Hi, this is Farah Namira from Indonesia, and you are listening to Everybody ESL.
Welcome to episode 454 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 an interesting phrase.
The phrase is, Woe is me.
Woe is me.
That is W-O-E is me.
Woe is me.
Before I tell you what this phrase means and how we use it, let's look at that first word, woe.
What is woe?
Woe is a very old-fashioned word that means great sadness or a great tragedy.
I don't know if you will ever see or hear that word, unless it is part of this larger phrase.
Woe is me.
What does that phrase mean?
When do people say woe is me?
Woe is me is a way of expressing your feelings when something terrible has happened, when you feel a great sadness or when you are experiencing grief, or if you have experienced a great tragedy.
You might say, woe is me.
It really means I have experienced something terrible.
It comes from some versions of the Bible.
And later, William Shakespeare used the phrase in his famous play Hamlet.
This phrase has a very old-fashioned feeling to it.
The phrase doesn't seem to make any sense.
Woe is me.
We really can't use any other word besides woe in that sentence.
We can't say, sadness is me or tragedy is me.
Those sound strange.
And so does woe is me, but that's okay because it is a set phrase. an idiom.
We just use it and don't even really think about it.
When people use it now, they are probably doing it to sound old-fashioned or to sound funny.
Here is the kind of situation where I think you might hear this phrase.
Imagine that my friend is complaining about something.
Imagine that my friend is complaining about something that I don't think is very important.
I think my friend's complaints are a little bit silly.
My friend is complaining about things that really aren't so bad and they're not important.
I don't really know why he keeps complaining.
Finally, in response to his complaining, I say, oh, woe is me.
That is a funny or teasing way of saying, this is what you sound like.
You sound like somebody who has seen something terrible or who is experiencing great sadness or grief.
I think you are exaggerating your problem.
We sometimes use the phrase woe is me to tease somebody else, if we want to say I don't think your complaint is really all that important.
I don't know why you are complaining so much.
I don't know why you are so upset about this.
And that is, woe is me, an interesting phrase that I think you should know.
This is the end of episode 454 of Everybody ESL.
Remember if you have questions about English or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes.
The same way, Farah recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode.
Send an email to everybodyesl at gmailcom.
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.
