This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2458.
Do you have the capacity to start using this word?
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.
In today's episode, you get a new word to uplevel your conversations about ability, spaces, and more.
Listen in to expand your English vocabulary today.
Are you still translating from your native language into English in your head?
Are you always getting confused between the different grammar tenses?
Let's figure out what you need to work on.
Find your current English level with our five-minute quiz at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.
Hello, Lindsay. How are you? I'm doing great, Michelle.
What's going on for you today? What's up?
Everything's good. Yeah. Lindsay, are you interested in sports in any capacity?
In any capacity? Good question. Sure. Yeah.
I like sports. I like to play tennis. I sometimes like to go to a baseball game.
So yeah, I am in some capacities, I would say.
What about you? Yeah, definitely. You guys probably, if you listen to the show, you know, I love basketball.
Yeah. And I do like to go to a baseball game, but I, can't my brother is coming to town and he's like oh maybe we should go to a baseball game i can't go in when it's so hot i can't do it i can't do it it's a i just can't do it yeah um it has to be kind of the perfect night game and things like that but i can't just sit out on it like yeah afternoon games are rough especially if you end up in the sun which you might right it's just beating down on you.
I'm not into that in any capacity. Today, we are going to answer a listener question.
I believe this is from Sophia. Yes, we love Sophia and our other listeners that are sending in fantastic questions.
This one came from our YouTube channel. So don't forget, guys, we do have a robust, amazing YouTube channel at All Ears English on YouTube.
So you can watch these episodes. Watch us articulate what we're saying here.
If you prefer to learn by video, that is a good option for you.
Go over to YouTube, type in All Ears English, hit subscribe.
OK, here is Sophia's question. Shall I read it?
Yes, please. All right. Hi, Lindsay, Michelle and Aubrey.
I'm Sophia. I've been a big fan of your podcast for a while.
I was watching TV and heard the phrase in any capacity.
It really caught my attention. Could you explain how to use the word capacity?
Thanks so much. Your show has helped me a lot.
We love that. Yeah. Great question. As always, Sophia, thank you for listening.
Thank you to everybody for listening. We really appreciate you.
And we also wanted to say thank you to our listeners who have given us reviews.
Right, Lindsay? Yeah. Huge thank you to KN95 from China.
Uh, someone by the name of good luck, uh, who gave us a five star review from Saudi Arabia.
Um, another listener in China on June 23rd and Imran MZ on June 20th in the U S beautiful five star review.
Thank you. So we appreciate these reviews guys.
It keeps us motivated, keeps us creating new content.
Go over and leave us a rating and review wherever you're listening.
All right. All right. Thank you so, so much.
All right. Let's get into it. So let's talk about in any capacity first, because Sophia brought that up.
So what does that mean? Oh, my gosh. In any capacity means in any way, in any form.
And I'm sure we'll get into it's a little confusing because capacity can mean something else literally, right?
Yes. We'll talk about that. We're going to be talking about that later.
Right now, we're going to start with this expression and we're going to move into more specifically how capacity is used.
Absolutely. So stay tuned for the whole episode for sure.
Does it sound more formal to you, Michelle, when we say this in any capacity?
I think it sounds a bit formal. What do you think?
I do. I agree with that. I think it just uplevels your speech a tiny bit, right?
It doesn't make you unreachable and up here on a pedestal academic.
No, but it just elevates it a little bit.
Right. And it would sound a little bit odd, I guess, if you used it in, you know, do you want a sandwich in any capacity?
Right. It's doesn't really, it doesn't really, it sounds a little funny there.
Right. So Um, it is a little bit more formal sounding.
It sounds, it's used a lot professionally.
I mean, in legal documents, things like that.
Um, but it could also be used in everyday conversations, maybe, um, just not about sandwiches.
Um, Yeah. Right. This is. Yeah. Let's just give some examples to explain.
Yeah, exactly. So she is unwilling to help me move in any capacity.
I expected more from her. Oh, that's not good.
Not helpful. All right. Or this one goes back to sports.
I don't watch sports in any capacity. I would rather read.
Yeah. Or he was not able to do any freelance work in any capacity due to his contract.
Yeah. Like in any in any way. Good. Yep.
Or if I can help you in any capacity, I'd love to get involved.
Yes. All right. So Michelle, do you find yourself dropping this phrase, using this phrase?
This is not something that I use every day or anything like that, but I certainly would use it.
Um, I think more to talk about, I don't want to say it has to be something high level.
But it's a little stronger sounding than just in any way, in any capacity, right?
What do you think? Do you use this? Yeah.
When I want to sound a little fancier, a little more elevated, I will.
I think on a human to human basis, if you know someone well, you may not use it, right?
Because it kind of creates a little distance.
True. Right. So anytime we try to be more formal, maybe more academic, we create a bit of distance between ourselves and the person in front of us, which sometimes that's fine.
We're giving a speech. We're talking to our boss.
We're applying for a job. But it's kind of on that edge of getting a little distant.
True. Right. So, I mean, you could basically for a less formal situation, you just more conversational, you could basically replace this with at all in any way.
So, for example, I don't watch sports at all.
Or if I can help you in any way, I'd love to get involved.
Right. Capacity kind of elevates a little bit, creates that distance.
I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah.
And here's a good story. I think someone, I was dating someone once back in New York and the person, this is how I know it creates distance.
The person sent me a text message or an email to essentially say they didn't want to see me anymore by saying, maybe we'll know each other in the future in another capacity.
I'm like, okay, now we've closed the door on this relationship.
No, I mean, that's a good example. I'm sorry that happened.
I'm glad that you found your person. It's okay.
But yeah, that's true. That's a little bit too formal, right?
For closing the door. Yeah, for sure. So we have to pick and choose when we want to use these words.
And every word has an undertone. It really does.
It's fascinating, Michelle. True. It really does.
Yeah. Hiring is hard. You have to be sure you ask the right questions, sort through all of the details, and find your star candidate who will really help move your business forward.
That's why when I hire, I like to use all the best tools, and that includes Indeed.
Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites.
Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast.
With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster.
We found one of our best team members on Indeed, and it made the process fast, approachable, and just a little less overwhelming.
There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash A-E-E.
Just go to Indeed.com slash A-E-E right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed.com slash A-E-E. Terms and conditions apply.
Hiring Indeed is all you need. okay we are back let's talk about the word capacity in general michelle tell us about this all right so there are there are more ways to use it um that i went through but we're actually going to go over two basic ways that we think are the most common so one is just what you can take in or what you can do yeah so For example, I don't have the mental capacity to study anymore tonight.
It's kind of like what you can hold, what you can do, what you have the space for, right?
Exactly. Or he has the capacity to be a straight A student, but he just doesn't apply himself.
Yeah, right. Yeah. So it's kind of like his ability, right?
He's able, he could be a straight A student, right?
He has the capacity to be right. Exactly.
Yes. Right. I mean, Lindsay, here's a question, a conversation question.
Do you have the capacity to exercise on a Friday night after work? yeah it's a good question generally i have not historically i just want to melt into the weekend right i want to go to a movie but lately i actually have been i know that's not an annoying answer i have been actually going to orange theory on fridays like 5 or 4 30. yes i know oh yeah yeah it's not what you wanted to hear but yes sometimes i do in the summer i like to start the weekend feeling active so yeah that's good that's good well good i'm i'm happy for you that is good yeah yeah yeah yeah and then the next you know the original meaning kind of the literal meaning michelle we need to talk about that right right so it's like the wait sorry I just lost my spot okay here we go so it's it's like the ability or the other one is what something can have can hold which is similar yeah do the last definition but a lot about of this is about venues right how much of actual space can hold so you'll hear this a lot so Lindsay what's an example of this sorry we can't have any other people in yet we are filled to capacity Yes.
Or we just got the fire marshal in and he says our capacity is 30.
Yeah. So a lot of times you'll see those signs in places around the U.S.
You'll see what the you can see what the actual capacity is.
Yep. And sometimes when I went to the podcast show London, this was a big issue.
Each room was. It was a central London conference.
And so each room was small and had a certain capacity.
So the guy was literally opening the door as people came out.
It was a little frustrating, actually. But it was a cool venue to have a conference right in Islington area.
Really cool spot in London. So this is the tradeoff for inner city conferences, right?
Yeah, right. Right. I mean, another time you might see this is for parking lots.
Right. Do you ever when you're going into kind of a big parking lot, you might see a light and it says, you know, at capacity or filled to capacity.
Yep. Totally. Sometimes you go to the airport, you see that and you're like, oh, gosh, what am I going to do?
Right. Yes. A hundred percent. Michelle, do you get claustrophobic if a place has a high capacity or is crowded like you go to a concert or something?
It's not it's not about being claustrophobic.
I don't. I don't know. Or is it? I mean, I don't get claustrophobic in an elevator or something like that.
It's not really about the space to me, but it does bother me to have to be barely moving if you want to walk somewhere.
I don't know that it's a phobia. I think it's just I find it very irritating.
Yeah. Yeah. I do. There are certain moments when I get a little bit scared.
Like I went to the US Open a bunch of years ago and saw Venus and Serena play each other, actually.
Wow. But I realized that the US Open complex for the US Open tennis is really sketchy in the sense that there's not a lot of exits and you're up there and it's a round area.
And I'm looking around and we're like, you know, person to person, elbow to elbow.
And I'm thinking, what if something happens here?
Where's the exit? It's not safe. You know, so sometimes I'll have a moment like that and I'll think, oh, scary.
Right. No, I got that. I got that for sure.
But yeah, so you can see, guys, this is a very useful word, a useful expression, lots that you can do with it.
So let's do a role play, Lindsay. In this role play, we are friends and we're reviewing a proposal that we received from a party venue because we are going to throw a shower for our friend.
Not a shower, like put them in the shower, but maybe a bridal shower, a baby shower, whatever it is, a celebration.
All right, here we go. Okay, look at this.
Do you understand this? Not in any capacity, no.
It is way higher than what they said. Yeah, and I didn't know they also have a capacity of only 20.
That's not even close to what we need. So frustrating.
Let's find somewhere else. Yeah, planning an event, not easy, right?
A venue, finding a venue. Yeah. Yes, exactly.
The worst is when, you know, I mean, I don't know if you had this for your wedding, but if some wedding venues, you might think, oh, this is a beautiful venue.
I love it. And then you realize it doesn't have the capacity to hold all the people you would want to invite. people are okay with making the cuts and you have to kind of decide, would you rather have the place or all the people?
It's a good point because the venue does matter, but the people matter too, right?
So what can you do? You have to have that discussion with your partner.
All right, let's go through the role play, Michelle.
So first I asked you, hey, look at this.
Do you understand this? And you said, not in any capacity, right?
Because Basically, the proposal, it was a much higher quote than I expected.
So, yeah, I could have said, I don't know.
Not at all. Right. Not in any capacity. I think I think it's well used here because a little bit a bigger deal.
Right. It's a little bit bigger than just saying not at all or not.
And I don't know. It sounds to me it sounds appropriate here.
Yeah, sure. If you want, you're up leveling things a little bit, you're reviewing a proposal.
So, I mean, maybe, you know, you're talking with a friend, but maybe you're, I don't know, working with a consultant, sitting with the consultant also.
So you want to up level your language or maybe you just want to say something different.
Okay. Just throwing in something different.
Other things you could say. And then you, yeah, you also could have said, no, not in any way.
Or no, not at all. I probably would have said no, not at all.
But it's good to throw in new things sometimes.
Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. And being a little dramatic, I think here.
And then what did you say? I said, you said there's no, it is way higher than what they had said.
And then I said, yeah, and I didn't know they also have a capacity of only 20.
So now we're talking about the number of people that could fit in the space.
Yeah. So we're realizing really quickly we're going to have to find somewhere else because we because if I say they only have a capacity of only 20, Lindsay, what does that mean?
I mean, you said it. Does that mean we need more people or fewer?
I mean, you can't fit everyone in that you want to.
You have to find a new a new venue for the party.
Yeah. Yeah. This is really not a good spot.
It's too expensive. It can only fit 20 people.
Oh, my gosh. Moving on. Moving on. um so guys head on over we also have episode 24 49 which is take the plunge into enthusiastic english um lindsay what's the takeaway for today takeaway for today is that we've given you a new option right it's really nice to gather new options for ways to slightly up level what you want to say right so we've given you one new way to do it just know that it does sometimes create a little distance, like in my example of the email breakup, right?
Just the fact that the person wrote me an email that, you know.
But yeah, but it does create a little distance, makes it a little more formal, but it's good to have options for being in different contexts, okay?
Yes. Yes. All right. Well, we've given you a lot to think about today and we hope that this helps you in some capacity.
Nice, Michelle. Way to get that in there.
I love it. All right. You take care. All right.
Have a good one. Thanks, Sophia, for the question.
All right. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
