Barbara in London

Computers and machines save us so much time these days! When a task takes a lot of human time and effort, we can say that it's labour intensive.

You can use 'labour intensive' in either a positive or a negative way.

A positive example of a labour intensive process is the creation of hand-made jewellery. It's expensive because individual pieces are made by hand, and the process is intricate and detailed. We value the work that has gone into the jewellery.

On the other hand, a process can be labour intensive because it is inefficient. For example, manually matching items on two long lists is a labour intensive process. It's also something that a computer should be able to do, to save you time.

Do you have to perform any tasks that are labour intensive? Tell me in the comments!

As it's semi-final week, I have another football related idiom for you today. The Argentina and Croatia teams are definitely going to have to keep their eyes on the ball tonight!

You can use this idiom any time someone has to give a situation their close attention so that they will notice if something starts to go wrong.

Imagine that a manager always knows exactly what's going on in his or her department, and acts quickly whenever there are issues. You can say that he or she "keeps his/her eye on the ball" or that he or she is "on the ball".

Tell me in the comments:

Who will you be supporting in the semi final matches?

I'll be supporting Argentina 🇦🇷 and Morocco 🇲🇦.

A 'pestle' is a heavy tool for grinding spices in a bowl. Hmm. Business leaders use the PESTLE acronym to help them categorise and analyse the many external situations, trends and events that affect their business.

"Why do I care?", you may ask!

Well, if you need to write essays (eg IELTS Task 2), then PESTLE can help you to generate ideas.

Take each PESTLE item in turn, and brainstorm. You might be surprised at how many ideas you come up with.

If you're preparing for IELTS, or have taken IELTS in the past, tell me in the comments:

How do you like to generate ideas for Writing Task 2?

Don't scroll away! You might be thinking that you don't need to talk about aliens, but it's good to know how to use the verbs 'die' and 'kill' correctly.

Actually, one of my students made this mistake in my speaking group. Our topic was 'space' and he was describing what happened in a movie he had seen.

Have you spotted the mistake? Correct alternatives are:

✳️The alien died in the blast.
✳️The alien was killed by the blast

DIE
To die means to become dead. We cannot use 'die' with an object, so there is no passive form. We can use a time expression or a phrase to explain when, why or how someone died.

✳️The alien died in the blast.
✳️Many soldiers died in the war.
✳️My grandfather died last year.
✳️She died of cancer.

KILL
Kill is used with an object. The subject of the sentence causes the object to become dead.

✳️The alien was killed by the blast.
✳️The blast killed the alien.
✳️Many soldiers were killed in the war.
✳️The cat killed the mouse.

Tell me in the comments:

Do you believe there is intelligent life on another planet?

You must have faced a situation like this before. You've been given some work to do, and a deadline to complete it.

You've thought that you were on track, but then ..... all of a sudden... you're given some extra work, or the deadline changes.

You're under pressure!

Some of my students have faced this problem with college assignments, when a topic or deadline has suddenly been changed. Has that ever happened to you?

You can say that your tutor, boss (or whoever it is) has moved the goalposts. You were ready to aim and score a goal, but now you have to kick the ball somewhere else.

We use this idiom a lot at work, particularly when we're talking about changes to projects and other large pieces of work.

⚽⚽⚽

Talking of goals and goalposts, England will be facing France and Mbeppe at the weekend.

Let me know in the comments:

Do you think England will win?

I would never have thought about sharing this vocabulary with you if one of my students hadn't wanted to talk about his workload last week.

Do you, like my student, have a mix of quiet times and extremely busy times? If so, you can say that your work comes in peaks and troughs.

The peaks (like mountain tops are the busy times, and the troughs (pronounced "troffs") are the quieter times.

If your workload stays at the same, manageable level all the time, you can say that you have a steady flow of work - a bit like water continuously flowing through a river.

If you're going through a very busy period, there are a few expression that you can use:

✳️I'm completely snowed under
✳️I've been up to my eyes all week
✳️I'm absolutely swamped
✳️We've been flooded with ....

Does your language have any interesting idioms for talking about your workload? Can you translate them into English? Tell me in the comments 😁

It's been an extraordinary World Cup so far, so it's no surprise that many of you have been talking about it. Today's example includes a very common grammar mistake. Can you spot it?

Here's a clue: It's about the way we talk about the purpose of an action.

I'm sharing the rule here because most of us talk about purpose a lot in our everyday speaking - both at home and at work.

When we use a verb to talk about the purpose of an action, we use:

✳️ to + infinitive

➡️ My friend is coming to my place TO WATCH ...
➡️ I went to the bakery TO BUY some bread

There's something else missing in our example sentence too. We need an article! We can say:

➡️ My friend is coming to my place to watch A/THE football match.

If the listener knows which football match this is, it's 'the'. Otherwise, it's 'a'.

During the world cup and other major tournaments, it's also very natural to say:

➡️ My friend is coming to my place to watch THE FOOTBALL.
Here, we're talking about football in general.

I hope this was useful for you. If so, please double tap the post so that more people will see it.

❓❓ If you've got a question, please ask and I'll do my best to help.

Tell me in the comments:

⚽ Which team are you supporting in the world cup?

(I'm supporting England! I'm also supporting Argentina alongside my friends in Bangladesh 😃)

Oops! When my student asked me what 'aysap' (the word she thought she'd heard) meant, it was already too late. She was so upset! She'd felt too embarrassed to ask her boss to explain the meaning, and she hadn't realised that he needed her to finish her task so quickly.

I'm sharing the story with you here so that you won't face the same situation.

ASAP means 'as soon as possible'. When people are speaking, you may hear:

A.S.A.P (the speaker pronounces each letter)
"Aysap" (the speaker pronounces asap as a single word)

Most of the time, we either use the full form when speaking (as soon as possible) or pronounce the letters separately. However, you will sometimes hear "aysap" too.

Tell me in the comments:

Have you ever been confused by an acronym (abbreviation) like ASAP? What was it?

Yes, I understood this! But ... my student wants to be able to speak accurately and naturally. That's why we worked together to improve this language.

We often talk about home in our everyday conversations so, if you want to be able to speak about it accurately and naturally too, read on:

✳️YOU CAN SAY (when you're somewhere else)
✳️I'm going to go home tomorrow.
✳️I'm going home tomorrow.

THIS IS WHY:

***Verb/tense***
When we're talking about a plan or arrangement, we normally use BE + GOING TO + INFINITIVE. (We use future simple for unplanned future actions.) When we're using a time expression to talk about our plans (tomorrow, 7pm etc) we can also use the present continuous (I'm going).

***Talking about home***
We don't use "my" or "to" when we're talking about home. Here are some examples:
I'm staying at home today
She's going home this afternoon
He left home this morning

***Word order***
In English, we normally put the time (tomorrow) at the END of the sentence, not at the beginning.

Did this post help you? Please tell me in the comments. I'm happy to answer your questions there too.

✳️✳️✳️Please help me to help others!✳️✳️✳️
Did you know that Instagram LOVES posts with comments? If you think that other people will find this post useful, please take a moment to type "Thanks" (or anything else) in the comments.

When a footballer takes a penalty kick, there's no guarantee that the ball will go in the net; but the player will definitely "give it their best shot". In other words, they will try their best.

You can us this idiom any time that:

Someone asks you to do something ...
.. AND you want to tell them that you'll try your best ...
AND you're not certain that you'll succeed

You can say:

✳️I'll give it my best shot
✳️I'll give it a shot

✳️I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'll give it my best shot

Which team are you supporting in the world cup? ⚽ Let me know in the comments.

Ana was facing a problem at work. The people around her all had a heavy workload, but she didn't have very much to do. She felt a bit embarrassed and she was starting to get bored as well.

She had spoken to her friends about the problem and they had just said, "Tell your manager".

But how?

Ana (not her real name) didn't want her manager to think that she couldn't find enough work to do. She didn't want to say "I don't have enough to do." She wanted to sound positive.

✳️In case you face a similar situation, I'm going to share the words I recommended to Ana:

✳️"I've got some capacity at the moment, so let me know if there's anything else I can help with."

Saying you've "got some capacity" means that you're able to take on more work. It's a great way to start a conversation about the amount of time you have, and how you might be able to get involved in other work.

Have you ever had to talk to your manager about your workload?

Type 'Yes' or 'No' in the comments to let me know.

I'm incredibly proud of one of my students! He's so committed to improving his English that, despite being really nervous, he's "stepped out of his comfort zone" and joined my English speaking group on Zoom.

To "step out of your comfort zone" means to do something that makes you feel nervous and uncomfortable.

Of course, my student is not alone. Lots of people feel anxious about speaking English on camera.

BUT ...

By stepping out of his comfort zone, my student is not just improving his speaking skills - he's becoming more confident too.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Are you ready to take the next step in improving your English speaking skills? Would you like to join my FREE speaking club on Zoom too?

It's a friendly and supportive group of English learners from around the world. We discuss a different topic every week, and there's always a language feedback session at the end to help everyone improve.

So go on ... step out of your comfort zone (if you need to) and give it a go.

Message me for more info, or go to link in bio to book your place.