#8- 12 Phrasal Verbs, Slang Words & Idioms about Expressing Opinions and Arguing
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On this episode of the real life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you 12 valuable slang words, phrasal, verbs, and idioms and expressions that will help you express your opinions and argue in English. I'll be teaching you words like double down, hammer out, weigh in on, to stick to your guns and more. Let's jump right in.
Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations.
Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.
Today you're in for a treat. In English, this [00:01:00] expression means you're about to get something really valuable or enjoyable. In the next two episodes. I'm going to be teaching you. one of the most popular skills that you'll need to survive in the USA or to survive around Americans and that is how to argue and freely express your opinions.
Americans are very opinionated. If you have American friends, or if you've spent any time in the USA. You're going to know this. The word opinionated is an adjective and it means full of opinions.
In American culture. We are encouraged to express our thoughts and opinions freely. And we are absolutely taught to fight for what we believe in and to never back down. If, you know, some American history. You'll know that we got our independence from England. [00:02:00] By fighting. We are rebels at heart and freedom is a huge concept here. Sometimes it's a little too much in my opinion, but we'll save that for a different conversation.
Americans love to give opinions whether you want them or not. I tell my students this all the time. Let me give you an example. If you stop someone on the street and you say, excuse me, do you know where Dunkin donuts is? Someone might respond. Oh, it's around the corner, but don't go there. Krispy Kreme is so much better and it's right across the street. So you asked me w here something is, and I respond w ith an opinion, plus the answer. This is totally normal in American culture. And in New York city where I'm from, even more so, we value [00:03:00] honesty, transparency and being very direct and open with opinions.
In conversations with people. It's actually very normal to disagree. In fact. We always argue and debate with our friends and family and then we go right back to having a good relationship when we're done. Most of the time. Some topics are a little bit more. Intense than others. But for the most part, agreeing disagreeing debating. These are all extremely normal for us.
This episode is actually part of a series. In this first episode of the series, I'm teaching you 12 words for arguing and expressing opinions and in the next episode, We'll talk more about disagreements. specifically like disagreements amongst friends. When people stay [00:04:00] angry at each other for a while. There is so much to talk about with this topic, I may even have to record a third episode, because there's just so much, and it's a very important skill that you learn in English.
So, let me tell you about the words and expressions that I'm teaching you today. We have a heated discussion. Speak up or pipe up. Hammer out or hash out. To weigh in on. To stick to your guns. Give your 2 cents. From where I stand. The way I see it. It seems to me. To double down. To butt in. To find the middle ground. To chime in. And to play the devil's advocate. So there are actually more than 12 words. , it's more like 16 or 17, but some of them mean the same thing so I [00:05:00] grouped them together so that you have more than one option to say the same thing.
Before we get to the story. I just want to remind you to get the free study guide with this episode so that you can study and practice all the things I teach you. It has the transcript so that you can follow along. As well as having definitions, examples and practice activities. To get the study guide, go to the show's description right underneath where you clicked the episode in your app. And click the link. It should be the first thing that pops up in the episode description. once you get your first study guide, you don't have to worry about downloading it again because you'll just get it sent to you automatically. All right. Let's get to the story.
The team at apple Inc was exhausted. For weeks, they had been working on a presentation for one of their clients.[00:06:00] But they were having a lot of difficulty with the presentation. There was a heated discussion between the team members. On how they should fix this dilemma. The presentation was only two days away. And they had a long way to go before finishing. Marco, the team leader, was the first to speak up. "Okay guys, he said, What should we do? Postpone the presentation or reassign each section? Let's hash this out." the discussion became more intense as everyone started to weigh in on the changes that they thought should be made to the presentation. Marco always stuck to his guns. So he shared his opinions with his colleagues that they should change the date of their presentation. "If we get this wrong, [00:07:00] we could lose the account. We should really postpone the presentation."
hHs coworker, Linda quickly added her 2 cents to the discussion with an opposing idea. "No way," she said. "The boss would be so upset if we made the client wait any longer." When Linda finished, Marco said. "From where I stand. Rushing the project, compromises the quality. We should double down on our efforts and present next week instead.".
Just as Marico finished speaking. Alex, who was known for butting in. Interrupted. "I don't agree. We need to meet the deadline no matter what."
Mary, trying to find middle ground decided to chime in, "Maybe we can compromise and present some things [00:08:00] to the client tomorrow and then finish next week."
Alex decided to play the devil's advocate. "Okay, if we postpone the presentation, what's going to happen. Let's take a moment to weigh the pros and cons carefully before making a decision." The room fell silent as everyone contemplated alex's question. In the end. The team decided to follow Marco's advice and push the presentation back by one week.
Marco was content because he realized that his perspectives were valued by his team members. The end.
Okay.
So let's review the vocabulary and find out what these words mean and how you use them in a conversation.
First up. We have the expression. A [00:09:00] heated discussion. You can also say a heated debate. To say that an event is heated means that it's tense and full of emotions. Most of those emotions are going to be anger.So when the story opens up, this is one of the first things we're told. So we can kind of see the environment and the atmosphere of what's happening. Is that a bunch of people are debating they're in trouble. They have a problem. People are upset and angry and they don't know what to do.
Then we have two phrasal verbs that are very similar. And can be used interchangeably in English, meaning you can use either one: speak up. and pipe up. In this context, they mean. To express an opinion o r contribute to a discussion. But. When you do it, it's in a way that's very [00:10:00] bold. So you have an opinion or idea that you want to say, but you're a little bit scared. You're a little bit hesitant to join the conversation. Maybe you're a little bit shy. Maybe you are an introvert. People are talking about something and maybe they're extroverts and they're very bold in their opinions. You want to give your opinion? But it takes a lot of boldness to do it.
Someone might say, oh, I have something to say and their manager would say, all right, speak up pipe up. let's go give your opinion.
We're going to hear a lot of different words for giving opinions and the differences are very slight. So the difference here with speak-up and pipe up again. Is that you hesitated and you thought about not doing it, but then you decided to do it.
Next up, we have another pair of phrasal verbs with similar meanings hammer out and [00:11:00] hash out.
these two phrasal verbs both mean that you are going to discuss. Or Fix differences or conflict. And the way that this is going to happen is through intense and in depth or detailed conversation. So. We have a problem. We gotta hash this out. We gotta hammer it out. We have to have difficult conversations, but we're going to resolve these differences. So there's going to be some resistance, but in the end, we're going to hammer them out. We're going to resolve them.
Next up is a three-word phrasal verb. So remember that phrasal verbs usually have two words, but we have many phrasal verbs that have an extra particle. Or some of you might know it as a preposition. And weigh in on is one of them. To weigh in on something means to give your opinion or contribute to a conversation. [00:12:00] It's similar to speak up or pipe up, except that usually you're not afraid to give your opinion here. It's more like adding your opinion to a conversation that needs to resolve a problem. And someone wants to hear your opinion before they make a choice. So imagine that your two friends are having a disagreement. And they say, Hey, can you weigh in on the situation? It's like saying, Hey, we need your advice. We need your opinion. We need your help so that we can figure out what to do.
The next one is to stick to your guns. This is an idiom that means to firmly or strongly commit to your beliefs, your decisions or your opinions. You are not changing your mind. Even though there's some opposition, there's people who. are [00:13:00] challenging you, you are not backing down.
You stick to those guns.
The next one is a very popular idiom and that is to give your 2 cents or here are my 2 cents. So cents here is C E N T S like the money. This idiom means to give your opinion and usually it's valuable.
Someone might join a conversation by saying. Let me give you my 2 cents. Or my 2 cents. I break up with him. So sometimes there's nothing in front of my 2 cents.
Next, I'm going to give you some expressions on how to start a sentence.
So these are some sentence openers. When we're about to give an opinion. In a debate or in an argument. And we want to seem like we are neutral.
We can say one of three things at the start of the [00:14:00] sentence. From where I stand or The way I see it or it seems to me.
This all just means. In my opinion.
So these are really good ways to give an opinion without offending people or getting people upset.
Next up is double down. This is a really cool expression. this is similar to stick to your guns. But it's a little bit different.
So when you stick to your guns, Usually it's defensive. Someone is trying to oppose your idea. And they want you to change your opinion, but you don't. So it's very defensive. Double down is a little bit different. double down is reinforcing your opinion even when others are against what you're saying. for [00:15:00] example, the president doubled down on his decision to limit immigration. Now, let me give you the difference here between double down and an expression, like stick to your guns. Oftentimes doubling down is used in a negative way to say that someone is refusing to soften their beliefs or compromise. So the president doubled down on his decision to limit immigration. This means that there was some kind of opposition to his decision.
Maybe there were protests. Maybe people wrote letters to Congress. He got a lot of criticism. He had two choices. He could either apologize and change the decision. Or he could double down and say, sorry, but this is my decision. It's the right decision. And I'm sticking with it. So that's kind of the difference here. Again, double down [00:16:00] is a little bit aggressive and a little bit offensive.
Oftentimes where a lot of people think you should change your mind, but you don't.
Next we have the phrasal verb, butt in. This one is pretty funny. And used often in friend and family circles. This means to interrupt or join a conversation without being invited.
No one invited you to this conversation. Why are you commenting?
Oftentimes when someone butts in it's because they're being nosy, they're listening to a conversation that they shouldn't be listening to. And they just make a comment without anyone asking them to.
The next expression is to find the middle ground.
This means to compromise. So you can probably visualize this in your head.
There's one person's decision on the right. There's one person's decision on the left and you're in the middle.[00:17:00] So when you come to middle ground or when you find middle ground, You're finding a solution in the middle that satisfies or appeases both sides or all sides. Everyone had to compromise a little bit. It's not what everybody wants, but it's the decision that satisfies people, because everybody gets a little bit of what they want.
Next is the phrasal verb to chime in.
Chime in is to give your opinion or contribute to a conversation. and oftentimes it means to just add a short little opinion or response. imagine, , there's a group of friends and nobody knows where to eat. Everyone's giving their opinion. There's one friend. Who's not really saying anything. I say , Hey, Leslie. You want to chime in? Or someone says, oh, I'll chime in. We should do this. Like a short. Opinion a short response. no one is [00:18:00] upset that you're making this. Comment. It's not like butting in where people think why are you in our conversation?
And lastly. We have. To play the devil's advocate. This is a really interesting and cool. Expression. This is super common as well. And if you've ever seen any American TV shows or movies, you may have heard this. To play the devil's advocate. Is when you decide to give an argument from a perspective or viewpoint. That you don't have. But you do it because you want to add s ome excitement to an argument. or you want to test how strong an argument is imagine that y ou're discussing what kind of car insurance to buy with your significant other, your partner. They want to get [00:19:00] the cheapest car insurance, because they want to save money and you never get into car accidents, but you want to get the most expensive one just in case something happens. you guys are arguing and you say, Okay, let me play devil's advocate. Let's say that we get the cheapest car insurance. And we get into a car accident. What's going to happen. So for a minute, you are pretending to switch sides, but you're doing it to test how good the other person's theory or opinion or argument is.
That's why it's called being the devil's advocate. You're kind of stirring up some trouble b ecause this may lead to further arguments.
So as you can see. In American English, there are many different ways to talk about. Giving your opinions and disagreeing with [00:20:00] people. Because we don't just want to always say here's my idea, or I agree or disagree. We want to say it in a lot of different ways. That are similar, but slightly different. Make sure that you come back for next week's episode, because I'm going to give you even more expressions for disagreeing, giving your opinions. and even having some conflict with friends or family.
Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the RealLife English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review.
Thanks so much for tuning in.[00:21:00]
