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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2575.
Chapter 2: What are the five English idioms that hit hard?
Five English idioms that hit hard. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app. Do you ever want to use a word other than the word affect to articulate the results of something? Today, get five ways to do it with Natural English.
Chapter 3: How can you assess your English level effectively?
English is part of how you're evaluated, whether you like it or not, in meetings, in interviews, in negotiations. The question isn't whether your English is okay or good enough. It's whether it's working for you. Is it getting you the promotions and the salary raises that you deserve? If not, this is the year to do something about it.
Our free two-minute fluency quiz shows you your true English level, B1, B2, or C1, and where you can level up for real-world success for your career or your global life in English. Take the quiz now for free at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hey there, Aubrey. How's everything? I'm great, Lindsay. How are you?
Have you ever done a cold plunge? Yes, I started doing a cold plunge in our pool. So it's not like ice cold. I know a lot of people do like ice baths, but it's cold. I bet it's 55 degrees right now, maybe even a little bit colder.
Chapter 4: What does it mean when something 'does a number' on you?
So I'll go in and I was reading about all the health benefits and it does say I'm like so revived after and like wide awake. Interesting. I kind of love it. Interesting. I've tried kind of creating a version of that in the shower, like the last one minute, turn it cold. But then I was like, this is not comfortable and I'm not sure.
Like, I guess I've heard about the health benefits, but I'm not 100% sure about them. You don't believe enough for the discomfort. Yeah, I think I just like my hot showers. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was asking you that.
Chapter 5: How does stress impact your health and well-being?
That was inspired by a student posted in our community, the phrase swimming really does a number on my hair. They were talking about the chlorine and swimming. If you don't wear a swim cap, it really hurts your hair. Yes. And I've been doing these cold plunges and I'm like, I maybe should wear a swim cap because I notice it damaging my hair.
But I was so impressed by this vocabulary, the student saying that it really does a number on their hair. And so today we're talking about that phrase and a few related phrases. Yes, I remember as a kid swimming every day. By the end of the summer, I had green hair because of the chlorine. It's dyeing your hair green and it's like straw. It feels all dry and crispy.
But when you're a kid, you don't care that it's doing a number on your hair.
Chapter 6: What are the effects of constant travel and jet lag?
You're just like, I want to swim, right? It's worth it. Love it. So before we get into today's episode, I want to say a huge thank you to those who reviewed us in Spotify. That is another great place to leave us a comment or review. So thank you to Truta. Thank you to Claudia Brooke. Thank you to Dago Cordero, Louise. Now, and those were our reviewers. Guys, these reviews are incredible.
Aubrey, they're fantastic. I know. I love to read them. You can post questions there as well. And we often get great questions in Spotify and YouTube. So keep sending your questions and thank you for the reviews and the comments.
Chapter 7: How do idioms enhance everyday conversation?
We love them. We read them all. Yeah, wherever you listen, whether it's Apple Podcasts or the Android app or Apple, the iPhone app, there's so many places to consume All Ears English now, but leave us a rating and review. We'll do our best to announce your name on the show. Okay, good. Absolutely.
Chapter 8: What does it mean when something 'takes a toll' on you?
So let's dive into this fun vocab. First, that one, to do a number on someone or something. Which, yeah, just means to have a big effect in some way. So for example, the late nights really did a number on my focus, right? So you're staying up late, not sleeping as well, and it's affecting your focus. You could say, oh, that did a number on my focus. In a negative way, right?
Usually, would you say... Not a positive effect. These are negative effects, right? Or that cold winter did a number on my car battery. So maybe now your car battery is dead or dying because of the cold winters. Instead of just saying it really affected my battery. This is so much more fun. It did a number on my battery. Yeah.
Do you feel like living in Arizona, the Mountain West, does a number on your skin, Aubrey? I thought you were going to ask about my battery. The heat kills batteries here. We have to replace batteries so often because of the heat in Arizona. But yes, the dry air does a number on my skin. I have to lotion constantly and I still have dry skin. I know.
I've been living here for like four years and I feel like my skin's aged 10 years compared to being on the East Coast, honestly. Absolutely. But yeah, we get a lot of sunshine, so that helps. Right. Trade-offs. Trade-offs. And then another way to say the same thing would be take a toll on. So you could say the constant stress took a toll on her health. Again, just meaning a great effect, right?
Is that what were you saying? Yeah. I was going to say sometimes we can have an underlying low level of stress and it is taking a toll on our health, but maybe we don't realize it. Right, Aubrey? Absolutely. This happened to me once. I ended up having a panic attack and I didn't even realize how stressed I had been until that happened. And I was so surprised. I didn't understand.
So for someone who doesn't experience that a lot, you might not even realize the stress is building until suddenly you're having these physical effects. Oh my gosh, until it's all too far along. So yeah, interesting. Or another example, years of night shifts took a toll on his sleep patterns. So yeah, this could happen. Then you get a day shift, but you can't sleep at night. That would be tricky.
Huge thank you to any of our nurses or doctors or other crucial employees who do work those night shifts. I mean, I couldn't do it. I know. Or any factory workers, security guards. I have a neighbor that does a graveyard shift as a security guard. I'm like, there are so many jobs where people have to work those night shifts in order for our society to function. It's true. It's true.
And then another way to say it is hit hard. So that news hit him hard. You have to put something in between a pronoun. It hit me hard. It hit him hard. Right. So this means what, Aubrey? And we could just say, you know, that news hit hard. Yeah, I guess you're right. And really it's implied that you mean it hit me hard, right? Yes. But yeah, this means it had some kind of great effect.
This could be the news, a death of a loved one or, you know, something very serious news that had a great effect on like your emotional state. You would say it hit me hard. Right. Or if your company does pay cuts, for example, the sudden pay cut hit her hard. Or you could get more slangy and you could say, oh, that really hits or that hit in the past tense. Yes, this is like newer slang.
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