Transcript of my podcast episode (25)

Hello again! This is ENGSPRESSO episode no. 25. And this time I can happily say that the spring is just round the corner! I bet we’ve all been waiting for some more sunshine and higher temperatures. Some of you may already have organised your wardrobes for the coming season. Well, I haven’t, but I’ll do it when the weather gets a bit more steady. And I know it’s hard to resist the temptation to finally put on some lighter clothes, but frankly speaking, it’s not that warm yet, so hang in there!

As most of you still spend quite a lot of time indoors, there’s one thing you could do before the spring settles in – you could use the time to improve your language skills! I have a new online course for you on irregular verbs in English. So if you need a solid revision of these verbs in the Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses – which usually turn out to be a problematic bit of English grammar – visit my virtual shop on my website angielskidokawy.pl and find out more about the course. The course „IRREGULAR VERBS – Past Simple & Present Perfect” contains 115 irregular verbs in 230 example sentences placed on interactive flashcards with pictures. Thanks to that, learning and revising irregular verbs becomes fun. I know what I’m saying! Although I know all these verbs very well, the course itself is quite addictive, or we could also say that it’s unputdownable. This means you can’t put it down (you can’t stop learning) when you’re using it. I do recommend it! It’s way more pleasant than trying to memorise all irregular verbs found in a long table at the end of an English coursebook.

And now it’s time to teach you another two expressions!

The first one is TO BE OUT OF THE QUESTION. If something is out of the question, it’s not possible or not allowed.

For instance: I really wanted to go to that party, but my parents said it was out of the question. Now, repeat after me.
The translation is: Naprawdę chciałam iść na tę imprezę, ale moi rodzice powiedzieli, że to wykluczone.

Another example: You’ve just got hired, so asking for a pay rise now is out of the question.
Dopiero co zostałeś zatrudniony, więc proszenie teraz o podwyżkę w ogóle nie wchodzi w rachubę / nie wchodzi w grę.

The second expression is TO SOME EXTENT. The definition of this phrase is super short because it simply means „partly”.

For instance: I agree with you to some extent, but I think we also need to consider other options.
Częściowo zgadzam się z tobą, ale myślę, że powinniśmy też rozważyć inne opcje.

Another example: When you’re in a relationsip, you sometimes need to compromise to some extent.
Kiedy jesteś w związku, czasami w pewnym stopniu musisz iść na kompromis.

And now it’s time for your ENGSPRESSO to go!

Our context for the phrases is:

I think that using social media is necessary to some extent, but being dependent on them is out of the question.
Myślę, że korzystanie z mediów społecznościowych jest w pewnym stopniu potrzebne, ale bycie od nich zależnym nie wchodzi w grę.

Great! I hope you’ve learnt something new from this episode. If not, remember it always pays off to speak English aloud, so if you repeated the sentences after me, you surely did a good job! If you’ve listened to my podcast for some time now, you definitely know where to find the transcript of each ENGSPRESSO episode. Anyway, I need to repeat it again for those of you who are listening to me for the first time. You can find all the transcripts directly on my website angielskidokawy.pl or under the links found in the descriptions of my episodes. And if you need more English materials such as ebooks or an audio course, make sure you visit my shop online.

Thank you for today and happy learning!