This is an all-ears English podcast, episode 2232.
It's worth the effort to learn this vocabulary.
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What is worth your time, effort, energy or money?
This is a hot conversation topic in English.
Today, get multiple ways to use this term in conversation to show what you value.
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Hey, there are Aubrey Woodshaken.
I'm great. How are you Lindsay?
Good. I have a question for you.
Okay. That's her. Yeah.
So when is the last time that you did something for all your worth?
Ooh, I like this expression for all your worth.
I think, you know, I played, um, what's the game called with the rope tug of war?
Where you're both pulling on the ends.
I don't know if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
I'm not sure if you guys have any idea what to do.
Could you talk about the use of the word worth and the various ways it can be used.
Graciella. Graciella from real Brazil.
Oh my gosh. Such a great question.
Yes. And it has so many meanings.
So we're going to share the meanings of worth as an adjective and as a noun today.
And then in part two, we'll share idioms with worth.
So be sure to hit follow so that you don't miss that episode.
Yeah, and I'm glad to hear that Graciella feels that the show is helping her.
And it's also fun. Right, we're busting the myth that to learn English, we have to be bored.
It's not true. When we focus on the right things, which is connection, right?
It's well worth your time.
Wink wink. Use worth there.
And one of the many ways we use it.
That's right. I love that.
So good. All right. So where are we getting started?
There's the first bucket of meaning.
Yes. It's worth as value, meaning the value of something.
We use it both as an adjective and an noun.
For example, to say, what do you think this is worth as an adjective here?
Right? Meaning like, what should the price be?
Yes. Right. Or for example, this cake wasn't worth the money.
Oh, man, these days. I feel like a long time.
Things are not worth the money.
I think this a lot. I go to restaurants and I'm like, that was delicious, but it wasn't worth the money.
It's true. I don't want to go on too long because we've talked about this.
But inflation is a little out of control, right?
And you spend a lot of money.
And then you think it really wasn't worth it.
I know. I know. But we also use this to talk about a person's value.
And it's a noun here to say she doesn't know her own worth.
She doesn't know her worth.
And then we also use the adjective self-worth or her the noun, the noun self-worth, which is your internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from other people.
So you could replace that and say she doesn't know her own self-worth, which means the same.
Those are interchangeable.
Yes. Good. I love it. So that is the first bucket of meaning talking about value, value in terms of exchange of goods or services or food or your own value, your own inner value, right?
Okay. And number two is very similar.
It's this chunk worth the something.
We used it there. This cake isn't worth the money.
But we don't just use this with money.
We'll say worth the time, the effort, the trouble, the hassle that something takes.
So there's a lot of nouns that will add after worth the.
Okay. So the construction is it's worth the something, meaning the thing you have to put in to get the reward.
Right. Right. So for example, this hike will be worth the trouble.
You're not going to believe the views.
So it might be difficult, but it's worth the effort.
It's worth the trouble.
Yeah. And I will say as a hiker, I hike a lot in the summer, I feel hiking in the west is way more worth the work.
Let's say then it is in the east because you like in the east.
You base, they don't have switched backs in the east.
You go straight up the mountain and you get to the top and then everything is still covered with trees because you're not that high.
So you just see the west.
You, you know, you come out of the tree line early in the hike if you're doing like a 14 or 13 or 13,000 feet.
And the views are just way better for the amount of work you're putting into it.
I would do well on a vacation.
I went to Sedona with girlfriends.
I may have been. How was that?
It was very fun. But I had to fight to the nail to get them to do a one mile hike.
And it was beautiful. Beautiful red rock views.
But I would have loved to do some of those five six mile hikes where you get to a very cool.
Yes, or something really interesting.
Yeah, they would not they were not having it.
Oh, man, we'll have to do an all-ers English retreat into Sedona.
Well, if that one will go for a hike for sure.
Yes. All right, cool. So yeah, so that's a good example.
Some hikes are just not worth it.
Some are right. Yeah. You might say was the trip worth the hassle?
Like if someone's sharing that.
Oh, this went wrong and this went wrong.
You might ask them that.
Like was the vacation worth the hassle?
Yeah. And just to come back on the topic, we were just talking about I could turn around and ask you, Aubrey, was it worth the worth the hassle?
Or was it worth the work to go and try to convince your friends to take that mile?
Long hike. Was it worth the work?
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And they enjoyed it.
Luckily, it was just a mile.
But I had found one that it was still, you know, the it was beautiful.
But it wasn't West Fork is the hike.
I wanted to do where you're sort of following the river the entire time.
And it's beautiful, but it's like eight miles.
Wow. Yeah. Okay. That sounds intense to them.
For sure. That wouldn't have been worth the effort or worth the time.
Right. They wanted to go to the spa.
They wanted to tour the vineyard.
They didn't have time for it.
Ten miles. Interesting.
Okay. So I think we've described this well for our listeners.
So guys, you know, the best way to make sure you're learning this is think in your life.
What would you ask if you asked yourself this question right now?
What would you say to yourself is X worth Y is the amount of time I spend working out worth it in terms of how I feel or really anything.
Any question you want to ask yourself.
It matters how we spend our time.
Right. Exactly right. Is it worth the time?
Is it worth the effort? And there are so many ways still we're going to share a couple more ways to use worth.
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And now we have a new construction with worth.
What is it, Aubrey? I love this one.
It's worth plus a verb, I N G phrase.
So very similar meaning to worth the blank.
But the construction is a little different instead of worth the noun.
It's worth verb, I N G. So for example, it's worth spending money for higher quality.
Right. Or it's not always worth making the effort.
Right. When we don't see this hike wasn't worth waking up early.
So it's similar, right?
If you're saying this wasn't worth the time.
This wasn't worth the and then instead you can say the action that you did was at worth waking up early.
Yeah. And the grammar here is super important.
We can't make a mistake here, right?
So worth doing something I N G form.
Right. Verb plus I N G. That matters.
Okay. Exactly. And we use this all the times.
I'm so excited for you because this is interesting.
This is a great topic for connection.
Was whatever you did worth the action.
Yeah. Are you a concert person?
Do you like to go to? No, I've talked about this.
We're not really concerned people.
It's expensive. It's loud.
My hearing. I have to wear ear plugs now when I go.
So sometimes you can't even.
And if you got a certain ones, you can't even sit down.
It's a standing room. It's not worth the money.
It's not worth the hearing loss.
Yeah. It's not worth leaving 12 hours ahead of time to get parking or whatever.
Right. So you could say in this form, you know, concerts aren't worth losing my hearing for.
Right. That would be the way to use this construction in that way.
Yes. All right. And our last one worth it.
We use this all the time.
And we're sharing two ways we do it.
The first is worth it with an exclamation, which means something's enjoyable or useful, despite the fact that you have had to make effort.
So you might say, like, do you think this is worth it?
Meaning whatever effort you're putting in or the price you're spending?
Good. Still a little bit.
We're still a little bit to show this here.
Okay. Yeah. All right. All right.
So you bought an RV, right?
Worth it? Oh, and this is the question.
So I would end that. We flipped here.
Let's do the other roleplay.
I've got them in the wrong order.
I'll start us out. Ready?
Okay. That softball game was fun yesterday, but I'm so sore today.
Worth it, though. Yes. Right.
So this is how we do it with an exclamation.
You're saying worth it.
I answer this way a lot. Like if we both went to a softball game, it was fun, but we're sore.
And you might say something like that and I'd be like, worth it.
Yeah. Some of you even see our people say hashtag worth it.
Interesting. Sure. You could do that.
I added, though, which wasn't even in our notes, but it felt like I needed something to reflect what you just said.
For me in that moment, that, uh, yeah, as I can see that, especially you're maybe thinking you hadn't gone.
So you're telling me like, I'm imagining we both went and you're saying.
In that case or two, worth it.
That makes sense. That makes sense.
So it depends on the context.
If you, if we both gone, it would make that I would be right in there with you.
Total responding. And it makes total sense.
But if I didn't go to the game, uh, then I think you're right.
Worth it, though, or asking worth it, though.
Right. Exactly. And then what else?
So we also do it as a question worth it like that.
It's like worth it, though, worth it.
So let's do a little role play to show that.
So you bought an RV, right?
Worth it. Yes. We save a ton on hotels wherever we go.
Wow. So this will use that just as a question like, oh, you, you know, you spent a lot on this worth it.
Meaning like, do you think it was worth the money?
Or if you, you know, you're like, oh, you went on a eight hour hike worth it.
Yeah. I feel like this is great because it's, it's important.
You know, this concept of using this word worth in so many different grammatical formats means that.
Our resources matter to us, right?
We talk about our resources, money, time, strength, energy.
These are all resources.
And it's a good conversation topic with people was this thing worth it.
Was it worth doing X big conversation topic in English?
It's such a great way to get deeper if someone tells you what they did over the weekend.
You know, and they're sharing that it was either expensive or a lot of work.
This is a great way to get deeper about their values.
Was it worth it? Do you think it was worth it?
And also for like best kept secrets.
See that let's say there's this restaurant, but you have to hike to the restaurant and you have to, I don't know, hike for 10 miles to get there or that reminds me of really worth in pizza place in Las Vegas.
That my husband was able to find, but they, it took them a little bit of hunting, kind of like a speakeasy.
Sometimes it's not easy to find.
Yeah. I know I asked him this like, worth it.
Was it worth the time you spent trying to find this like secret pizza parlor?
And he was like, yes, it was delicious.
Yeah, 100% or when I was living in South America, I was traveling for a year and I was in Uruguay.
And there's this little town called Cabo Polonio and you can only reach it on foot.
So you have to walk through this like beach desert, not beach, just a desert for it took like three hours to walk to get to this town.
Totally isolated town, but there's no electricity in this town.
And so it's kind of a best kept secret among the backpackers in Uruguay.
Yes, Cabo Polonio is totally worth it, right?
And this looks for a lot of conversations, but you do have to use your resources, which is time, energy, your fitness, you know, exactly, right?
I never would have been able to get my girlfriends that went with me to Sedona to do that.
They would have been a hard pass from the get out.
Yeah, I know. I don't think I would have been through that.
But it sounds amazing. I've got to take someone else so that I can go do it.
It's amazing. Because you know, the fact that there's no, it's so isolated from the rest of the world.
And there's no electricity.
So there's no debris at night.
So the stars are just incredible there.
There's no light pollution.
Oh, yeah. It's gorgeous.
That's very cool. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Let's get into.
Oh, first, Aubrey, we did want to mention to our listeners.
There's a great way to consume all our English.
What is it? Yes. Be sure that you are using our app.
You can follow along with the episode with the transcripts.
And you can also get words that we highlight and define for you with example sentences that make it's the best way to learn new vocabulary with the episode.
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All right. Good. Awesome.
Let's jump into a role play.
We are on a cruise on this role play.
That would be fun. You're a cruiser.
Have you been on a cruiser?
I'm not a cruiser. I've been to a place that felt like a cruise and we cut in a, we're in Egypt.
We're at a beach resort and it felt like a cruise.
And so we would call each other our cruisers.
Oh, that's becoming fun of the scenario.
Because it felt just like a cruise.
It was like an all-inclusive resort and I felt like a cruise totally.
That's really funny. It did.
It was so funny. But I'm not really a cruiser.
Are you a cruiser, Aubrey, in general?
I've only been on one. I took my kids.
I loved it. And I would love to go again.
I can see that there is definitely a reason to take a cruise.
I get it. Makes sense. It's for a mom with a bunch of kids.
You don't have to look at all and you're able to spend all this fun family time together without planning anything.
Yes. It's a mom's dream vacation.
Love it. So good. All right.
Well, let's get into it.
That's already. Was that pottery class worth your while?
Yeah. I really liked it.
What about the Jiu-Jitsu class?
Yes. It was definitely worth waking up early for.
You ended up buying unlimited drinks, right?
Worth it? No, I don't think so.
I haven't used it much at all.
Oh, no. Someone left their watch here on the table.
Looks fancy. What do you think it's worth?
Ooh, nice. We got to get a fact.
We got to get a fact whoever owns it for sure.
Now this is great because we use a lot of examples, a lot of different constructions with worth.
Yes. So I asked you, you said was that pottery class worth your while?
And this is interesting because I was going to teach this one, but I saw that we have a previous episode here on all your English.
So go check that one out.
It was called this episode is definitely worth your while.
1494, that was you and Michelle, which was like worth your while worth every penny, not worth the dime, worthless, totally different phrases for worth.
So check that one out for a deep dime.
Oh, amazing. We've been able to get two full episodes just out of the word worth.
Exactly. And there will be a part three.
We're doing a part two to this because there are so many other idioms that are really useful and great for connection.
Incredible. I love it. Okay.
What else? I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I guess casually, I've heard people say it's worth waking up or worth.
No, that doesn't work. You can't say worth waking up for.
No, it has to be verbiNG.
Yeah. And you can't add an article if you say like it was worth the wake up for.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, actually, I guess casually, I've heard people say it's worth waking up or worth.
No, that doesn't work. You can't say worth waking wake up for.
No, no, it has to be verbiNG.
Yeah. And then I said, you ended up buying unlimited drinks, right?
Worth it. And I'm asking you, was it worth it or is it worth it?
Exactly. I'm like, no, I haven't used it much at all.
I spent a lot on that. It's definitely not worth it.
What was I thinking? Yeah.
Good. And then you said, it looks fancy.
Oh, we found a watch. You said, looks fancy.
What do you think it's worth?
So we're trying to evaluate.
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