elimination competition. What that show has to do with our idiom is that, since there's a different leader appointed by the two teams every week, we can clearly see who are the real backseat drivers. Those are the ones who always end up leading tasks that are supposed to be led by the leader. They always get in the way of some important decisions and want to have the final word in every argument. Backseat drivers usually get into a lot of troubles because they have a very strong personality. I'm not sure if that's a strength or weakness in the business world. What do you think? See you next time!

O que significa a expressão "give someone a pass"? [expressão retirada do seriado Men at Work]

One of these days, while I was watching Men at Work, a very cool american sitcom, I heard somebody saying something like: I'll give you a pass on that. Do you know what that means? Here's what was happening when that idiom came up: after fighting over silly things, a couple was finally trying to make up. In the middle of their reconciliation, the man said something that was not very appropriate for that moment. The woman was so happy and distracted that she decided not to get mad at him and give it no importance. That was when she said: I'll give you a pass on that.

When you give someone a pass, you overlook something and give it only a cursory examination [even when the person deserves to be criticized]. You can do that for several reasons. Like in the case of the woman in the american sitcom, you may be too happy for caring about what they did or said. If we take a closer look at the idiom, we will realize it has everything to do with the context of a school. For example, a teacher may decide to advance a difficult student out of his grade for simply wanting to get rid of him. So he gives him a pass even though the student is not prepared. Do you have any examples of your own? Leave us in the comment section bellow. Talk to you next time!

O que significa "in one's second childhood"?

The expression of the day is very interesting because everybody is going to relate to it. You know those days when you're feeling like a child and want to do things adult people normally don't do? Our expression has everything to do with that feeling. Imagine, for example, you've always dreamed of going to Disneyland but your parents couldn't afford the trip when you were a child. Now you're all grown up, can afford your own trips and everything in your life has changed except for one thing: you still wanna go to Disneyland. One day, when you finally make it there, you're so blown away by everything in the place that you start acting like a child. People around you say you're in your second childhood. But wait, what does that mean?

When you're in your second childhood, you're interested in things or people that normally interest children. Can you remember of some examples of your own? C'mon! Everybody's like that at some point of their lives. For instance, if you still have your grandmother, don't you feel like you're back in your childhood every time you're around her? Let's suppose you spent the whole weekend at your grandma's and now you're back home talking to a friend of yours. He wants to know about your weekend and you say: It was awesome! Every time I spend weekends or holidays at grandma's, I feel as if I'm in my second childhood. We make cake, I go to the river and throw stones, she tells me all her stories and it's awesome. That's it for now guys. Talk to you next time!

2 idioms com a palavra STRAIN

Are you familiar with the word strain? If not, stick around and not only will you learn the definition of the word, but also learn three new expressions. Strain can work both as a verb and a noun. As a verb, to strain means to make a great effort to do something, as in "I strained forward to get a better view". Strain as a noun refers to "a severe demand on strength, resources, etc", as in "It's a real strain having to get up early every morning". I've googled the word strain for some combinations and here's what I've found: muscle strain, eye strain, physical strain, mental strain, etc. Now let's learn some expressions with the word strain!

Imagine you have a relative who's been working great amount of hours a day and everybody's worried about his health. One day, when you have a rare chance to get a minute of his attention, you try to talk some sense into him. You say: If you continue to work like crazy that way, you're eventually going to crack under the strain. What does that mean? When you crack under the strain, you have a mental or emotional collapse because of continued work or stress. If we try to think of some more examples, we may remember that more and more women these days have to take care of their home and still work outside, which may be a great source of too much stress. If they never break that strict routine, they may crack under the strain. What do you think about that?

Now let's suppose your friend's been dating this really jealous guy who never lets her do anything out of his sight. You think that relationship is making her more and more depressed and soon he'll drive her crazy. Before that happens, you call her aside to have a little talk and among the many things you tell her, one of them is: I think you should break up with your boyfriend. Your troubling relationship puts a strain on you. If something puts a strain on you, it burdens or overloads you. That's the figurative usage of the expression, but we can also say something is putting a strain on something or someone in a literal way. For example, you're in your car about to drive across a fragile bridge when you see there are too many trucks passing past you at the same time. You're worried the weight of the trucks might place a strain on the bridge, so you pull over for a minute until the way's clear. That's it for today guys. See you next time!

O que significa "to go through the motions"?

I don't know if you've ever stumbled upon the idiom of the day, but it's very likely you have. It is a very common way of addressing people who are not putting their heart into what they're doing, and what do I mean by that? When you're going through the motions or, as I said before, are not putting your heart into something, you're doing it in a cursory fashion because you're expected to do it, not because you want to. Let's go over some examples of people who are just going through the motions.

There are many reasons for someone to be making a feeble effort to do something. If you're sad, for example, and you still have to do something, you may not put all effort into it and end up going through the motions. When someone very close to you dies, you may get so sad you wind up going through the motions of living. That means you're going to keep living because you have to, but you're not going to feel much of it, maybe you're going to follow through your routine in a very automatic way.

Let's think of a less dramatic situation: your husband has been pretty busy lately, and every time he gets home, he seems to want nothing but rest. Last time you asked him to play with the children and help them with their homework, you could see he was actually just going through the motions. He just sat by their side with his eyes barely open and it all seemed like a brutal torture. The thing is, the situation is getting so bad even during sex time you get the feeling he's just going through the motions. That's it for today guys. Take care!

Aprenda 3 idioms com a palavra Jack

Hey guys, I know it's been a while I've not come up with new posts, but this time I'm going to try to update my blog more often. Today we have some interesting expressions with the word jack. You may recognize that word as a man's name, but do you know any expression containing the word jack as a common noun? Let's see!

Our first two expressions have something in common because they are related to romantic relationships. Picture this: you have a married male friend who's always complaining about his wife. Actually, you think he has no reason to be complaining about her because he's been doing things married people shouldn't do. You believe his wife is just reacting to the unpleasant way he's been treating her lately. One day, while you're talking to your friend, he finds a way to start complaining about his wife again, and that's when you decide to speak your mind. You say: Don't blame your wife for being short-tempered with you; you've been so unpleasant to her lately. A good Jack makes a good Jill. Do you have any idea what that means? When you say a good Jack makes a good Jill, you're just saying that if a husband wants his wife to be loving and respectful, he should be loving and respectful in the first place. Saying "a good husband makes a good wife" is another option. You can only use that expression with couples, but we can all agree it could apply to any kind of relationship. When you want respect from someone, you should respect him first. What do you think? Leave us your opinion in the comment section bellow!

Our second expression, as I said before, is also related to relationships. Have you ever heard of the expression "Every Jack has his Jill"? That's very easy to understand if you keep in mind Jack's the representative of a man and Jill's the representative of a woman. In Portuguese, when we want to say that everybody will eventually find a romantic partner, we say something like "toda panela tem sua tampa". In English, saying "every Jack has his Jill" is almost the same thing, only with a little difference: you can only say "Every Jack has his Jill" to a man. You may have a male friend who's always sad for not having a girlfriend. Next time he turns to you for comfort, you can say "Every Jack has his Jill". Maybe that'll do.

And finally our third expression of the day: a jack of all trades. This expression is a little different from the other two because it's not used as the name of a man, and therefore, its first letter should not be capitalized. Being a jack of all trades is something good, everybody would like to be a jack of all trades or at least have someone like that around. That's because a jack of all trades is someone who has many skills or does many different jobs. Women usually turn to men when they need to fix something at home. When they have a husband who can be considered a jack of all trades, they don't have to be worried. They can do plumbing, carpentry, or even a bit of gardening.

O que significa a expressão "burning the midnight oil"?

Today we're going to talk about a very common practice among hard working students: burning the midnight oil. Do you know what that means? Better yet, are you one of those students that are always burning the midnight oil? If you have an upcoming test and you've been working very long hours, it's possible you also study late into the night. When something like that happens, you say you're burning the midnight oil. Let's think of an example to make things easier: your friend calls you up on the phone to invite you to a party. You would really love to go, but unfortunately you have to stay at home working long hours on a project from school. So you say: I'm sorry, but today I'm burning the midnight oil. Maybe next time! If the expression still sounds odd to you and you're curious to know about its etymology, just know that it comes from the use of oil to provide light before the invention of electricity. Up to this day, people still say they're burning the midnight oil to refer to any kind of work they're doing late into the night. That's it for today guys. See you!

Como dizer "meu conselho entrou por um ouvido e saiu pelo outro" em Inglês?

If you're the kind of person that likes to give people advice but most the time is ignored, today's expression will have everything to do with you. Imagine this situation: you have a friend and her name is Sarah. The thing with Sarah is, she is completely obsessed with her boyfriend. She's so in love with him that it seems she's willing to do whatever it takes to keep him around; even when he doesn't deserve it. A while ago, she heard some gossip going on about her boyfriend cheating on her at a party. Actually, they showed her even pictures of him kissing the other girl, but she always finds a lame excuse to not break up. Regardless of what she thinks though, you're trying with all your strength to talk her into ending her relationship and carrying on with her life. You try your best to make her see what for everybody else is obvious: He's a womanizer. Unfortunately, your good advice falls on deaf ears.

But wait, do you understand the expression I just used: to fall on deaf ears? When an advice, a request, an idea falls on deaf ears, people ignore it. In the example above, what happened was that Sarah continued to date her boyfriend even though you told her not to. Your advice fell on deaf ears. If we take a closer look at the expression and compare it to the way we say it in Portuguese, we can remember of a very common way of conveying the same message: meu conselho entrou por um ouvido e saiu pelo outro. I'm not sure about the rest of Brazil, but we always hear someone saying something like that around here. Now it's important to highlight that we can use that expression not only referring to an advice being ignored, but any kind of suggestion that people don't hear. For example, you come up with a great idea in classroom one time, but all your classmates ignore it. Your idea falls on deaf ears. I hope you liked it. Have a great day!

Como dizer "deu branco" em Inglês? [post inspirado no comercial da Open English]

If you're Brazilian, you must have watched a commercial of a very famous online English school in Latin America called Open English. During the commercial, we see a well-known brazilian comedian, Paulo Gustavo, doing an interview at the moment he's caught off guard by a question in English. As an attempt to avoid the question, he says he can't speak English by surprise and tries to mumble some words in English that make absolutely no sense.

What makes the commercial funny is that Paulo Gustavo tries to say the expression "my mind went blank" in a very confusing way. He does a direct translation from Portuguese to English that ends up in something like "I give the white color in my mind". As you see, that doesn't make any sense, right? For situations like that, when you cannot think of anything to say, the right expression is "my mind went blank". You can say that when you're asked a question you don't know the answer to or when you really want to remember something but for some reason you can't. During a test, for example, your mind can go blank several times. That's it for today guys. Take care!

O que significa a expressão to squeeze something/someone in?

I was reading a dialogue between a client and a manager when a very interesting expression came up. The client was trying to make sure he'd get his paper ready for print by the end of the week, but the manager tried to tell him how tight his agenda was. After a while, the client's told not to worry anymore because the manager might be able to squeeze it in if he works late a few nights. What just happened here? Do you know what the expression to squeeze something in means? If not, just keep reading...

When you say you're going to squeeze something in, what you're actually saying is that you're going to be able to do something even though you do not have much time. That's what happened in the context of our dialogue: the manager said he would spend a few nights awake, maybe doing extra work during the day as well, so he would be able to get the job done before the week ends. He squeezed it in. We could also say "he squeezed the client in, he squeezed him in" because the expression is also used with people. Let's try to think of a different situation: You've been very busy lately, but then you realize you need to meet up with your workmates to discuss some issues that have come up in your work environment. Although you're already tied up enough, you think you could squeeze a meeting in very early tomorrow morning. You squeeze a meeting in. You found time to attend a meeting even though you had so much to do. How many other things that people usually squeeze in you can think of? Maybe a little trip, some lessons, an extra hour's work, etc. Okay, that's it for now guys. Take care!

O que significa a expressão TO SPOIL FOR A FIGHT?

Eu estava assistindo ao filme August: Osage County, que é estrelado pela atriz Julia Roberts, e encontrei a expressão do título de hoje: to spoil for a fight. A situação era a seguinte: após muita troca de farpas num jantar de funeral, mãe e filha, que acabaram se envolvendo numa briga física, conversam dentro do carro. Elas duas tentam se desculpar uma pra outra quando a mãe diz: I was spoiling for a fight and you gave it to me. O que ela quis dizer com isso?

To spoil for a fight significa procurar briga, atiçar as pessoas duma maneira que elas respondam duma forma agressiva. No jantar de funeral, enquanto todos tentavam manter um nível razoável, a viúva não parava de fazer acusações e ofensas. Quando ela diz "I was spoiling for a fight", ela não está fazendo nada mais que assumir a culpa de toda a confusão. Muito fácil, não é? See you soon!

Como dizer "não posso me dar ao luxo de algo" em Inglês?

Para quem não está familizarizado com o verbo afford em nenhuma maneira, saiba que uma das suas principais traduções é "ter condições financeiras para algo". Por exemplo, "I can't afford a car" significa "eu não posso bancar um carro". O verbo afford pode vir também seguido de outro verbo, como em "I can't afford to buy a new motorbike" [eu não tenho condições financeiras de comprar uma moto nova.] Essa é a maneira mais convencional de se usar o verbo to afford. Vamos conhecer uma expressão que talvez você nunca ouviu falar antes.

Alguma vez você já se perguntou como dizer em Inglês "não posso me dar ao luxo de fazer algo"? Pois é exatamente esse sentido que a expressão can't afford pode passar também. Por exemplo, um dia desses eu estava assistindo a um dos trailers do último filme da trilogia de Jogos Vorazes, que em Inglês chamamos de The Hunger Games, e encontrei a expressão que estamos estudando hoje. É que um dos personagens, participante dum jogo mortal, confessa para uma outra competidora que, já que ele vai morrer de qualquer jeito na competição, queria mostrar para as pessoas o seu verdadeiro eu, sua identidade. Ao ouvir isso, a outra competidora retruca: I just can't afford to think like that. Perceba que temos a mesma expressão que vimos antes, can't afford, mas dessa vez com um significado completamente diferente. Can't afford, dependendo do contexto, também pode ser a expressão "não poder se dar ao luxo". A frase da competidora "I just can't afford to think like that" significa "Eu simplesmente não posso me dar ao luxo de pensar dessa maneira", talvez por ser difícil demais para ela assumir para si mesma estar muito próxima de sua morte.

Podemos pensar em muitas situações rotineiras que podemos usar a expressão can't afford como sentido de não poder se dar ao luxo a algo. Imagina que você tem uma entrevista de emprego e está muito otimista em relação a ela. No mesmo dia, você descobre que um amigo muito próximo está comemorando aniversário e quer a sua presença lá. Apesar de considerá-lo muito, você simplesmente não pode se dar ao luxo de adiar ou de alguma forma perder a entrevista de emprego. Então você liga pra ele e diz: Sorry, but I just can't afford to miss that job interview. [Desculpa, mas eu não posso me dar ao luxo de perder essa entrevista de emprego]. That's it folks. See ya!