This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1786.
What's your state of mind?
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.
USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglishcom.
Forward slash subscribe.
In English, we use the word state in a lot of idioms and expressions.
Today, find out how to use this word like a native English speaker.
Do you ever feel like your English is good but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations, but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey there, Michelle.
How's everything in New York today?
Is it a sunny day or what's the weather like today?
I haven't been outside yet today, but it looks like in between sunny and not sunny.
Partly sunny, partly cloudy.
Partly sunny, partly cloudy exactly how about you?
How's it in denver?
Oh, it's usually sunny here in denver, but it does get really cold sometimes.
Yeah, but it's a nice day today.
I'm feeling good, ready for a great podcast episode for our listeners Awesome.
Love it.
So all right, we are we are going back in time a little bit to episode 1752.
So that was how to have a two sided conversation about travel in English.
And this was inspired by a listener question from Zainab Ali, who was asking about the word Wyoming in a sentence.
And we took that and we said we're going to do two episodes about it.
So one we did.
So that was 1752.
So go ahead and listen to that one.
And that was really about travel, talking about states you visited, and that was a lot of fun.
And now we also thought it would be a good idea to do another one.
So thank you to this listener for this great question on idioms that deal with the word state.
Yes, I love it.
And there's a lot that comes up immediately.
Some things come to mind.
Absolutely.
I'm excited to get into this.
Do we need to read the question again?
The listener question?
No.
I mean.
The question was I want to know how to use the word Wyoming in a sentence, along with its meaning.
Okay.
Right.
So exactly.
So we're going to go into states, right?
The word use of the word state in idioms or expressions.
Guys, before we go into this today, go and take your fluency quiz, right?
Find out if your fluency score is 50%, 65% or 80% fluent.
Where can our listeners go to get that, Michelle?
Okay, go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.
All right.
All right.
So let's get into it, Michelle.
All right, let's do it.
So when we use state as in an idiom, I mean we don't.
I mean are we talking always about a piece of land?
No, I mean, sometimes we're talking about a...
It's like the idea of stasis, right?
I'm struggling to find another word for state, Michelle.
A way of being, like a moment, like a way of the mind, a set, a mindset.
Right, right.
Right.
Situation, like emotional, right?
Let's give some examples.
Let's do the first one and we'll talk about it.
OK, this first one is state of mind.
So yeah, so common, so accessible for you guys, for our listeners to use this, you know, talking about how you're feeling, your attitude, your emotions.
And then, of course, there's the famous Billy Joel song, which some of my friends who live in New York have quoted.
This song,
I think they were just like really in love with living in New York.
Um right, and they talk about this song sometimes.
Yeah, that's new york state of mind and that's that's a very famous one.
Um, billy joel's awesome.
I love billy joel.
Billy joel is one of my favorites of all time.
I saw him yes uh, in the garden.
Oh really oh, that's so cool.
I'm jealous.
Guys, that's a that's a that's a pro New York tip.
So the garden.
What do I mean by the garden?
Did I see him in like a little garden play?
Yeah, it's the stadium and near Penn Station, right?
What is it?
The Madison Square Garden.
Madison Square Garden.
Yeah, so when?
So this is at Penn Station and it's just very famous place and like it's always like a big deal for artists to play there so as to but to be to for short.
You know that you're with A New Yorker if they call it the garden.
I love that.
Oh, that's so good.
So, so good.
We could do.
Oh, that's another great episode idea.
Michelle, how you know who you're with based on when people say the this or the that.
Like I know people in Long Island say the city.
Right.
When they talk about New York City and all these other things like there is definitely something there.
That's an episode idea for sure.
That is a good one.
Very good.
So, yes, state of mind.
I mean, but if it's not the Billy Joel song, you might say.
I'm not in a good state of mind to talk about this right now, although
There's also frame of mind, but I think that this is used.
I think they're both used, right?
Yeah.
Frame of mind sounds a little more structured, I guess, or a little less accessible.
I think state of mind feels more natural, more casual.
Yeah.
Okay um, all right, so so here we go let's, let's see how it would sound, okay.
So hey, are you ready to prep for the meeting?
Can we do it tomorrow?
I'm not really in the right state of mind now.
Yeah.
So maybe you just had some big event, something happened or you're just not having a great day.
Right.
So you're not really or you've had a really good day and you can't bring your energy down and to focus.
Right.
Or you might.
Yeah.
And here you could use frame of mind as well.
I'm not really I think they're pretty interchangeable here.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
You would use.
Yeah, for sure.
I just think it's I use it less frame of mind than state of mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Okay.
So what's the next one?
Well, if you're in a particular state, it means that you're, I guess, upset in some way.
Right?
So yeah, sometimes I hear like, if somebody says like, I'm in such a state.
Ah, okay.
Such a state, when or that, right?
This is advanced grammar here.
In such, the use of such.
Yeah, yeah.
So like, I was in such a state when she called that I forgot to tell her the good news.
So maybe you were upset or...
Anxious, or It just sounds like.
When I hear that, I think like you know, like just like anxiously, like walking around the room or like that's just what I personally think of.
I love it.
So this use of such that, right?
I was in such a blank that something happened, right?
That's a construction that we want you guys to start using.
It's definitely high level.
Right right right, exactly.
I love it.
If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break.
Hoping the right people see your job posting isn't the best growth strategy when the pressure's on and you need the right hire.
This is a job for sponsored jobs.
Indeed, Sponsored Jobs is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent.
Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you the quality candidates when you need them most.
People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now.
In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide.
Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.
Less stress, less time, more results.
When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
And listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeedcom slash podcast.
Just go to indeedcom slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
That's I-N-D-E-E-D dot com slash podcast.
Terms and conditions apply.
Hiring headache?
This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
So yeah, sorry.
Oh, wait.
Oh, yeah.
A little roleplay.
Okay.
All right.
Um, so what did you tell her when she surprised you?
I don't even remember.
I was in such a state that I wasn't thinking clearly.
Yeah.
So so good.
Yeah, such that.
So guys, come back, write that down.
Maybe we'll come back to that another day.
Okay.
State of affairs is our third one for today.
How things are in this very moment, right?
State of affairs with the economy, politics, the workplace, right?
Right, right, right.
State of affairs.
So the state of affairs in the workplace is not what we had hoped it would be by this point.
Hmm.
So maybe you made some changes and you were hoping that things would get better and they didn't materialize, right?
Right, right, right, right.
So this one, I think that you'll hear a lot like on the news, just like a lot of different things, where you'll hear the state of affairs.
Yeah.
Or, you know, just to take this state idea, you know, state of democracy in the U.S., right?
That kind of plays into this idea.
I've seen an entire series on like, you know, eroding of American democracy.
What is the state of democracy?
What condition is it in right now?
Right.
The condition.
The condition.
Yeah.
Yes, that's a good that's a good word.
Another word to use for that the condition of something.
So real quick, let's do a little role play for our listeners.
So all right.
All right.
Well, Michelle, how are things going at the office these days?
Oh, Lindsay, it's a sad state of affairs.
I think the place may shut down.
Oh, man.
So what could be happening there?
Maybe there's too much too many office politics or just the money is business isn't good.
Right.
So a lot of times people like you don't really hear like happy state of affairs but like to say something.
It's like a sad state of affairs.
That's Pretty common, I think.
Yeah.
And the word sorry, it's interesting that you said sorry too.
Sorry, is less common, but it is very useful when you are trying to describe something too.
That's not so good, right?
A sorry state of affairs.
Very interesting.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So we have one more.
And this is state of the art.
Yeah.
This is a little bit different.
Yeah.
So, for example, our new app is state of the art.
I love this.
Reminds me of like the days of, I don't know, Back to the Future or something.
It seems like something that the doc would have described the machine, the Back to the Future machine.
State of the art.
Right.
State of the art.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So it's just like modern, like new, usually often or mostly used to talk about technology.
Yes.
Yeah.
So let's show how this would be used.
All right, here we go.
Check it out.
Whoa, I've heard about that camera.
It uses state-of-the-art technology to make photos as sharp as possible.
And that's true nowadays, right?
About camera phones, they're amazing.
Oh, yeah.
It's so funny to like I mean because it's really not that long ago that you know I was using like a separate camera from my phone.
Or, you know, the disposable cameras in the 90s.
Oh.
Oh, my God.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, now you can almost get the same.
I mean, I guess a photographer would disagree.
But for your average person you could pretty much get just as good quality with an iPhone or Android as you can with, like a Rebel or something like a Canon, a fancy camera with a big lens.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, it is crazy how good these cameras are.
And it's funny because you know you think your phone camera is good, but then do you ever have that moment where then you get a new phone and then you're like whoa.
Like I was not living before.
Everything's different.
The lighting is better.
Or when someone else takes the photos.
Like I remember, at our urban emergent adventure in Boston, Massimo's camera phone was really really good.
He was taking photos and I was like, oh, my gosh, my camera phone is awful. compared to his.
It was amazing.
But we had great photos from that event.
That's funny.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Shout out to Massimo.
Yeah, shout out.
All right.
So Michelle, what's our takeaway for our listeners?
Okay, well, thank you again to our listener for that question about Wyoming.
You guys, you never know when your question will be used for one episode, two episodes, all the episodes now.
That's really why our listeners need to hit follow.
You know guys hit, follow on the show.
You know we don't immediately answer every question, but eventually we get around to the good ones.
So if you send a good question, you can be sure eventually we will answer it.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So now I'm glad that we did this episode.
I'm in a great state of mind.
Yes.
I'm in a New York state of mind and I can continue on my day.
Sounds great, Michelle.
I will talk to you very soon.
You have a good one.
All right.
Bye, Lindsay.
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.
