Como digo em inglês: Você vai dar uma ótima atriz

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O podcast de hoje fala sobre expressões com MAKE (a inspiração veio de um tweet da Ira – sigam: @iraloiola)

Transcrição

Hi, how’s it going? This is Ana Luiza with a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

So today let’s talk about one very common verb, one that every English student, even a beginner, knows of: MAKE. And you may think this is a lesson for beginners, but bear with me… If these expressions are not coming out of your mouth automatically yet, you will likely get something out of this podcast.

I’m gonna use a few expressions with “make” and give you a few examples. Let’s get started with the title of this episode. Yeah, the title in Portuguese. You know the meaning of that title. So picture a little girl in front of you. She’s pretending she is someone famous. Let’s say she’s pretending she is Madonna, the singer. So the little girl is dancing and singing, and then she starts speaking as if she was being interviewed. She’s impersonating Madonna, which means, she’s imitating Madonna’s gestures, facial expressions, Madonna’s voice… She’s impersonating Madonna and you are truly impressed. You think this little girl has potential. Now she’s telling you about a school play she’s in, where she plays the lead role. She starts reciting her lines, and once again you’re impressed. You really think she’s talented. You tell her “You are going to make a great actress”. In Portuguese, we could say something like the title of the podcast. So again “You are going to make a great actress”.

Has anyone ever said something like that to you? When I was a kid someone told me “You’re gonna make a great cook”. That didn’t happen, so I have no idea where they got that from, although to be fair my cooking skills have advanced over the years. So here are a few more examples: you see someone practicing a song for an audition, and you know this person’s dream is to become a professional singer. You could say “You’re gonna make a great singer”. You bump into an old friend at a store and she’s pregnant. You have known her since childhood and she’s a very caring person. You could say “You’re gonna make an amazing mom”. You’re spending your Sunday afternoon at the park and you see a little boy playing soccer with his little friends. You think he’s very talented, so you could say “He’s gonna make a great player some day”.

That makes sense, right? There’s another expression with MAKE right here: “that makes sense”. OK, so it makes sense to say “He’s gonna make a great player”. We learn in school that ‘make’ has to do with creating, building something. So you’re gonna make a great actress, you’re gonna make a great mom. He’s gonna make a great player. It makes sense to use MAKE in these sentences. Would you agree?

Now listen to these sentences: the girl got a new doll on her birthday, and that made her happy. Getting a new doll made her happy. The boy missed his favorite TV show today, and that made him sad. Missing the TV show made him sad. Another one: it always makes me happy when my friends give me a call. Or, it always makes me sad when I watch the news on TV.

Here, we’re using MAKE to communicate that something changes your mood. The little girl felt happy after she got the doll. The doll made her happy. The boy felt sad because he missed the TV show. So, missing the show made him sad. Talking to my friends on the phone makes me happy. Watching the news on TV makes me sad. OK, I’m exaggerating but I think you know I mean…

So we use make to communicate that something is supposedly responsible for changing someone’s mood, like in the examples above. And you could also influence someone to change their mind. For example, let’s say your friend wants to drop out of college to become a ballerina. She says she hates ballet, but she heard ballerinas are all multimillionaires, so she’s made up her mind. She’s dropping out of college to join a ballet studio. You talk to her about what it takes to become a ballerina, in particular a successful one. You explain that it takes a lot of really hard work, and she finally realizes that being a ballerina is not for her. She says “Thank you! You made me realize that being a ballerina is not for me”. Again, she says “You made me realize that this is not for me”.

What does that mean? That means you helped her realize, you helped her see the situation more clearly because you gave her additional information, you shared your experience, you explained something she didn’t know much about… you made her see, you made her realize that being a ballerina wasn’t for her. So someone else could say “John made me realize that teaching isn’t as easy as it seems”. Or “Jane told me about her life abroad and she made me realize I’m not ready to leave the country yet”.

So tell us about a moment in your life when someone made you realize something really important. Also, what makes you really happy? I guess it makes us Brazilians really happy when Brazil wins the World Cup, which hasn’t happened in a while, but anyway… Talk to you next time.

Key expressions

• you’re gonna make a great mom
• makes me sad, makes me happy
• you made me realize…

Glossary

bear with me = guenta mão/ fica por aqui

pretending = fingindo

the lead role = o papel principal

caring person = pessoa afetuosa/atenciosa

supposedly = supostamente

isn’t as easy as it seems = não é tão fácil quanto parece

abroad = em um país estrangeiro