Hoje eu falo sobre alguns idioms que raramente são usados em inglês – brincadeira! Como sempre, expressões super comuns e que estão na boca dos falantes nativos, hoje com a palavra trick.
Transcrição
Hi, everyone. You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!
So today let me tell you about a term that we use when we want to say that someone used a bit of deception in order to make another person do something. Attention! Deception does not mean “decepção”. Deception happens when you deceive someone; when you lie to them, or exaggerate, or omit information, so that they will act in a way that gives you the result you want. That’s deception.
So here’s our first idiom: trick someone into doing something. It’s basically what I just said, but here it goes again: when you trick someone into doing something, you’re fooling or deceiving this person. Maybe you’re telling them a lie. Maybe you’re only implying something… that is not true. You might be holding some information back from this person, because you know that if you tell them, they’re not going to do what you want. Or maybe… you’re manipulating them in some way, leading them on to behave in a certain way.
Whatever you’re doing, when you trick someone into doing something you’re not being a hundred percent honest with that person about what you know, or your motives. For example: let’s say my [quote, unquote] “friend” John tells me one day “Hey, Ana, I’m selling raffle tickets to help with a really worthy cause. It’s an amazing cause. Would you be interested in a ticket?” And I say “Oh yeah, sure. I’m feeling generous so give me five tickets!”
Later that day my friend Mary gives me a ring and tells me how John doesn’t actually represent any causes. He said he was going to help the poor with the proceeds from the tickets, but actually he’s raising money for himself so he can buy a new car! So there you have it: John tricked me into buying raffle tickets, and now he’s nowhere to be found. He ran away with the money. First, he tricked me – and a few other people – into buying his tickets, and then he ran away.
And here’s one more idiom with the word trick. Very simple, very common, just use it whenever you find something that does exactly what you need. That does the trick. It does pretty much what is needed. This morning I needed to put some old clothes in boxes because someone was coming over later to collect the boxes and give them away to people in poor communities. I thought I’d need to go to the shop and get a couple of boxes, but then all of a sudden I stumbled upon the old box my stove came in, in the garage. That did the trick. Problem solved. The stove box did the trick.
The last week someone told me about a new hair product and I went over to my local drugstore to buy it but they were out. Instead, I bought a similar product and then when I came back home I tested it on my hair. It did the trick! Yeah, it wasn’t the product I had originally been recommended, but it did the trick anyway. It worked. It did what I needed it to do.
Alright – so now please go ahead and tell me what it is that you’ve bought recently that did the trick – it did exactly what you needed. Talk to you next time!
Key expressions
trick someone into doing something
do the trick
Vocabulary
quote, unquote = maneira como as aspas são lidas em inglês: “friend” lê-se ‘quote, unquote friend’.
raffle = sorteio
a worthy cause = uma causa (de caridade) muito boa, de valor
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
Thank you for these podcasts. I am always here to learn and learn!
Can you give a tip for the word deception? I searched on Google Translator and it gave me the traduction “decepção”. This word can be “enganar”? Why can’t we use the word deceive if it has the same meaning?
I like your texts a lot, and I read them every time I receive your feed mail.
This time, I’d like to give you a tiny help. There is a misspelling on the setence “And here’s onde more idiom with the word trick”. I think it should be “And here’s [one] more idiom…”.
