This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2115.
Check on your English vocabulary progress today.
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We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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In this second episode of a three-part series, we talk about check-on.
How is it different from checkout or even check-in?
Find out two common scenarios to use check-on today.
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Hey, Aubrey, how's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Oh my gosh, I'm feeling good today.
I am so excited.
I have a question for you today.
All right, let's hear it.
So what do you have to check on at least once every day?
You have... kids?
Do you have a family?
Do you have a home?
I mean, what do you have to check on at least once a day?
I've started checking on my kids' grades once a day because lots of things have gone digital.
So now I can just check the website to find out their grades in all their classes.
I don't have to contact teachers.
I don't even have to ask my kids.
I can just check on that online, which is really helpful.
I can see missing assignments, right?
But that's not the case.
I feel like I'm checking on things all day long, right?
If I'm making dinner, I have to check on the food to make sure it's not burning, right?
I feel like I'm, yeah, I'm constantly checking on something.
And when you have these things to check on, do you have a checklist or is it all in your head?
Just things you need to cover, come back to in your mind.
All that mom stuff is, yeah, just in my head, right?
Okay.
For work, that's different.
I have to have a checklist.
I have to.
Yeah.
But when it comes to like making dinner, that would be tricky.
Like make a checklist.
Check on dinner.
Make sure it's not burning.
I just have to keep it in my mind.
Right.
That would be funny.
Right.
Yeah.
I love it.
So clearly you are checking on things all day, every day.
There's a lot of work to be done.
Right.
In our lives these days.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
We had a student recently ask us about three phrasal verbs with check.
Check out, check in, and check on.
And we already talked about check out, right, in episode 2107.
If you guys missed it, it was called check out these phrasal verbs because there are so many meanings of check out needed its own episode.
Yeah, so excited.
So check out 2107.
These are super common, guys.
If you don't listen to any other episodes this year, you want to get these three key episodes right.
And check out the app too while you're at it, right, Aubrey?
I mean, I think the thing the listeners love the most, our listeners, is the transcripts, right?
The fact that they can see transcripts of every episode of All Ears English.
What do you think?
Yes.
It's so helpful to be able to listen to the episode while you see the transcript.
So get the app, guys, at allearsenglish.com slash app.
It's available iOS and Android now.
So yeah, it's the best way to listen to the podcast.
I love it.
So why don't we jump right into it, Aubrey, so our listeners are not left in suspense.
So talking about checkout today, where do we start?
Check on.
Exactly, right?
So yeah, check on.
And there are two meanings of this phrasal verb, but they're pretty similar.
Okay.
And the first one is to monitor the condition of something.
So we often hear this like doctors monitoring, right?
The doctor checked on his patient.
That means they're just monitoring their condition.
Okay.
Yeah.
Or, for example, if you're baking a cake, which we were baking a cake here yesterday for my sister-in-law in the house right,
How'd that go?
It actually went okay, surprisingly.
Okay, well done.
Nothing blew up, nothing caught fire.
It was okay.
We'll take that.
Yeah, so we could say, oh, I need to check on the cake I'm baking, right?
Right, so you're just like, yeah, monitoring, how is it going?
It's not like we're going to change anything.
It's very different from checkout.
These aren't that similar.
Even though they both have the word check, it's really different.
You're just like monitoring how something is going.
It's like I'm monitoring my kids' grades.
I need to check on the grades.
Exactly.
I feel like, when I think about the difference between check on and check out, I think that the thing that I'm checking on is kind of in progress.
Like it's being updated.
Like the thing is baking.
The cake is baking.
Your kids' grades are constantly updating.
So you need to check on.
Would you agree with that?
Absolutely.
Yes.
Right.
It's all about checking for updates, checking for progress when we check on something.
Yeah, interesting.
Interesting.
What else, Aubrey?
The second use is very similar.
It's like to look at something or someone in order to make sure that they are safe or correct.
So it's very similar to monitoring progress, but it is a little bit of a different meaning.
Like, for example, I might say I need to check on my kids if I'm at the park and I've been chatting with a friend and I realize I haven't seen my kids in a few minutes.
And this is a little different.
I'm not monitoring the progress of anything.
I'm checking on the safety of something.
Yeah, but it's still quite different from checkout in a very subtle native nuanced way.
But we're going to show our listeners today.
So you said, I need to check on my kids or the police are checking on the man they saw loitering.
So what would that mean?
What would they be doing?
Yeah, right.
So they've seen someone that might be breaking the law, something they're concerned about.
They're checking on the safety or to see if something is correct, if it's on the up and up.
If we see it like, no crimes are happening, right?
We're just checking on something.
Yeah.
Or another example sometimes, when we travel, we have our friends or family members check on our house, right?
If we've been gone for like a week, we want someone to stop by and check on the house.
Just go in, make sure everything's locked, you know, that kind of thing.
Do you ever do that?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
When we went to Mexico with friends, we got back a day early.
And so they asked us to check on their dogs, check on their house.
And the dogs were actually barking so loud.
And so we texted them and realized it's just because all the lights were off.
So it was like they're not used to usually lights were left on for them.
Yeah.
Turned on some lights.
No problem.
And yeah, it's like the best things to have neighbors that you feel comfortable asking them to check on your house or your dog.
It really makes it feel like a small world.
You know what I mean?
When you have neighbors and you can rely on them and you can help each other out.
It's nice.
It's nice.
Yeah.
So it's interesting to think about these two very related but a little bit different uses of check on right.
Either checking on the progress, checking on updates or checking on for safety.
Yes.
Check on and check in.
I think the student who wrote in and asked about these three phrasal verbs and said they are confusing.
I think the most confusing thing would be between check on and check in.
They are very similar.
Let's talk about that then.
Let's add that in here.
Where do we go?
Yeah.
So as I was planning these episodes, I started thinking about check-in.
And this is like about contacting someone by making a phone call or a short visit to make sure there are no problems, or to tell them there are no problems.
And this, I feel like happens a lot more at work.
I would agree.
Yeah. friends and family, I'm going to check on someone, right?
If I'm worried someone's going through something, I might check on them.
But I wouldn't say I'm going to check in with them.
That feels very business to me.
What do you think, Lindsay?
I completely agree.
There's a tone there.
Check on has a tone of caretaking and kind of nurturing a little bit, right?
You're checking on the thing you're baking or checking on your kids.
Whereas check in does have something a little bit more professional to it.
I wanted to check in with you on this.
Right.
And then you have check in on something, of course.
Right.
But it might be strange if, like a coworker or your supervisor, came into your office and said hey, I wanted to check on you.
If you don't have a very like a personal relationship because that it's caretaking.
Whereas if they said, hey, I just wanted to check in. no problem, right?
This is not personal.
This is not caretaking.
This is like business.
We're checking in on your, your progress for something at work.
Isn't it crazy that just that one little change I mean, this is what phrasal verbs, how they could be so vicious.
Sometimes the change of one little preposition can really strongly change the tone behind what we're trying to say.
Absolutely.
Right.
So because we use this most often at work, We promised the three parts of this series.
The last one for check-in, we're going to do over on the Business English podcast.
We're going to cover why it's vital to check in with coworkers and the best way to do it.
So be sure to hit follow on that podcast so you don't miss it.
Yeah, guys.
Now is your chance to go over and add Business English to your listening queue.
So just open that search bar, type in Business English by All Ears English.
You'll see the yellow.
You'll see the three shows.
Open the Business English show and hit that follow button.
Like Aubrey said,
Love it.
Absolutely.
Okay, Aubrey, we are in for a role play now.
Let's do it.
Yeah, let's do it.
So you and I are at a restaurant in this role play.
Fun.
Okay.
Hey, should we check on our order?
It's been quite a while.
Yeah, maybe.
I actually need to check on my kids.
Do you mind asking while I make a quick phone call?
Sure.
Don't forget to tell your daughter to check on my dog and thank her for pet sitting for me.
Nice.
Do your kids do any pet sitting at all around the neighborhood?
Yeah, sometimes, right?
They haven't ever walked anyone's dogs for them, but they'll just like check in to see if they need more food or water.
Really little simple things like that.
Yeah.
That's good.
Fun.
Oh yeah.
That's good.
Yeah.
We usually have our dog go to like a camp or something, but sometimes we have our dog stay with family or friends.
So it's always better, I think.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, they're going to get lots of love.
Yeah, for sure.
So let's go through this Aubrey.
So first I said, Hey, should we check on our order?
Super common in a restaurant.
Right.
Absolutely.
Right.
If the restaurant's busy and you've been waiting for a long time, you'd be like maybe we need to check on it.
Yeah.
And what would we do then?
What does that mean?
Like, what would we call the waitress over or waiter and just kind of ask about it?
Is that what we mean there?
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
We're going to maybe try and signal our server, or if we haven't seen our server in a long time, maybe we'll ask someone else like oh, have you seen our server?
Who knows?
We haven't seen the server.
We haven't gotten our food.
So yeah, there are options here, but it means you're going to ask someone about the progress here.
You're going to ask for an update on your food.
Oh, yeah.
I would recommend that if a certain amount of time has gone by.
Sometimes you can end up in the void, where the server has gone off duty, and maybe you didn't get transferred over to a new server and you're in this.
Yeah, right.
They might get busy and just neglect to enter your order into the machine, and so it's not being made.
It's best to just check on it, right?
You can do it in a very friendly way.
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
It doesn't mean that you have to cause a problem.
If you do it politely with a smile...
You can do it.
100%.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And then I said, oh, I need to check on my kids.
Do you mind asking?
I'm saying, can you check on our food while I check on my kids?
So you're saying you're going to make that phone call to check on your kids, maybe find out how they're doing.
Maybe they're out with friends or something.
Yeah.
Love it.
Maybe there's a babysitter.
And so I'm checking on their safety at this point, right?
Because I'm not with them.
So I want to check and make sure they're okay.
So we see how that's kind of more that nurturing sort of Taking care of family or your personal life.
I love it.
All right.
And then I said, sure.
Don't forget to tell your daughter to check on my dog.
And that's, again, the caretaking thing.
Check on my dog.
Right.
You've clearly like my daughter has been asked to check on your dog.
And so, yeah, the...
Just that same use, which it doesn't at all feel, it's very friendly.
Like that caretaking, it's very personal.
That's the tricky thing.
I think the main thing to remember here is that when we use check on, it's assuming a pretty close relationship.
There's some kind of caretaking.
You're actually checking on either someone's mental health or physical safety.
And it's very personal.
Yes.
I love it.
And different and very different from check-in.
But again, guys got to go over to Business English, hit follow to listen to that check-in.
When is that episode on check-in coming out, by the way?
Is that already out?
Very soon.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
Be sure to hit follow so you don't miss it.
And guys, just as a takeaway here, you know, phrasal verbs can be confusing.
Like you pointed out Lindsay, just the difference between that tiny preposition in or on makes such a difference, not only with meaning, but also with implied relationships, like how personal our relationship is changes depending on the preposition i'm using.
So i'm glad we're able to share these details so that you can be comfortable using them at work or with friends, family.
Yeah, totally.
The key is coming back to connection.
There's always a way to connect in any given moment right aubry, whether we're at work or at home.
But it's about choosing that correct phrasal verb for the connection to be in sync, for it to make sense, Right?
Exactly.
Right.
So use these, right?
Check on, check out to connect in English.
And I feel like this is such a great way to connect, to ask someone else.
You know what they're having to check on.
That conversation we had at the beginning.
I love that, just to be like what do you have to check on during the day, right?
Leads to such an interesting conversation about what someone values, what's really important to them, what they're having to monitor.
Yeah, we can get a sense about people's daily lives exactly your values, what you care about, based on what you're checking on every day.
I love it.
So good.
When all I have to talk about is my kids and their grades, you know what the main part of my day is about.
Yes, for sure.
For sure.
So good.
Well, I'm glad we brought this up today, Aubrey.
Good episode.
And I will see you back here very soon.
All right.
Awesome.
See you next time.
All right.
Have a good day.
Bye.
You too.
Bye.
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