Hey everyone. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online falo sobre expressões com a palavrinha own, incluindo uma das maneiras que os nativos do inglês usam para dizer “Agora assume!”.
Transcrição
Hello, how’s it going? Today we have 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.
Today I’m focusing on the word own. O-w-n. When you own a car, the car belongs to you. It’s registered in your name; you can sell it if you want to. You probably bought it; you paid for it with your own money or maybe a relative… your father gave you the car. But it’s in your name now; you own it. Same thing with a house: you’re a home owner when the place where you live, be it a house or an apartment, belongs to you. If you look at all the documentation regarding the house, your name is up there in the field that says OWNER. You own the house; you’re a home owner. This is a very common term: home owner. In Portuguese I guess we’d say something like “Eu sou proprietário” or “Eu sou dono de alguma coisa”, depending on what we were talking about. Those are great translations for ‘I’m the owner’ and ‘I own something’. But we also say ‘Eu tenho isso, eu tenho aquilo’ a lot in Portuguese. Depending on what we’re referring to, saying that we own something is more common, and also more accurate, than ‘I have or I’ve got something’.
You could certainly say “I’ve got a house in the beach”, for example, when you’re chatting with someone informally. If for some reason, however, you’d like to convey that you’re the owner of that thing; that it belongs to you… If, for whatever reason, it’s relevant to you to communicate that you are the owner, than use “I own it”. Maybe you’re chatting about residential properties in your area and it makes sense to say that you own a house in the neighborhood. Maybe you’re chatting with a dog breeder and it makes sense to say “I own six poodles”. Maybe… you just wanna show off: “I own three chains of restaurants and there are twenty restaurants in each chain. So, in total I own sixty restaurants.”
It’s not so usual to say “I own a pen” or “He owns three erasers”. We use ‘own’ more often when the thing we own is considered somewhat valuable. And this is an insteresting way to use “own” – when someone does extremely well at an interview, for example, we can say he or she owned the interview. Let’s say Jerry had an interview this morning. He’s back now and you ask him “So how did the interview go?” Jerry says “I owned it. My answers were spot on, the interviewer loved me”. So Jerry owned that interview; he killed it (that’s another way of saying he did extremely well). Let’s say your friend Jane did really well in her math test. She says “I did so well; I owned that test”. “He or she owned that room” is very common as well, and that’s when someone is able to socialize well with people in a party, for example, and entertain them, and everyone thinks that person is great, everyone wants to be around them, and so on.
Now on to the expression in the title of this podcast! “You screwed up” – have you heard that one? Not great to hear, but it happens… When someone screws up, that means that they made one or more mistakes; they went the wrong way about something; the results of something they did were awful, they did it the wrong way… you get the picture.
Of course, when someone screws up, one of the common reactions is to be quiet, or to disappear, to lie or to try and push the blame on someone else. I don’t mean to depress you, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve all seen that happen. Let’s say your coworker Todd screwed something up at work and you’re aware of it. You could tell him “Come on, Todd. You screwed up; now own it. It’s for the best.” Todd is pretending nothing happened and you insist “Our boss is gonna find out sooner or later. Come on, be a man and own it. We all make mistakes and you should just own it so we can all move on past this”.
Own it! “Assuma!”. And that can also be used for the good stuff – you contributed to your company’s success in a significant way? Own it! Don’t be too shy about it; don’t be excessively humble. Own your contribution; own your success. And what about screw-ups? If you think you should just own it, just say “I screwed up; I’m sorry” or something like that. When you do that, you’re owning it. And, of course, you could always tell someone “You screwed up. Own it!”.
Now let’s hear your stories! Tell us about an occasion when you screwed up and you owned it. How did it go? Talk to you next time.
Key expressions
• to own something
• I owned that interview
• screw up
• Now own it!
Glossary
to convey = transmitir a mensagem, comunicar um determinado significado
a dog breeder = criador de cães
spot on = na mosca
you get the picture = você entendeu / dá pra você saber do que eu estou falando
it’s safe to say that = dá pra dizer seguramente que
so we can move on past is = para a gente poder deixar isso pra trás
screw-ups = pisadas de bola (de gravidades variáveis)
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
Look Ana, we have a small mistake in the middle of this text. A small part is written in portuguese:
(…)the results of something they did were awful, they did it the wrong way… you get the picture.
Este material pode ser reproduzido desde que não seja modificado. Inglês Online Como falar em inglês: Pisou na bola? Então assuma! Of course, when someone screws up, one of the common reactions is to be quiet, or to disappear, to lie or to try and push the blame on someone else. I don’t mean to depress you, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve all seen that happen. Let’s say your coworker Todd screwed something up at work and you’re aware of it. (…)
When I was reading, I was a little confused because this portuguese text.
I remember the last time I screwed something up and I own it and it was on my last date. But unfortunately, he don’t forgave me, so I let It slide and didn’t give a damn about it. I’m happy now. I’m moving on!
Well, I teach kids 6 to 12 and once I made a great mistake, yeah, I screwed up. There was an impolite guy and I was having some trouble with him.
I closed to him and told: Hey, my friend, I don’t like it, but I’m going to talk about it with your mother
Then he locked me and said: “But teacher… my mommy died last week”
And I did what I had to do, I owned my ignorance and I apologised to my pupil
