Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Ecubed 1174: pipe dream


Today's E-cubed:  pipe dream (giấc mộng hão huyền)

Pipe dream: a hope/dream/scheme that is highly unlikely to turn into reality...
Pipe dream: mong ước/giấc mộng/âm mưu hão huyền, viễn vông, không thực tế, khó trở thành hiện thực...

Cùng luyện tập đoạn hội thoại sau:

Did you hear what Johnny said? About having homes in California and Florida? Yeah!! What a pipe dream! Hey~ Let the kid dream a little!

Bạn đã nghe thấy bé John nói gì chưa?
Về việc có nhà ở California và Florida à?
Ừ!! Thật là một ước mơ viễn vông!
Này anh bạn! Cứ để cho đưa bé mơ mộng chút đi!

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Ecubed 1173: out of the blue


Today's E-cubed: out of the blue = hoàn toàn bất ngờ, không tưởng tượng nổi, một sự kiện từ trên trời rơi xuống


Cùng luyện tập đoạn hội thoại sau:

Where are you going? John’s house. John! You haven’t seen him in so long~ Yeah, he called me today out of the blue!

Anh đi đâu vây?
Tới nhà anh John.
Anh John à! Anh lâu lắm rồi chưa gặp anh ấy nhỉ.
Ừ, cậu ấy vừa gọi cho tôi hôm nay thật ngoài sức tưởng tượng!

Transcript:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Daily Easy English Expression (Ecubed). Today's expression is "out of the blue". And I'm guessing most of you probably know this expression. But, do you know why we use this expression? I will explain that after the dialogue.

Out of the blue means suddenly, without any planning, without expectation.Just boom! something happens.

Examples:
- Somebody said something out of the blue.
- I went some places out of the blue.

Or check out the dialogue.

- Where are you going?
- John’s house.
- John! You haven’t seen him in so long~
- Yeah, he called me today out of the blue!

John called me today out of the blue. I'm just suddenly, I means I wasn't thinking about John. I didn't expect a phone call. But, BOom! He called me!And probably John wasn't thinking about me. But suddenly, Boom! Hey, I should call Coach Shane. And John called me. That's the idea.

Out of the blue. Why do we use this expression?

OK. So, imagine you're outside. It's a nice day. There's no cloud in the sky. You look up. What color is the sky? Blue. Right. It's blue.

Now, imagine a little bird, a bird next to you flies into the sky. Right? And you watch the bird. And it goes straight up. It goes up up up up. And then it disappears. It's gone. Right? The bird is so high. Then it disappears. And it's just blue. It's blue. And you are watching. Wow, that's amazing. And then suddenly, poop. A bird turd falls on your forehead. Where did the bird turd come from? It came from the blue. It came out of the blue. Obviously, there'a a bird up there, but we don't see the bird. We were'nt expecting anything. And then poop!! Suddenly. It came out of the blue.

That's the idea of the expression. Out of the blue. On the clear blue sky, when you look up you see nothing, nothing there. But actually there are things there. We don't see them. When do we see them? We see them when boom! It's too late.

Now sometimes out of the blue is a good thing. John called me out of the blue. I like John. That's good. But sometimes, it's a bird turd. Be careful! You guys have a fantastic day. Don't forget get free lessons: www.LetsMasterEnglish.com/FREE. And did you listen to our internet radio show? It's so cool: www.LMEToday.com. See ya!!