Hello! I'm Joy. I come from China.
You are listening to Everybody ESL.
Welcome to episode 407 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English.
My name is Ben and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic.
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Okay, let's get on with this mini episode.
In this episode, I am going to teach you a common and useful phrase.
The phrase is, remains to be seen – remains to be seen.
That's spelled R -E -M -A -I -N -S -T -O -B -E -S -E -E -N – remains to be seen.
What does this phrase mean and how do we use it?
We use this phrase when we want to say that something is still not clear, or something is still not certain, or we still don't know something.
We use it when we want to say, we will have to wait to see how something happens, Or, we will have to wait to see the result of something.
You will hear people say things like that remains to be seen, or it remains to be seen.
For example, you might hear something like this.
Let's say that two people in an office are having a discussion about some new rule.
The office has some new rule and these two people are talking about what will happen as a result of this new rule.
One person is saying something like, I think this new rule will mean that we have to spend too much money.
And so it's a bad rule.
The other person might say something like, Well, I think that remains to be seen.
I think that remains to be seen.
This person is saying, I think it is still unclear.
I think we still don't know what will happen.
I think we will have to wait to see what happens.
I think we will have to wait to see what the truth is.
It is still unclear or uncertain.
Why does remains to be seen mean this?
That word remains, what does that mean?
What does remains mean?
To remain means to stay or continue being a certain way or to continue being in some place.
When we say it remains to be seen, we mean it is still true that we do not know.
We still don't know.
The situation where we still don't know is continuing.
It remains to be seen means we still need to see it.
We still need to wait before we can see something, or before we can know or understand.
something. One more thing I want to say about this phrase is that it can sound a little bit formal.
I think remains to be seen is a perfectly fine phrase, but sometimes it will not sound very conversational.
I think you will probably see this in writing more than you will hear this in conversation.
And that is remains to be seen.
A useful phrase that I think you should know.
This is the end of episode 407 of Everybody ESL.
Remember, if you have questions about English or if you have comments for me or if you would like the to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes, the same way Joy recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode, send an email to everybodyesl at gmail .com.
I'll be back soon with a new episode and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning.
I'll see you soon. Goodbye!
you
