This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2600.
Grammar that won't keep you from connecting in English.
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 host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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We all have temptations like eating too much dessert and more.
How do you keep yourself from giving into them?
Today learn key vocabulary and the grammar that goes with it to have these conversations in English.
You can be technically correct in English and still not sound natural.
Maybe your sentences are grammatically right, but something feels stiff, a little robotic.
Not quite how a native speaker would say it.
That's nuance.
Fluency lives in collocations, phrasal verbs, and word choice, not just grammar rules.
If you keep using the same safe phrases, it may be time to stretch.
Find out your level and what vocabulary skills you're missing in our free two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.
That's allearsenglish.com slash f l u e n c y s c o r e. Hello, Lindsay, how are you today?
Hey, Aubrey, welcome to episode 2600.
Oh, my gosh, we forgot to plan a party.
But this is the party 2600 episodes of All Ears English.
I actually was just looking on Spotify.
It popped up the very first episode which has all these comments.
It was so fun.
People were just saying like, I'm here at number one.
I'm going back to the beginning and listening to them all.
And it was fun to like read through those comments.
And it made me excited for people that have 2,600 episodes ahead of them.
Yep.
That was the meet your teachers episode, right?
That was one of our most popular episodes.
And so you guys have if you're starting with episode one and you know you have a lot in between today and episode one to enjoy.
Right.
And if you're here at 2600, so exciting.
It's been an amazing journey.
I know we have listeners who have listened to all 2600 episodes.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And you know, the reason that we're able to continue doing this is we know that language learning is about more than just the words, the grammar, the vocab.
It's so much bigger.
It's connection, right?
It's human connection that we're talking about in every episode here.
So this is why we keep doing it because we really care.
We want people to be connected.
We want to be connected, right?
As human beings.
We know you guys do too.
In a world that's going more and more toward AI, I think we're not the only ones who feel more and more of a pull and a need for that connection.
We don't want that to go away.
Yes, 100%.
So guys, connection, not perfection.
It is our motto.
If you agree with that to hit the follow button, right?
Absolutely.
And I'm excited to connect here.
Because these phrases are really interesting.
But I have a question for you, Lindsay, to start us out.
Okay, what is something you try to keep yourself from doing?
Oh, sometimes when we buy, like at Whole Foods, the chocolates, different chocolates with salt or something.
It's tempting when I have candies or chocolates at home to not eat them too much.
You're constantly keeping yourself from devouring them.
Yeah, I try to live like I can only have one a day, but it's very hard to keep it to one a day, right?
I prefer for that to not be in my house, so I don't have to constantly be keeping myself from doing it.
That's why I don't really buy sweets.
I don't really keep ice cream in the house.
I don't keep cookies because I don't think I'd have the self-control.
The constant temptation.
Like I think about it constantly.
That's true.
So bad.
Yeah.
Well, this is great.
We have some amazing phrases here.
This one to keep yourself from doing something and related phrases.
And then follow for part two, because there are similar phrases, but that are more for keeping someone else from doing something.
So be sure to hit follow so you don't miss that episode.
Well, that's going to be important, that part too, because the grammar is going to be.
We're going to add a little grammar, some prepositions.
It's going to be a little more complex.
Exactly.
The grammar really matters for all of these phrases.
So we will show you that.
And yeah, you're going to need all of these details from this whole series.
Yeah.
So coming back to it's really about self-control today's episode, right?
Self-control.
So let's talk about this first phrase that you asked me at the top of the show, Aubrey.
Keep yourself from blank.
Exactly.
So this is sort of about... resisting temptations often, but it's also often about habits, right?
I remember when I was younger, I would try to keep myself from biting my fingernails.
I had a really bad habit.
I have been able to kick that habit.
But a lot of us are sort of constantly trying to keep ourselves from something.
How did you finally kick that habit?
Because I go through phases where I still bite my nails and then like everything's fine.
And then what did you do?
You know what works?
Someone gave me the advice to carry an Emory board with me all the time, like a nail file.
And I had a crystal nail file.
So it wasn't one that could break that I would keep on me at all times because I would bite my nails if there was like jagged, something that was uneven.
And then I would, so that really helped to try it.
Okay, that's a good one.
I like that.
We have to develop these techniques, right?
I've heard that.
I don't know.
I feel like maybe this is pseudoscience, maybe not, but I feel like self-control is harder when you're tired, when you're more tired.
Do you think that's true?
Absolutely, right?
Because our brains aren't as sharp and focused, and then we just find ourselves doing something out of habit without even realizing it, like self-control is easier in the morning than the evening because you're again.
It's a different kind of being tired, right?
Yeah, makes sense.
We're worn down, we don't care anymore.
I don't have the wherewithal to keep fighting.
Right, right, right.
So some examples here.
I tried to keep myself from eating dessert tonight, right?
But if there's dessert in the house, that's going to be tough to do.
Yes, yes.
Especially, like you said, late at night.
My, you know I'm weaker.
I don't have these strength in the morning of like I'm gonna eat really healthy today and exercise.
All that resolve is gone at 9pm.
It's gone.
A hundred percent.
So if there's pie in the house, it's going to be in your mouth.
Exactly.
Or here's a good example.
If you are watching a TV show that maybe the whole show is available online, it's tough to keep yourself from starting the next episode.
It might be 1am and you know you need to go to bed, but.
It's tough to keep yourself from hitting play on the next episode.
I think this is not entirely our fault because they know that.
Netflix engineered that, right?
They engineered the little thing that says next episode, and then it gives you 30 seconds and then it starts.
And then it just starts.
And all of the cliffhangers, right?
Every show now ends and you have to know what happens next.
It's it's engineered.
They know exactly what they did.
I'm rewatching the first season of Orange is the New Black because it's the best season.
Did you ever get into Orange is the New Black?
Yes.
I haven't seen the whole thing.
I'm trying to remember where, when it first came out, I was caught up and then but I don't think I've finished it
Okay.
I honestly think the first season is the best one.
The character development, the writing is really good.
It's a, it's a good show.
Like they just do a really nice job of telling the stories and helping you imagine.
You know the lives of these characters before they ended up in jail.
But anyways, I just binge it because it's just next episode, next episode.
Suddenly it's 3am.
You're watching another episode of Orange is the New Black.
Totally, totally.
But we want to mention the grammar here, because for the phrases we are teaching today they're similar but the grammar works little bit differently.
So for this one, this chunk keep yourself from is followed by verb ing.
So notice in these examples keep myself from eating, keep myself from starting the next episode.
So you want to make sure that chunk is always followed by that verb ing.
Yep.
And I'm so glad we're addressing that.
That is going to be the most challenging part of this phrase for our listeners, right?
And these phrases is, We get the point of what they mean, but can we put the right grammar?
Can we package it together in a sentence that's correct?
Exactly.
Right.
So remember that this is keep yourself from doing something.
And then that doing can be replaced by any verb ing.
Exactly.
All right.
So let's move on.
Aubrey, what would be something else we could say?
All right.
The next one is fight the urge to.
So very similar.
I had to fight the urge to check my phone during the meeting.
I think we all have this constant urge to check our phone.
We have to fight the urge to just glance at our phones.
Yeah.
Again, it's technology.
A lot of this is interesting that technology has really kind of encroached technology on our lives and created these addiction loops kind of.
So true.
It's a problem.
It's problematic.
We have much more sedentary lives because we can constantly be entertained with TV shows and phones.
Once upon a time, that wasn't the case.
I know.
We had to go outside and build forts.
We've talked about the good old days.
Yeah. show though.
So we don't need to go into that again.
Here's another example.
She fought the urge to quit after the first mile.
That's me.
If I'm running, I hit a mile and I'm just like, I hit a brick wall.
I can't get past it.
Totally.
Well, running is so, in my opinion, it's kind of boring.
If you have.
Even with a good podcast or music, I still am like I would rather be doing something else while listening to this.
Yeah, for sure.
What about the grammar here?
Yeah.
So this is followed by an infinitive.
So you see here I had to fight the urge to check, to check my phone, or fight the urge to quit.
To quit after the first smile.
So you have to have to with that bare verb.
It's an infinitive.
So again, very different from the first one, tough to keep yourself from doing something, I-N-G.
Yeah, this will never be followed by a verb I-N-G.
It's always that infinitive, to and the verb.
Yeah, a real challenge, but we're getting it here.
So number three would be resist the temptation to do something.
This is a little more wordy, right?
So you need to be ready to just say a lot of words.
Same meaning.
But yeah, and we could say resist the urge to and fight the temptation.
But these are kind of chunks.
This is how you'll hear it most often fight the urge and resist the temptation, temptation.
Yeah, it's all about the chunks, that if we memorize chunks we'll just save some work, right?
It's very 80-20.
Here's an example.
He couldn't resist the temptation to stay up late and watch just one more episode.
I totally get that.
We've all been there.
Or I'm trying to resist the temptation to skip my workout after a long day.
If I wait and try to work out later at night when I'm tired, I'm usually going to have a hard time resisting the temptation to not do it.
I know.
So it kind of leads to a conversation around strategies to make sure we stay on track with our with self control.
I mean one thing I've read.
They say to get yourself to go to the gym in the morning, you should lay out your clothes.
So it feels like you're already on your way, right?
You're already halfway there.
You're close.
I totally agree with that.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Or just I don't know what it is.
Like, how do we make sure we stay on track when we have a good habit?
Tricky, right?
Yeah.
Well, let's cover the grammar for this one, too.
It works the same as fight the urge to write or fight the urge.
You're also going to say, like these examples, he couldn't resist the temptation to stay up late and infinitive, or resist the temptation to skip my workout.
So both of these are followed by an infinitive, and it's just that first one that's followed by verb ing.
Yes, and this one is never followed by a verb ing.
So you have to get these right guys, right?
With preposition, with the correct infinitive or the verb ing.
We just need to try to memorize these chunks.
And the way to do that right now would be to write out your own examples.
This episode is incredibly relatable.
Absolutely.
Right.
What do you have a hard time resisting the temptation to do fighting the urge, right?
Write out examples with each of these, with several you know options, so that you start seeing this pattern of verb, ing or infinitive.
I mean, you could even, you know, we could make this a group thing in YouTube and in Spotify.
I know Spotify allows comments and YouTube allows comments, right?
Your examples here, right?
And, and, and share something unique.
Maybe there's an interesting thing that you're struggling with.
Self-control wise, let us know so we can see it's like the human experience, right?
Yes, I love that, right?
Come and leave Spotify comments, YouTube comments, so that we can see whether it's not just us fighting these urges, right.
What do you have a hard time resisting the temptation to do?
Exactly.
Don't leave us hanging here and all alone with our own temptations.
All right, good.
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All right, Aubrey, let's do a role play here.
So we are friends discussing weekend plans.
Yes, I'll start us.
Oh man, it's midnight already.
Do you think you'll still be able to wake up early for that hike tomorrow?
I'm planning on it.
I should have gone to bed earlier, though.
I'll have to keep myself from hitting the snooze button tomorrow morning.
Also, it's going to be really hot.
I had to fight the urge to cancel when I saw the forecast.
Oh, no.
How hot?
90 degrees by 10 a.m.?
?
So if we're going, we definitely have to get an early start.
Okay.
I'm heading to bed and I'm going to resist the temptation to scroll on my phone so I can fall asleep quicker.
Yeah, that's a real.
I mean one thing that I've shared on the show.
I just started moving my phone out of the bedroom.
So I don't even have that option to scroll on my phone.
But It's like you fix one temptation and then there's another one that comes, right?
So true, right?
But that's smart, because then sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I have to resist the temptation to look at my phone just to even check the time, or because then I'll be even more wide awake as soon as that light hits me.
Yes, for sure.
Real challenges here.
Oh my gosh.
All right.
So you said, I said, are you going to wake up early for that hike tomorrow?
And you said, I'll have to keep myself from hitting the snooze button tomorrow morning, right?
Yeah.
So this, if you go to bed late, you have that urge, that temptation to hit snooze, right?
But you can't do that.
You got to wake up right away. it always seems like a good idea to stay up and no big deal, right?
Netflix or scrolling or something, but then you feel it the next morning.
Absolutely.
And then you regret it as soon as you wake up.
Yeah.
What else?
What else?
So then you said I had to fight the urge to cancel when I saw the forecast.
So you saw that it's going to be really hot and you kind of had this urge to cancel.
You fought the urge to cancel our plans to go on a hike.
And this is very common in Arizona, especially in the summer, in the warmer times, where it will be 90 degrees by 10 am.
So we'll still hike, but we have to go super early, like 6 a.m.
Okay.
Yeah, that is really early.
Oh my gosh.
This can happen in the winter too, if you know it's cold and you fight the urge to cancel because you just want to stay in and be warm and cozy.
Yes, whatever plans you made, right?
You're fighting the urge to cancel to say I'd rather just stay home.
A lot like different meetups or groups I'm part of and I was supposed to go to a meeting or something and like I kind of just want to stay home tonight.
You know that happened to me a lot in New York because I knew how much effort it was going to be to catch the bus to a subway, to the D train.
Maybe it's not worth it.
Oh, that's why.
Yeah.
Where you live is really important in terms of like in a big city.
How much effort is to get everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
But I found that the temptation is stronger the older I get.
Definitely.
Right.
You have more motivation when you're younger.
You get more FOMO.
You want to be going out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
FOMO is not a thing anymore in terms of being out.
In my New York days, I was all about it.
I was like, I'm not even going to go home after work.
I'll just go out right after work.
Yeah.
Right.
Now we have FOMO and we're out.
We have FOMO of everyone that's home in bed with a book.
I know it's true.
It's funny.
And then the last one.
You said okay, I'm heading to bed and I'm going to resist the temptation to scroll on my phone.
Good resolution.
Yeah, a temptation we all should be resisting episode to check out would be the 2594.
We bet you can't resist this episode.
Yes, that was a really fun one with some other phrases for things you can't that are very positive.
Things you can't resist doing, Yes.
Love it.
And what's our takeaway today?
I mean, what I love about today's episode Aubrey is how universal it is, this feeling of temptations and habits.
Yes.
And it's getting worse, right?
We're all noticing this with technology.
We do have these screen addictions and things.
And it's not totally our fault because, like you said, these streamers are crafting ways to keep our attention.
Oh, for sure.
Social media.
They know, if you spend a little bit of time on one video now, they'll serve you more videos like that.
They know how to pull you in.
But I guess it just means we need to get smarter.
We need to get smarter.
I know my right.
Currently, the Super Bowl was just Sunday.
My feed is flooded with videos about Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance, because I watched a few of them.
Yeah.
It's amazing how fast it changes it.
It's kind of surprising that it changes so quickly, because it doesn't mean you're all your interests have totally changed, just to that.
Right.
So it's strange.
Yeah.
Anyways, this is a universal connection topic, guys, because everyone deals with temptations.
And so share, you know.
Make this the topic of conversation, empathize with someone else and make it a connection skill.
Absolutely.
Right.
These are fun conversations.
So what you, you know, have a hard time fighting the urge to do what you can't keep yourself from doing.
So use these phrases and yeah, have these conversations.
All right.
Good episode today, Aubrey.
We'll see you back on the show very soon.
Awesome.
See you next time.
Bye.
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