Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing well and that you're ready to learn some more phrasal verbs today.
In this episode, we're going to look at the phrasal verbs bring up and brush off.
So, first let's define these phrasal verbs and see an example of each one.
First, bring up.
This means to introduce a topic into a conversation in order to discuss it.
So, for example, I could say, she got mad when he brought up her mistakes.
So in this sentence I'm saying that the woman got mad when the man brought, mentioned or introduced the topic of her mistakes into the conversation.
He brought it up.
He introduced this topic.
In other words, he started talking about it.
So that's bring up.
How about brush off?
This means to dismiss or reject something without thinking too much about it.
For example, I could say, he brushed off the client's rude remark.
In this sentence I'm saying that the person dismissed or rejected the client's rude remark without thinking too much about it.
It doesn't mean that he argued and got mad and told the client that he was rejecting it.
He just simply didn't think about it, let it go, and moved on.
So he brushed off the rude remarks.
Okay, now we're going to talk about a couple different things, and I'm going to use these phrasal verbs again and again so that you can hear them in different sentences and get more accustomed to how they're used, their meaning and hopefully, by the end, you'll be able to use them in your own sentences.
So first, let me tell you about town hall meetings.
So these are meetings where elected officials, like politicians who got elected to a certain office, they meet with local residents who live there, in that area.
And during these town hall meetings, usually the residents bring up different topics.
They bring up concerns that they might have, worries, let's say.
They bring up different proposals.
Maybe they propose something.
That the city government do something new or something different or whatever.
And they might bring up complaints.
That's probably one of the most common things that is brought up.
Complaints about... different topics, different things that the residents are not happy about.
So town hall meetings are these meetings where residents can bring up all these different topics And the elected officials usually respond to these concerns and proposals and complaints.
And maybe they talk about other things as well.
But these are town hall meetings.
So let me talk about a fictional town hall meeting.
This one is just something that I made up so I can use the phrasal verb brought up.
So let's talk about a fictional local town hall meeting.
At this town hall meeting, the residents of this particular city brought up many topics.
They brought up different issues that they deemed important.
When you deem something important, this means that you consider it to be important.
So they brought up some crime-related issues.
This was one of the most pressing issues, meaning the most urgent, important issue, or one of them.
These crime-related issues.
They started talking about the burglaries that had happened recently.
They brought this up.
A burglary is a crime where someone breaks into another person's house to steal things.
Usually they're not trying to attack the person or assaults the person.
They want to steal things from the house.
So the residents brought up the recent burglaries that had taken place in this city.
There were more burglaries during the months preceding that town hall meeting than there usually are in that city.
So this was a big issue that was brought up and discussed, and not only these burglaries but also gang activity that had happened and was starting to become more prevalent, meaning more widespread and common in that city.
So many citizens, many local residents, were feeling concerned about this gang activity and they were concerned about the safety of their children and their own safety.
So they brought up this issue, and they also brought up the issue of graffiti.
There had been a lot of graffiti like people painting on buildings and writing different things on buildings and signs, and this also seemed related to the gang activity.
So they brought up that issue.
They also brought up the topic of the infrastructure of the city.
Many people complained about the different potholes In the roads.
A pothole is basically just a hole in the road in the street.
Cars can become damaged if they run over these potholes.
You have to try to avoid them as you're driving.
So the residents were not happy about all the potholes in the city.
They brought this topic up in hopes that the local government would be able to fill these potholes.
Take action in this regard.
And so they brought that up.
They also brought up the issue of broken street signs.
There were a lot of signs that were broken or damaged and they wanted the local government to fix this issue.
And they brought up one more infrastructure issue.
They wanted more speed bumps on certain roads.
A speed bump is like a part of the road where it looks like a little mini hill, like it's elevated some inches so that cars have to slow down when they go over that part of the road.
Speed bumps are used to slow down the traffic.
So some residents brought up their concern about how fast certain cars were driving on residential streets, so they wanted more speed bumps.
And another topic that was brought up at this town hall meeting was the government's use of taxes.
The residents felt that the government was collecting a lot of money in taxes, but they didn't really see a whole lot of improvement in the city.
Like I already mentioned, the infrastructure was not good.
The crime was getting worse.
It didn't seem like the government was using the residents' tax money wisely.
They weren't using the tax money to actually improve things.
So people brought up this concern and they also brought up some proposals that they wanted the government to consider.
For example, they wanted more neighborhood parks for their kids to play safely at.
And they also proposed renovating some of the sidewalks to make them wider spaces so that pedestrians could walk more easily.
And they also brought up the idea that there should be more police officers to combat the rise in crime.
When you combat something, this means you fight against it.
So they brought up that proposal as well.
And one last thing that was brought up, which was a little bit uncomfortable, was politicians' salaries.
The residents felt that the elected officials were earning way more money than the average worker and And they were not doing a good job.
And so why did they need to earn so much money?
That was an uncomfortable topic.
That was brought up because the elected officials were the ones responding to these questions and these concerns.
So you can imagine that that was a little bit uncomfortable.
All right.
Now let me talk about one other topic.
Let me talk about professional athletes.
So professional athletes need to be able to brush off criticism.
If you're a professional athlete, you are gonna be criticized left and right.
When we say that something happens left and right, it means that it happens all the time, all over the place.
Professional athletes get criticized left and right and they need to be able to handle this criticism and brush it off when it's not relevant or not important.
So, for example, analysts the people that talk about sports for a living.
These people are paid to critique professional athletes and criticize them.
And because of that, there is always criticism.
There are always people talking negatively about themselves. the most popular professional athletes.
And many of these athletes have trouble dealing with this fact that people are always talking negatively about them.
And many professional athletes get offended.
Every time they hear someone saying something not so nice about them.
Other professional athletes are able to brush it off.
They're able to brush off the criticism themselves. that they receive from these analysts.
They understand that these sports analysts are paid to give opinions, often controversial or negative opinions.
So many athletes understand this and are able to brush off the negative criticism and negative remarks.
But many athletes aren't able to just brush this off easily and they get offended.
It affects their performance.
And they might even watch these sports shows just to hear what the analysts are going to say about them.
And when they hear something negative said about them, they don't just brush it off and move on.
They actually fight back and they try to defend themselves and their performance or whatever.
And so these analysts are constantly criticizing professional athletes.
So Athletes should be able to brush this off and understand that this is part of the game.
It's part of the job.
And professional athletes should also be able to brush off the hate that they get from opposing teams' fans.
Because people that are fans of other teams are always going to talk negatively about the athletes on teams that they're not fans of.
So when you play at the opposing team's stadium, when you travel to their city and play at their stadium, you're going to receive.
A lot of boos and negative remarks from the opposing team's fans.
So if you're not ready for this, if you're not able to brush this off when you receive it, it's going to be hard for you to deal with this.
I remember a long time ago that there was this famous person who would always sit in the same seat and heckle the opposing team's player.
When you heckle someone, it means that you...
Yell at them and say mean things about them and try to distract them and get them mad.
Some fans will do this.
And there was this famous person that would always heckle the opposing team's players.
And I remember sitting behind this fan one time and it was pretty funny to hear him heckle the opposing team.
But sometimes the opposing athletes weren't able to just brush off the remarks and concentrate on their performance.
They actually got really mad and would do things to show that they were mad at this fan.
And so you can see that, even though these are professional athletes who should be used to this and should be able to just brush this off, many are not able to do that so easily.
And not only do professional athletes receive criticism and heckling from the opposing fans, they might also receive criticism from fans of their own team, actually.
When someone is not performing well, fans can turn on that player, meaning now, instead of supporting them, they are going against them.
They turn on them and they start saying things like this player should be traded to another team, or the team shouldn't resign this player, or they should bench this player, meaning he shouldn't be playing.
He should be sitting on the bench.
And fans can start to say those things.
And athletes need to be able to brush off all of that noise, all of that criticism, and just go out and play.
But of course, athletes aren't always able to do this.
It's not easy to just brush off all the criticism that you receive from your own team's fans.
That can be hard, right?
And lastly, when I was preparing for this episode, I thought about the fact that I kind of have to do this a little bit because I have a large audience and And sometimes I receive negative remarks and negative comments and I just need to be able to brush this off and continue on with my work.
So, even though I'm not a professional athlete myself, I also need to follow this same principle and brush off the negativity when I receive it.
Obviously, I don't receive that much negative criticism, but whatever, once in a while i do, and sometimes it seems a little bit unfair or unjust and so i just have to brush it off.
So i hope that as i was talking, you were able to hear these phrasal verbs used again and again, and hopefully you can even use them in your own sentences at this point and you feel more comfortable with their meanings.
Remember that you can check out my advanced podcast episodes, in which I speak fast, by becoming a Listening Time family member.
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Also, check out my U.S.
Conversations podcast so you can listen to my conversations with other native English speakers from around the US.
It's really educational and a lot of fun and it's great practice for your listening because you're hearing real authentic conversations.
And, of course, I provide the transcript for you, with the definitions of some of the hard words and phrases that we use.
So that link is also down below.
Alright, thank you all for listening to this phrasal verb episode and I'll talk to you in the next one.
