Hello Everybody, my name is Steve Ford and welcome to How to Speak English Challenge 8
so a lot of you are thinking at the beginning of this year about future plans
and I am here to help you build your answer to my question: what are your future plans?
so a lot of you may be thinking about getting a new job
so let's say one of your friend's asks you, "hey, what's new at your job?"
and you say, "same old, same old"
same old, same old means there's nothing new
it's boring, it's repetitive: same old, same old thing
maybe your job is driving you up the wall
making you crazy
if that's the case, as a future plan you can think about moving on to bigger and better things
that means that you want to expand your horizons
and make an upgrade to your career
you want to go up and improve your career
now making a change like that sometimes is not easy and you might have to do a little moonlighting
that means that you take on a second job, maybe the job you really want to do
and you do it in secret so that they don't know at your main job that you're doing it
of course, as you learn more and more professions
as you change jobs, many of us become Jacks and Jills of all trades
and that's a great expression: a Jack or Jill of all trades
and it means that you know a little bit about many different lines of work
kinds of work and I've seen many success stories like going for example from
a waiter or waitress to a classical musician
a factory worker to a pilot
a pilot to an astronaut
now if your line of work, I said line of work before, line of work is the kind of work, the kind of profession you do it's a very
popular term that we use here when we're talking about work
if your line of work is something that you do like and you wanna stay working at the same company
then we can say that you can move up or climb up the ladder
and that means you go from one position to the next in the same company
OK, so maybe your plan for this year or for the future in general is to learn something new
and why not, it's exciting and of course some people might tell you, "oh learn something new, you can't teach an old dog new tricks"
this is a saying which means that as you get older, it becomes more difficult to learn something
I don't believe it. I think that..and I've seen this
anyone can start learning a language like English at any age
so we can say that you can learn a language in a more casual way
you can pick up a language
and to pick up a language means that you learn it indirectly
through watching movies, listening to music
maybe listening to native speakers in a conversation, kind of like what we're doing right now
now if you feel that you don't need to pick up a new language, maybe you can brush up on the language that you've already learned
and I receive lots of message, e-mail messages and voice messages from you guys
asking about how to brush up on phrasal verbs
my best advice is try to learn them in the context of a story
so you can do that through reading a book, audio books are great as well
I have a lot of videos on phrasal verbs I can post some links below
but remember they're verbs and verbs are actions, it's not a thing
and if you find a phrasal verb book and there's just lists...I have 500 phrasal verbs right here in my hand
great, but have you learned them?
try to brush up on those phrasal verbs by choosing a few
and see if you can recognize them, see if you can hear them in real life stories
talk the talk, walk the walk
whatever your plans are with the suggestions I've given you so far
you want to talk the talk and walk the walk
this means that you want to keep to your plan
you want to follow it
so if you say that you're going to lose 15 pounds this year, then you have to talk the talk and walk the walk
OK, last future plan of this year, I know of you watching this video are thinking about it
is to move, maybe move to another country with a different culture
a different language, different weather, different smells, different people, different habits
and to move, you have to have the guts to do it
it's a great expression to have the guts to do something means to have the courage to do it
you have to have the guts to do it to make a fresh start
to start something new
and it can be very exciting, it may take a leap of faith
and this is one of the expressions that I wanted to leave you with
to take a leap of faith means that you don't know how you're going to do it
but you have so much passion, enthusiasm, excitement to do something
that when you take a leap of faith, as you go forward
the road is forming underneath you
and we say, take a leap of faith, when you want to do something, make a big change in your life like moving to another country
so what're your plans for the future?
get a new job? move to another country? Maybe pick up a language or brush up on some language that you already know?
I look forward to reading your answers below and we'll see you in How to Speak English Challenge 9
bye for now