Functional Language to buy you time
Full Transcript
On this episode of fluent vocabulary, we focus on a bunch of phrases and the expression “I’ve lost my train of though”. Just stands there, representative for functional expressions that buy you time. So if you don’t know exactly what you should say, and maybe you just need a second to think about it. Then there are a lot of functional phrases which I want to tackle in this episode.
Speaker 1 Emanuel: I’ve lost my train of thought. No. Speaker 2 David: a golden Apple. Emanuel: Got it. I want you to look it up. AUSL program.
Talks at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=704&v=VBeJWzBRS2g&feature=emb_logo
That was a bit fast, but you can hear in the beginning he said “I’ve lost my train of thought” and then the other speaker gives him a cue word (better: key word) so that he knows again where they were. Once again:
I lost my train of thought. No, a golden Apple. Got it. I want you to look it up. AUSL program….
Okay, so to lose one’s train of thought means to be unable to resume one’s previous progression of thought. So it is used figuratively. In other words, it’s to forget what one was talking or thinking about. And the next useful expression is, well, “where were we”
“where were we”? Serious point. Thanks very much. Um, so I was there, I was talking to this builder. He’s a lovely bloke.
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And so the expression is where were we, it’s real difficult to make this phrase out. So let’s hear again.
Where were we? Serious point. Thanks very much. Um, so I was there.
I talked to this builder. He’s a lovely bloke.
Another great expression is “my mind went blank”. So if you had kind of an blackout and you don’t know what to say, you can just say, “my mind went blank”. So the other person knows that, uh, you, you’ve kind of lost your train of thought.
I have some shows on this. We’re going to try to do a couple of live shows from there. Mmm, Mmm Mmm. In my mind, just… my mind just went blank. Too many things going on in my head. Yeah. Laura, Laura Eisenhower is going to be there along with a lot of other people. Can my mind just went blank?
So a fantastic expression too. Buy you time to think about something or just to signalize that your mind went blank.
So these are all useful expressions to buy your time and as you could listen to this is very useful, not only for non-natives. Even the natives are using them. So instead of stuttering or just saying, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. You can start out to use these phrases in your daily life. So they will get stuck in your head.
You will remember them better. Another phrase is. “On the tip of my tongue”. So this is for the situation when, when you know something, but you just can’t find the except the exact words. So it’s literally on the tip of your tongue.
Now I can’t think of a better artisanal coffee shop name than the one on the tip of my tongue here. Birch and sons. Actually, it’s 2015 Birch and daughters. There we go. So I’ve got my Birch and daughters coffee shop on the tip of your tongue.
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Where did we come across these expressions? Start using them in real life!
What a wonderful expression. And now comes to question. Where did I find all all of these expressions? Well, I listened to a wonderful podcast called Zdenek’s English podcast. And on episode 298 the host Zdenek said the following words. “Practice makes perfect”. Remember that. So it’s not enough to just listen to me saying these phrases to you or even writing them down. What you need to do is to actively start using these. So whenever you can’t think of a word, whenever somebody asks you a question. You need to give yourself more time to think about it. Well, why not try and use these expressions? So on this episode of Zdenek’s English podcast, the host, Zdenek tackled a lot of these kind of expressions. So I jotted them down and tried to google them and searched for for audio bytes, but I haven’t used them (the expressions) yet. That’s the next step. But what I want to say is that normally I just consume or listen to a podcast and then I just go on to the next podcast and so on. It’s like when you’re watching Netflix, you may also binge-watched series, which I certainly did many times, but sometimes it’s just good to stick to one thing and then try to remember the words or the expressions, because the more we are being active in a way.
The better. We are gonna learn the words we are gonna remember them and so on. So let’s have a quick listen to Zdenek’s English podcast.
Now I’ve also used the, the idiom, it’s on the tip of my tongue, which is another one you could use. When, when you forget what you want to say, or when you forget the word, you just say, it’s on the tip of my tongue.
Zdenek’s English podcast:
What’s the word I’m looking for? You could even use both of these together.
https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PBDCAE37WP5ZD
So before I wrap this up for today, I say goodbye and if you want to have a listen to Zdenek’s Einglish podcast, the links are on the show notes. It’s really worth it. I mean, it’s a great guy. He is an English teacher and he knows his onions.
In other words, he knows his stuff. He’s very knowledgeable.
By then there’s another one. My mind has just gone blank, or my mind went blank, you know, blank paper is paper with nothing on it. Um, so you could use it. That means you’re admitting to, to completely forgetting what you were about to say. Right. That’s okay. Let’s show is your honesty, and again, nice idiom to use, but this one is my personal favorite, and it’s, I think it’s used in British English mainly. Uh, sometimes the, the British say, I’ve lost my train of thought. I’ve lost my train of thought. What a great piece of language this is.
Zdenek’s English podcast:
https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PBDCAE37WP5ZD
Music and other links
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