This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2595.
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What are the things that you feel compelled to do?
And what is the difference between saying you have to do these things?
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Hey there, Aubrey.
How are you today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
I'm doing pretty good today.
Aubrey, what is something that you have no choice but to do?
I have no choice but to help my kids get ready every morning.
I had a talk with them a couple of days ago because they're 11.
I feel like they're old enough to do a lot of it on their own.
They just don't.
They still are like wanting me to wake them up and make their lunches.
And I'm like, it's time to get a little more independent here, kids.
I think that's a good age.
By the time you're 11, you could pack a peanut butter sandwich.
Right.
And, you know, sometimes they will.
But a lot like they if something doesn't happen, they're like they're blaming me.
I'm like, no, it's on you now.
Bad habit.
Bad habit.
Yeah.
No, that's good.
That's good.
And how did the talk go today?
Receive it?
Okay, yes and no.
They're like oh, but it's easier if you do it mom, i know, but that's so funny.
Yeah, in life there's always things that we have no choice but to do, right sometimes, and then we can decide actually we don't have to do that thing sometimes, It's true.
Exactly.
Right.
As a mom, this is no longer going to be something I have no choice but to do.
Right.
Good.
Yeah.
So what are we getting into today?
This is interesting.
Part one was phrases like can't help but and can't resist.
So, you know, for being unable to resist something, but usually something positive or maybe both.
Yes.
So today, this is a follow-up with phrases that are more for negative things that you can't avoid.
You sort of have an obligation to do it.
I like that.
I like that.
This is going to be good.
So negative things you can't avoid.
I mean, for me, I have no choice but to take my dog out to go to the bathroom three times a day.
That's a great example.
Of course.
I mean, I like taking him for walks, but just to go out to pee, it's kind of annoying.
I
And you can't do what I did and be like, Kiefer, you're a few years old now.
You need to be able to figure this out.
Yeah, that's the difference between raising a dog and raising a child.
Eventually, hopefully the child becomes independent.
The dog never will, right?
Right, exactly.
That's funny.
So yeah, so we're getting into like a different kind of permutation of this idea of saying that you have to do something.
Exactly.
And stay to the end.
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All right.
Yes, absolutely.
All right.
Let's dive in with this vocab.
So the first one you used when asking me if there's something I have no choice but to do.
This is a little more formal.
It emphasizes inevitability or something, the necessity of something to say.
You have no choice but to do something.
Yes, exactly.
So I had no choice but to apologize.
So I did something wrong.
Clearly, it was on me to apologize.
And this kind of implies that because usually we do have a choice whether to apologize or not.
Maybe this happened at work and you were mandated to apologize about something.
Right.
Who knows?
Yes.
Yeah.
Or you just felt like the moral obligation maybe.
Right.
That could be too.
Right.
It could be that someone's not forcing you, but you felt personally like you had no choice.
Yeah.
And then deadlines.
Right.
After missing the deadline, I had no choice but to explain the delay to my manager.
Okay.
Yeah, same.
And so here it means the same as just saying I had to do this.
I needed to do this.
It was necessary.
But we'll often use this chunk almost to emphasize that it was necessary and emphasize how necessary it was.
Yes.
And then I like the next one.
This is a pair.
They come together.
They don't have to come together, but they mean the same thing.
To feel compelled to do something or to feel obliged to do something.
Same construction, right?
Yes.
This is interesting.
They're both a little more rare.
You know, people will know what you mean when you say these, but we don't hear them as often.
They're also a little more formal.
And sometimes they'll focus more on your inner motivation, right?
If you say you feel compelled to apologize or obliged to apologize, this means this is inner motivation.
No one else is requiring it of you.
Yeah, for sure.
So you could say I felt compelled to speak up because maybe no one else was speaking and the person gave a great speech and then they asked for questions and then the room was.
Do you ever feel awkward?
There's a moment when...
There are no questions.
Someone needs to say something.
Yes.
You feel compelled to be the one to say something.
Yes.
Or this will happen to me if I feel like someone is being mistreated or treated unfairly.
I'll feel compelled to speak up.
I'm not going to silently stand by.
Yeah, no, that's really good.
Speak up for that person, especially if they don't have a voice themselves, right?
Right.
Or if they don't dare, if they're not, you know, they seem like they're not going to say something, and then I will, I'll speak up.
Good.
Yeah.
And what would be another example?
When he heard about the charity's urgent need, he felt compelled to donate.
So this is that maybe you'll see on Facebook or somewhere like crowdfunding or someone needing funds for something.
You might feel compelled or obliged to give money to donate.
Yep.
Yep.
So it's like an inner pull, right?
It's like your moral compass is telling you something needs to be done and you're the one to do it.
Yes.
I like that you shared inner pull because we'll also use the verb pulled here.
I felt pulled to do this or pushed.
We'll say I felt pushed to do this.
And all of that just means I had this inner motivation to do it.
Yep.
And this next one's a little less intentional.
Well, a lot less intentional, right?
Find yourself doing something.
So it describes a more involuntary action or a habit.
Maybe we're on autopilot.
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
For example, I find myself checking my phone too often.
Right.
So this has nothing to do.
I wouldn't say I felt compelled to check my that has a very different meaning.
This is you're just doing it involuntarily, realizing you're doing it without meaning to maybe.
Yeah, you're doing it by default all in this place where we just go to our phones by default when there's a blank space of time.
Right.
You just pick it up, check it.
You don't even realize you're doing it half the time.
Yeah, for sure.
Or I often find myself rereading the same paragraph because I get distracted.
Do you do that too, Aubrey?
Absolutely.
I'll be reading a book and then I don't know if my kids are coming or who knows what else is distracting me.
I remember this happening all the time when I was in college.
I would read the same paragraph in a textbook 30 times.
Same here.
I know it's the worst.
It's like I'm not absorbing it.
Yeah, it's not keeping my attention and so I get distracted and then find myself having to read it again and again.
Yeah, you could also potentially find yourself driving to your old address, like if you moved across town.
You could just go totally on autopilot.
I find myself drive, found myself driving to my old house when I don't live there anymore.
Or You could find yourself staring into the fridge when you don't know what you're looking for.
Absolutely.
All of these things are just sort of involuntarily doing it.
That happened to me yesterday.
I used to take a certain right turn to pick my kids up from school.
And yesterday I was leaving the neighborhood and I just turned right there.
Pure muscle memory.
Found myself turning right.
That's how we know when the brain switched off, taking a little nap, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Love that.
Okay, Aubrey, we are back from break.
Let's do a little role play here.
So here we are friends talking over coffee.
Okay.
Yes.
Want to start us out?
Yes.
So I found myself by the dessert table at the party last night and I happened to see you and Sarah talking.
How did it go?
Oh, yeah.
I had no choice but to bring up what she said to me last week.
It was time to clear the air.
Understandable.
If ever there's bad blood between me and someone else, I usually feel compelled to talk it out.
Yeah, same.
It was really weighing on me, so I'm glad we worked things out.
Yeah, better to go in that direction than let something build, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, I feel this way very much.
I'm like, I need to clear the air.
We need to talk it out.
It's hard to just let something linger.
Yeah, let it linger, or there's another word I was looking for and I can't think of the word.
But where it just lingers, it builds, it sticks around, it festers.
It festers, yes.
That's the word.
Yep, that's a good bonus for today.
Yeah, definitely.
All right, what did we say in this role play, Aubrey?
So you first said, so I found myself by the dessert table at the party last night.
I love this because you have witnessed A conversation between me and someone else and you want to ask about it.
So you're sort of giving the reason like you weren't eavesdropping.
Yeah, you didn't intentionally go over there.
Exactly.
You just happened to be there.
And you're kind of making a joke because we say, you know like oh, I found myself by the dessert table.
You're sort of saying like.
The dessert table was drying me.
I didn't even mean to go over and eat all those desserts.
You're right.
This is pretty useful when you're trying to show you didn't have full intention to go and overhear a conversation, but you just happened to show up there, right.
It's like you're saying, like you didn't have any control over the fact that you ended up there, right?
Exactly.
It's useful.
And then I said...
I had no choice but to bring up what she said to me last week.
So this is just a way of saying like something was bothering me.
And I said it was time to clear the air.
That's kind of a bonus.
That means to talk openly. to restore a positive atmosphere, right?
So there was something, like you said, festering.
There was some kind of conversation.
We don't go into details about what happened, but I say I had no choice but to talk it out with her.
A lot of good vocabulary coming out of today's episode, Aubrey.
This is going to be a great one for the app.
Ooh, definitely.
A lot of good keywords here.
Hopefully you guys have downloaded the app.
If not, you can get it at allearsenglish.com slash app.
Yes.
And the last line, I said, understandable.
If there's ever bad blood between me and someone else, I usually feel compelled to talk it out.
So I feel pulled, as we said before, right?
This internal motivation to work it out so that you can be friends, right?
Because often, if you do let it fester, if you let something like that linger, it could ruin the friendship.
You got it.
So another great episode to check out, guys, would be 2594.
We bet you can't resist this episode.
Yeah, that was part one of our series with these phrases that we would use more often for something positive that you can't resist, that you can't help but doing.
Yeah, so make sure you complete the full series.
Aubrey, did we say there's going to be a part three?
Did we say that's over on business?
I think just these two for this series.
Okay, just these two.
All right, make sure you close the loop on this series.
Make sure you get both episodes and hit follow on the show while you're at it.
Any final takeaways, Aubrey?
Yeah, I love this.
I think it does show... vulnerability when we use these phrases.
I can't help but do something.
I found myself.
I had no choice but to do this.
And it also just keeps you from having to use more boring language of like, I had to do this.
And that also, it's interesting, that's almost too strong to say, I had to do this.
I was forced to do this.
Some of the other ways we would say this wouldn't really have the right tone.
It's also not precise enough, right?
I had to do something.
I was forced to do something versus I felt compelled to do something.
It's not precise enough.
I felt compelled as more precise.
Yes, a lot of these just have these slight nuances when this is exactly what you want to share.
You need the vocabulary to be precise.
Exactly.
And we talk about this on the IELTS exam.
If any of our listeners are taking IELTS, we want that precise word that your other students that are coming in before and after you into the speaking test are not going to use.
Absolutely.
There's so much band nine vocabulary in this episode.
I hope everyone who's studying for IELTS is following Allers English, because if you find yourself about to say I had to do this, definitely higher scoring.
To use one of today's phrases epic vocabulary episode today Aubrey.
So really good stuff.
And I will see you very soon.
All right.
Awesome.
See you next time.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
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