Podcast: Get your head around something

By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online

May 28
Inglês Online Get your head around something

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What’s up? Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre mais duas expressões do dia a dia de falantes nativos do inglês. Uma delas é um idiom muito usado para expressar “Não consigo compreender!” Não perca.

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Transcrição

What’s up? You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!

So let me tell you about a very, very popular idiom in English. We use it in situations where you just can’t understand something. It may even be mind-boggling to you. But… it may not; it may just be something that sort of stuns you temporarily, and you can’t comprehend how that can happen, or how a certain person made the choice that they made… You can’t get your head around it.

That’s our first expression of today. When you can’t get your head around something, it means you find that thing challenging to comprehend. You have this situation in front of you, and it feels completely foreign to you – like something you would never consider, maybe you didn’t know it was possible. And then, all of a sudden, someone you know tells you that they decided to abandon their 20-year-long successful career as a… doctor, let’s say and start up a new career in street art.

Let’s say this is your friend Lucas. Lucas was a happy doctor, by the way. He never complained about being a doctor and the long hours. That is what is most mind-boggling about it. And you know Lucas well. He’s an expressive guy. You believe that if he had been unhappy he would have let on that he was unhappy.

In other words, you can’t get your head around your friend’s sudden change of heart about his long-running, successful career as a doctor. He wants to be a street artist now, and you just can’t get your head around it.

So the same way we say “get your head around it” you can say “wrap your head around it”, “wrap”. Same thing, so let’s use that for the remainder of this episode. Sometimes people feel like they can’t wrap their heads around how something works, for example.

Let’s say you bought a new kitchen gadget. It’s supposed to be wonderful and make your life so much easier. The only problem is, you tried switching it on, and nothing. You then went ahead and read the manual, and tried to follow the “easy start guide” step by step. Nothing! That thing looks like it’s… dead. You know it’s in good condition, though, because it’s brand new and the sales assistant tested it in front of you.

You, however, can’t make it work. You can’t wrap your head around those instructions. You know you’re missing something but you don’t know what it is. You read through the instructions again and feel like they’re about launching a spaceship rather than making a kitchen gadget work. You can’t wrap your head around them. They don’t make a lot of sense to you.

Has this ever been you? Some things are mind-boggling – they boggle the mind, and you can’t make sense of them. Sometimes we can’t wrap our head around someone’s decision; sometimes we can’t wrap our heads around how something works; sometimes we can’t wrap our heads around an event – how could it happen? It’s mind-boggling.

So here’s what I’m asking you: try and remember the last time something happened in your life that really made you think “I can not wrap my head around this – I can’t comprehend it!” Let me know what that was. Talk to you next time!

Key expressions

  • Get/wrap one’s mind around something
  • mind-boggling

Vocabulary

Stuns you = deixa você chocado, estupefato ou pasmado com alguma coisa

Let (something) on = deixar transparecer

Change of heart = mudança de ideia, opinião ou atitude

Brand new = novo em folha

Ana
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Ludmila 06/06/2018

Olá! Qual melhor tradutor app? Por favor…

Hélio 01/06/2018

Ana Luísa

Preciso do texto traduzido para o português!
Como eu faço? Pode ajudar?

    Ana 02/06/2018

    Oi Hélio
    Vc tentou o Google tradutor?
    É tradução automática, mas é razoável.
    Curiosidade: porque vc precisa da tradução?

José Antonio 01/06/2018

Muito bom!

    Ana 02/06/2018

    Obrigada :)

Marcio Marques 28/05/2018

Hi Luiza,

As unsual great topic! I´d like to suggest to the next podcast the following situation where a family is watching tv and all of a sudden the image is not clear. In Brazil we use “chuviscando” but another day I could perhaps the sound mentioned was snow during the translation. thanks a lot for your supporting!

    Ana 30/05/2018

    Great one… It’s on my list.
    Good to know you like the podcasts :)

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