Hello everybody. My name is Coach Shane and welcome to Easy English Expressions.
Come on! Let's master English!
Hello everybody. Welcome back to daily easy English expression the podcast.
Alright, today's expression is to plug away.
To plug away. It's a phrasal verb.
P -L -U -G. Plug away.
A -W -A -Y. So you, for example, have a computer and the computer needs electricity.
So where do you get the electricity?
From the wall. Right?
You have a cord and you plug the cord into the wall and then you get electricity.
So once again that's called a plug.
You plug the cord into the wall.
And actually it's not the cord you put into the wall.
The little piece of plastic and metal that you put into the wall.
That is also called a plug.
Okay, so plug can be a verb and it can be a noun.
So plug the plug into the wall.
In other words, put the cord into the wall.
But again the cord is just a long straight piece.
The wire. You don't put that into the wall.
You put the plug into the wall.
Okay, so plug the plug into the wall.
Also, the wall part can be called an outlet.
The proper word is outlet.
O -U -T -L -E -T. But it's also called a plug.
So you could actually say plug the plug into the plug.
Yeah, that actually kind of works.
But don't do that. It's confusing.
So anyway, now we understand plug.
So to plug away means to work, work, work, work, work.
And I have the perfect example in the dialogue.
So I want you to listen to that and then I'll do a little more explaining.
Here we go. How's coach Shane's new office?
Oh, he's still plugging away at it.
What's taking so long?
There's lots of equipment to set up.
Lots of settings to relearn.
It's not easy. Exactly.
So I moved to this house, my final house.
I will die in this house.
I moved here last October.
Right now it's January.
As you know, I've been very busy.
But I'm still plugging away at setting up my office.
I'm still doing a lot of work to set up my office.
My office, I have my computers running, but not my audio system, not my microphones.
I need to plug the microphone into the computer.
But it's not that easy because, you know, if you take a microphone and put it into the computer, it doesn't work or it doesn't sound good.
So if you look at my desk, I actually have a lot of different electronic equipment.
And for power, I need to put each piece of equipment.
I need to plug it into the wall to get electricity.
And then the microphone cord, I need to plug into this box.
And then this box needs to plug into another box.
And there's so many plugs.
There's so many cords.
There's so many wires on my desk and on my floor.
It is insane. And you know what, when I first set up my office, it was new equipment.
So I knew what I was doing, but that was several years ago.
Now, I don't remember which plugs go where, which wires go where, which cords go where.
Oh my God. So there's lots of equipment to set up, to get going.
There's lots of settings to learn.
I have to relearn where everything goes.
But I'm doing it slowly, but surely I'm plugging away.
I'm working slowly, but surely getting one step done at a time.
I'm plugging away. I'm working hard.
It's not fast. It's going slow.
I'm putting this cord into this box and this plug into this box and this wire into this box.
I'm plugging. Okay.
Can you hear this? I'm going to try a sound here.
I don't know if you can hear.
No, you're not going to be able to hear.
No, I forget it anyway.
I'm trying to show you the sound of something plugging into something else.
I think you can imagine what I'm talking about.
Oh, here, here. I got one.
I can do my, my headphones.
No, that's not going to work.
Into this. Nope. Not going to work.
Anyway, plugging away.
It's a great verb. It means to be working at something not really fast.
You're going slow. You're testing.
You're trying this and trying this and trying this and trying this.
It's as if you are plugging wires into one box and testing if it is working.
That's the idea of to plug away.
So maybe you are, you have to prepare a resume.
You want to get a new job.
You have to prepare a resume and you have to, so it's easy to write the resume the first time, but then we need to double check.
We need to update. We need to make it look better.
We got to do this and this and this and try this and this and try that and that and try this and that and then get it checked and try again.
You're plugging away.
You're plugging away at your resume.
You're making it better.
You're working on it.
It's not too fast, but it's getting done.
That's the idea. Is there anything that you guys are plugging away at these days?
Me, for sure in my office.
That's absolutely true.
All right, guys. And speaking of English, if you're plugging away at English, try our free lessons.
www .lettsmasterenglish .com slash free.
We give you two listening lessons and one speaking lesson and they're free.
You can keep them forever.
And of course, if you really want to upgrade your English, you should plug away every day with us.
Join us in DDM or Perth.
That's it, guys. Have a fantastic day.
Listen to the dialogue a couple more times and together, let's master English.
How's coach Shane's new office?
Oh, he's still plugging away at it.
What's taking so long?
There's lots of equipment to set up.
Lots of settings to relearn.
It's not easy. How's coach Shane's new office?
Oh, he's still plugging away at it.
What's taking so long?
There's lots of equipment to set up.
Lots of settings to relearn.
It's not easy.
