Hi there, this is Harry, welcome back to advanced English lessons with Harry,
where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language.
We help you with expressions and phrases, vocabulary, and everything else connected
with English. And anything that you're looking to help you to improve your situation your job
prospects or just simply to improve business English or conversational English. Well,
you've come to the right place, if you have any problems, very happy to help you. I'll give you
the address at the end of this particular lesson. If you need to contact me, then you can do so.
So in this advanced English lesson, we're looking at expressions and
phrases and words about thinking, okay, everything connected with thinking,
so I'll give you them. And then I'll give you an example as to how you might use
them. We've got 10 in total. So I'll go through them one by one.
And as I said, at the end of the lesson, you'll get the address,
if you need to contact me, then you can use that. Okay, let's get going.
Number one, a rational thinker. But when we refer to somebody as a rational thinker,
they think everything through logically, it's not irrational, they think it through logically they
see what the implications are, and then they make the decision, then they plan. So rational means
something that is well thought out something that will work perhaps and may not always work. But
it's done in a very logical way very rational, not somebody just thinking off the top of their
head. So they give it a lot of thought, a lot of consideration and a lot of planning. So somebody
could be described as a very rational thinker who takes a bit of time before he gives an answer. But
he doesn't like to give quick answers, because he likes to consider the situation from both sides,
and then give his view or opinions and therefore he could be described by colleagues,
and classmates or family as a rational thinker. He never makes quick decisions.
Number two, on a whim, when we do something on a whim, we usually do it without really thinking
or considering. I just woke up one morning, and thought, it's time I had a holiday. So I booked
a holiday I left the next day. And it was the best thing I ever did. I just did it on a whim,
I don't know, I must have been dreaming about it. But when I woke up, and I told my wife,
just get the bags packed, we'll go to the airport, we're heading off for the weekend. And we really
enjoy yourselves. And I don't usually do things on a whim, but I thought it would be a little
bit spontaneous this time. So to do something on a whim is to do it very quickly. Without thinking
without having any planning, you just get this notion in your mind. and off you go you do it
on a whim. People can resign from their jobs on a whim, they have a row with somebody or they're
just not they haven't been feeling happy in the job for a long time. So do you suddenly decide,
That's it. I've had enough I'm going to do... I'm going to travel for six months,
or I'm going to just give up working for a while and then I look for something that really really
suits me. So they go in and they hand in the resignation. And the boss says, Well,
this is very quick. Yeah, I know. I've done it on a whim. But I really think it's the
best thing for me, okay to, to resign to hand in your resignation, do something on a whim.
Number three is gut instinct. Well, a gut is another word and it's a slang
word for a stomach. So it's the feeling we have deep inside. We've all had that
feeling from time to time when something isn't right. We have a gut instinct,
something tells us we're not sure why is there's no perhaps rational thinking behind it. But it's
just a feeling we have we shouldn't go here. We shouldn't go there. We shouldn't answer
this. We shouldn't answer that we shouldn't apply for this job or that job. It's a gut
instinct that you have something tells you that is not right. Something tells
you that it would be the wrong decision to make so you make the decision based on gut instincts.
Number four, a spontaneous decision. Well, it's something similar to on a whim when we
make a spontaneous decision. It's very, very quick. No planning, no thinking,
no pre thought about it. We just do it. What made you do it at just a spontaneous decision that came
into my mind when we were sitting there having coffee, I just thought you know, that's what I'd
like to do. That's exactly what I'd like to do. So he sold his car, got the cash and gave it to
a charity. It's a spontaneous decision. You know, if I want a car, I can rent a car. I don't need
it. I go every day to work either on foot or by bicycle or their metro is a great system. And
if I need to drive somewhere outside the city, I can rent a car I don't need it. And anyway,
I want I've always wanted to do make some charitable act, some donation this was the
best thing that I could think of a spontaneous decision, something very quick, very sudden.
Number five, to know subconsciously Well, when we have a subconscious thought, it's something that
is there, but we're not so sure how it came into our mind. But we just know that it's the right
thing to do. So we know subconsciously. Okay, so we've decided to change the way we do our work,
we've decided to change how we approach different people, how we approach situations,
so it wasn't a conscious decision, you just didn't sit down, some day and said, Right, this is it,
I'm going to deal with my boss in a different way. That would be a very conscious decision. But when
you do something, subconsciously, something tells you inside some message comes into your mind,
a good way to deal with that boss to get on better with him would be would be to approach him in
a slightly different way. So subconsciously, that's what you do just something tells you,
you might even say a little bird tells you that this would be the best way to do it.
Number six to weigh up. And usually we weigh up the options or the choices that
we have weigh up means to balance one against the other, perhaps we've got two options,
we have to consider, perhaps with more than two options, so we weigh them up means we weigh up,
we look at the pros and the cons, the positives and negatives, the pluses and the minuses. And
then we come to a conclusion or a decision. Once we've weighed up what our options are.
We could be weighing weighing up the options to accept job A or job B, we could be weighing
up our options to decide on college A or college B, university A or university B,
whatever the decision is that's in front of us, we want to weigh up all of those
positives and the negatives. To try and work out what is the best for us, to weigh up.
Number seven, deep down again, a bit like your gut instinct deep down inside of us. We know what to
do. Yeah, we think about a problem for a long, long time. We weigh up the options for a long,
long time. But really deep down, we know the decision we have to make, it might not be a good
decision. But or it might not be, it might not be an easy decision. But at the end of the day,
we have to do it. So for example, you've got somebody in your team that just isn't working
out. So you weigh up the pros and cons what he or she is good at what he or she is bad
at. You try to find something that's going to help you to make the decision you don't
like having to tell people that they're not really fitting into your team, it's not an
easy decision to sit somebody down and tell them I think you should look for another position. No,
it's not easy at all. So you look for all of the options before you come to it. But
deep down inside, you know, that's the best decision to make for you for the team and
funnily enough for the other person because they're not really happy either. So deep down.
Number eight is good phrasal verb to mull over. And just for the pronunciation M U L L. Mull
over. When when you mull over something, you think about it for a period of time,
could be hours or days. There's no specific period allotted for this but to mull over
means to think about it. So, in a situation, leave it with me. Let me mull it over for a few days,
perhaps over the weekend. I'll give you my answer on Monday. So Thursday evening or Friday, you
have this particular situation presented to you by your colleagues or your boss or somebody and
you want a bit of time to think about it. Leave it with me for a few days. I'll mull it over,
or talk to my partner about it. And I'll give you my answer on Monday. To mull something over.
Number nine, to think twice about something, to think twice about something. This means
that we don't give a quick knee jerk reaction, somebody asked us to do something, somebody makes
a suggestion. And we give an instantaneous response. No, that's not the situation. The
situation here is to think twice about something. I really would like to say yes. But you know,
I've given it some thought and I don't think it's for me. So they think twice. Yeah, sometimes
people seem to have have second thoughts. It means exactly the same. Your first reaction,
perhaps us to say yes. But when you think it over and you think twice about something, you realise
that it's not really what you want. So you turn it down, sometimes regrettably, but, you know,
things happen for a reason. So to think twice about something means just to give it a little
bit more time, and you'll probably come up with a better solution a better fix for you rather than
that knee jerk. Something that you do at a whim, okay, something to think twice about something.
And then finally, number 10. To have a hunch. Well, a hunch is a feeling inside. There's no
logical reasoning for this. There's no information written down. You just have a general feeling.
I have a hunch that he's not going to turn up today. Why do you say that? I don't know. I mean,
he's usually here at eight at 8:15 at the latest. But sure, it's nine o'clock now, nobody's heard
from so perhaps he's sick. But I have a hunch, he's not going to turn up. And you were right,
he didn't turn up. Or you have a hunch that the board are going to make some announcements. And
you've seen people coming and going for the last couple of weeks. And you just got a funny feeling
that this is not the normal practice for them, meetings behind closed doors. So you have a hunch
that something's going on. You're not sure what it is. Nobody has said anything to you.
But you have a hunch you have this feeling that something's going to happen. And yes, of course,
the next week, there's an announcement that they're going to merge or they're going to
be taken over or something seriously going to happen to the business, to have a hunch.
Okay, so we've got 10 ways, 10 different adverb... coll... sorry sorry, advanced collocations that
will help you to talk about different situations when you're thinking. So advanced words and
phrases connected with thinking. So let me give them the 10 of you... 10 of them again to you.
Number one, rational thinker, a rational thinker, somebody who thinks rationally. Number two,
something on a whim, like here's something you do suddenly without planning. A gut instinct,
some feeling inside something tells you it's a gut instinct. Number four,
spontaneous decision like on a whim, something very quick, very sudden. Number five,
to know subconsciously. Deep down, you know, it's not a conscious decision. Weigh up,
weigh up the options. Number seven, deep down. You have this particular feeling. Number eight,
to mull over something to think about it for a few days whenever mull over. Number nine, think twice
about something. Yeah, give it a second thought. Make sure you're making the right decision,
think twice about something. And then finally, number ten, to have a hunch about something.
Okay, so 10 particular advanced vocabulary and phrases that will help you to discuss and think
about and plan about different situations and these can be used in your English. As I always
say, you have to practice them. You have to try and drop them into your conversation,
see how you use them. If you need any additional help, come back to
me at www.englishlessonviaskype.com. Very happy to hear from you, very happy to help you. Very
happy to give you some other examples if you need them. Okay, this is Harry saying goodbye.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, and join me as always for the next lesson.