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Como falo em inglês: Isso é novidade pra mim
By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online
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Hi, everyone. Hoje falamos sobre idioms e provérbios em inglês com a palavrinha news.
Hi, everyone. This is the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast.
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Let’s get started today with the phrase That’s news to me. Yep: that is news to me. I love talking about the word news, because the way it agrees with the verb is counterintuitive to us Portuguese speakers, so the more we hear it used the correct way, the more familiar with it we’ll get. In other words, news ends with an S and we Brazilians have this almost uncontrollable impulse to say “the news are…“. Oh- that’s a mistake.
We say ‘the news is’, ‘the news was’, ‘What’s the news?’ and so on. News is singular. So our first term of today is “That’s news to me”. Very common to say that when someone tells you something and you’re at least mildly surprised. Or maybe the other person thought you already knew and they expected you to have done something about it.
For example, you’re at the office and your assistant says “The new sales manager just called and said you were supposed to meet with him a half hour ago.” You say “That’s news to me. Who scheduled this meeting? ” So the sales manager thinks the two of you were supposed to meet..? That’s news to you.
The office party has been canceled? That’s news to me. Matt has a broken arm? That’s news to me. Show da Xuxa is no longer on TV? That’s news to me.
And here’s a very common proverb with the word news – notice the verb: Bad news travels fast. Travels; bad news travels. Isn’t that true, though? I guess it’s the same everywhere. When something bad happens, it spreads like wildfire. Yeah, bad news usually spreads like wildfire anywhere.
So when you see someone who’s been fired, for example, and you say “Sorry to hear you’ve been fired” and they express surprise and say “Wow, you’ve heard!”, you can say “Yeah, bad news travels fast.” Or when someone comes to you with bad news that you’ve already heard, you can say “Yeah, I know. Bad news travels fast.”
What is your personal opinion about this one? Would you agree that bad news travels fast, especially when compared to good news?
So here’s a saying with good news to wrap up the episode. No news is good news. Again, pay attention to the verb: is. No news is good news. That means that if you haven’t had any news about something or someone, everything is fine. No news is good news. Obviously, this isn’t always true. I think you’ll agree with me.
However, I think most of the time it is true that no news is good news. If people you know go away on holiday and you don’t hear from them, that’s probably because they’re busy having a good time. If your brother moves to another city to go to college and you don’t hear from him for a while, he’s probably getting on with his new life.
So give me your example. Tell me your most recent story where someone told you something and your reaction was “That’s news to me”. Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!
Key terms
Vocabulário
spreads like wildfire = espalha que nem fogo em palha
