Como falo em inglês: podre de rico

By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online

Jun 01
Inglês Online podre de rico

Hi, everyone!  Hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms muito comuns com a palavra rich.

Transcrição

Hi, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.

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So let’s focus on the word rich for a bit. Here’s our first idiom: get-rich-quick. It’s actually a phrase, right? Get rich quick. And it is very commonly used as an adjective – for example, a get-rich-quick scheme. Notice that when a phrase becomes an adjective, it gets hyphenated – check out the transcript and you’ll see it.

So I’m sure you can imagine what a get-rich-quick scheme is. I used to get emails all the time – I mean, nowadays they all go straight to the junk folder… Mostly I still see these ads, depending on the website I’m looking at, that say… John makes a thousand dollars a week without leaving his home. Click here and you’ll learn what to do in order to make the same amount of money from home.

That’s a typical get-rich-quick scheme, where you basically don’t have to do any work and you still make a ton of money. And the thing is, if there are people still placing ads like these that means they still get results – in other words, there are people clicking because they wanna know how to… get rich quick.

Look what I found on Twitter: one guy said “I’ve met so many kids over the past three months who think this whole music and art thing is a get-rich-quick scheme.” So this guy has met young people who think that getting into music is a way to become rich and famous without putting a lot of effort into it.

I think that a lot of young people actually believe that to be true. They don’t know about all the hours artists put in working, exercising and rehearsing; how early in the morning they have to be up and so on. I don’t think making money with music is a get-rich-quick scheme at all. What do you think?

And here’s another idiom, or rather, more of a collocation in English. A collocation is the way native speakers combine words together to express an idea. For example, in Brazil we say someone is “podre de rico” when they’re very, very rich. Why do we use the word “podre”? I don’t know, but that’s what we use.

In English, on the other hand, one of the words we use in a similar expression is filthy. We say someone is filthy rich, which means they’re very, very wealthy. By the way, the word filthy alone means disgustingly dirty, like very dirty. So there you go – there are things that only the filthy rich can afford, such as buying a Ferrari, or owning ten different mansions around the world.

Interestingly enough, the expression for someone who’s very, very poor is dirt poor. Dirt is that thing that gets on your clothes when you’ve been working outside on your garden all day. It’s like dust or mud. Some artists started out in life dirt poor and worked really hard to become filthy rich. Like I said, I don’t think music is a get-rich-quick scheme…

So what do you think of our expressions today? Do you know people who were born dirt poor and then became filthy rich? Let me know in the comments and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

  • get-rich-quick
  • filthy rich
  • dirt poor
Ana
Kaylee 15/12/2016

be positive..be confident and smile coz u never know who u attract wit your smile:) look good and feel good..God made all of us pretty and so are you:) good luck and stay prettier all the ti:Re)emferences : +3

Rick 06/06/2016

Hello Ana. Well, I know that Silvio Santos he was dirt poor, he would sell goods or the street, like street peddler, but now he is filthy rich. But his life is not a bed of roses, we all know that he has struggled a lot throughout his life…therefore all his money doesn’t come from some get-rich-quick scheme…hehe
I was wondering…many adds they promise to learn english within 3 months…so this is kind of get fluent quick scheme…haha

    Ana 15/06/2016

    True, Rick. Silvio Santos is a great example.

Toshio Mitsuy 04/06/2016

Hi Ana, I used to listen your podcast and I think it’s one the best podcast on app store.
Well, I”m trying to meet some get-rich-quick scheme too, but it’s not easy. In my life, all I did, I needed to spend many hours working and I never got many money.
To get many money, first you need to have the big idea and after you need to realize this idea, need to put it in practice, so this is the way I believe. My problem is when I have one big idea I don’t have the power or money to realize this idea. Well, that is the life.
And I have a question for you. Is your podcast a get-rich-quick scheme? Or you have to work a lot?

P.S. Ana, I know this text has a lot of errors, so if you can help me saying all the errors I did, I would greatly appreciate it.

Best Regards

Carol 01/06/2016

Oi ana , voce poderia fazer um podcast sobre a expressão “to sing the blues” ? ouvi em varias musicas e não achei na internet o que significa.

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