I wanted to review my books, Distinction 1&2
and also talk about your impression about phrases included in these books
and also if you could pick a few phrases that you really love or that you often use in a the daily conversation
and maybe make a couple sentences that’d be great
because I think people watching this video would be able to learn some new ways to construct sentences using phrases in these books.
You’re looking at Distinction 1.
Distinction 1.
What’s your impression about this book?
Do you think you often use these phrases in a daily conversation, daily life?
Yeah, so I was very surprised that how detailed the book was
in terms of the number of phrases that we use
and I was flicking through and I was so surprised that I use these many times a day without even thinking.
So in terms of understanding very natural English, this is a great place to start.
Thank you.
You’ve got a lot of things in there that I use every day. One here
attention to detail
ATD.
Do you use the acronym?
I don’t use the acronym, but I feel like I say to my staff all the time at work.
"You need to have attention to detail."
"When you review that workpaper, make sure you have the right attention to detail."
Do you reckon you can use that word or phrase in a normal conversation with people outside of business environment?
Like, "The person doesn’t have much attention to detail"
or do you think this is a bit business like?
No, you can use it outside of business.
It could be that you go to, for example, a really nice restaurant
and everything there is really curated and you could say
"This restaurant has an amazing attention to detail"
It could be the food that you’re talking about, the presentation of the food or something aesthetic, the visual.
Amazing. That’s good.
The other one I like is
have butterflies in one’s stomach
It could be because you’re nervous.
That’s an interesting one.
I wonder why it was butterflies.
Why is it butterflies?
I’m not sure why they chose butterflies.
I don’t know who said that but…butterflies.
This one here
guesstimate
That’s an interesting one that people say that’s halfway between a guess and a more informed estimate.
So it could be... pick a number or my guesstimate is 100.
It’s not a complete guess, is it?
It’s an informed guess.
Informed guess.
Educated guess is much more informed?
Yeah, an educated guess.
Guesstimate, maybe I don’t have too much to help in my guess but I’m gonna do…say it's this number.
So it’s more numeric.
Numeric, yeah.
Another one I like is
broken record
So that can be when maybe someone keeps saying the same thing over and over to you.
"Atsu’s sounding like a broken record these days
he keeps saying the same thing to me because obviously a broken record, but nice to listen to."
"Nice to listen to."
In a sarcastic way.
In a sarcastic way. Definitely.
There’s many phrases in this book that I use every day.
There’s some that are suitable for work, suitable for personal life.
I think if you’re trying to take your English to the next level, this is a really good book.