China232.com Blog

This can be applied to making any improvement in your life but here I’m going to use improving English as the example.

A lot of people tell me they want to improve their English. I ask them how they are going to do it. They tell me something like, “spend more time studying”. Their intentions are good but they are likely to fail. Their plan is not specific enough. They don’t have a plan for how they will study and when they will study. You need to know exactly what you will do and when you will do if you want to be successful.

Let’s look at this plan: “I’m going to read for 1 hour every night”. Is that a good plan? It’s better than the first one but still not good enough. You need to know what you are going to read and when exactly you will read it. If you say you will read at 8:00-9:00 every night then if it is 8:05, you know that you should be reading. If you just say you will read for an hour every night, what is likely to happen is you will keep delaying the reading until you are too tired, and then go to bed thinking that you will just start tomorrow.

Here is an an example of a good plan: “I will listen to one English podcast everyday starting at 8:00 pm. I will then go on the China232.com forum and ask any questions I have about the podcast, and if I have no questions, I’ll practice writing by answering one of the other questions, or writing my opinion on one of the topics”.

Now you have a good plan that you can put into action. Use this plan or make another one equally specific for your English study. Make sure you write down exactly what you will do and when you will do it. Try it for 30 days. See if you can do it everyday for 30 days. Once it becomes a habit it will be easier to maintain.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Andy

Learning and Improving English Phrases and idioms Self Improvement

Mutually exclusive is a term that pops up all the time in books I read. This is a mathematical term with a very precise meaning, but in general English it is used to mean that two things can’t happen at the same time.

For example, being in a relationship and being single are mutually exclusive. In other words, you can’t be in a relationship and be single at the same time. (unless you are a good liar. haha).

Often this term is used by saying that two things are “not mutually exclusive”. This means that the two events can, at least in theory, happen together.

Doing well in school and having a fun social life are not mutually exclusive if you know how to manage your time well.

Knowing how to use this term well will impress native speakers. I even know some native speakers who don’t know what it means.

Andy

Grammar and Word Usage Phrases and idioms

A “critical mass” is an important term to understand. I believe it was first used in physics but it also comes up often in a business context.

A critical mass is basically the smallest amount of something you need before a major change occurs. Don’t worry, I don’t blame you if you are still confused. Here are some examples:

Think about the discussion forum of this website. I’ve been thinking about ways to make it more popular. You’ve probably noticed that people don’t post very often at the moment. Since this is true it will make a new user less likely to sign up and make a post. Why? Because they can see that there is a good chance that no one will comment on their post. If the forum was more popular, it would attract more users. The biggest problem is that we haven’t reached our “critical mass” of users yet. I’m not sure what that magic number is, but I’m sure you can imagine that once the forum reaches a certain level of popularity, then it will grow quickly by itself. If the forum remains below the critical mass, then not much will happen. A critical mass is basically the magic number that causes a major turning point.

Epidemics (major diseases that spread throughout a population) need to reach a “critical mass” before they can really spread. Scientists know that if a certain percentage of the population gets a disease (the critical mass) then the disease will spread throughout much of the population. This is why it often seems like many people catch a cold at the same time. If many other people have a cold, the more likely you are to catch it.

People in business know how important it is to have many people know about their product. The more people who know about a product the more friends they can tell about this product. This is one reason that advertising is so important. Sometimes having the best product is much less important than having a popular product in terms of making money.

Hopefully China232.com reaches a critical mass soon and everyone knows about us.

Help us reach a critical mass by telling your friends and writing in the forum.

Thanks,

Andy

Business English Phrases and idioms

Take the high road.

This expression means to handle a situation in a kind and ethical way instead of retaliating and seeking revenge.

Here is a common situation where this expression is used:

Imagine your boss was in a bad mood one day and started yelling at you for no good reason and complaining about your work. You’d probably be upset by this and might want to retaliate by saying something negative to him. Let’s say that you discuss this with your friend and your friend says to you; “He’s just in a bad mood. Of course he shouldn’t have yelled at you, but if you get upset and yell back then you are just as bad as he is. You should take the high road and forget about it.”

Imagine your ex-girlfriend sees you and tells you that she never loved you and hated the whole time you were together. You could retaliate by saying something horrible to her, or you could take the high road by disregarding what she said or saying something like, “I’m sorry you feel that way”.

I know from experience it’s difficult to take the high road (I don’t always do it) but it’s certainly something we should all try to do.

Andy

Phrases and idioms

If someone is leading a “double life” it means that in one area of their life they act a certain way and portray a certain image, whereas in another area of their life they act and behave completely differently; hence the term “double life”. Usually the reason that the person needs to portray two different characters is that they have some secret part of their life that they don’t want other people to know about.

As an example, imagine a really nice mother who is a great wife, takes great care of her kids and has a nice job. Everyone thinks she perfect. Secretly however, she dates several men behind her husband’s back and tells no one about it. This woman is leading a double life.

Sometimes teens lead “double lives” because their parents won’t allow them to do certain things that their friends do. They seem like perfect kids in front of their parents, but do all sorts of “bad” things behind their parent’s backs.

Eliot Spitzer is a man who got caught leading a double life. Read about his story here. Eliot Spitzer’s story

Your comments are always appreciated.

Andy

Phrases and idioms

Manic depression is a type of mental or psychological disorder. A person with manic depression has very large mood swings. The person is sometimes incredibly happy and confident (the manic state) and other times they are completely depressed and upset. This disease is also called bipolar disorder. (”Bi” means 2 and “pole” means ends). In other words the person’s mood can easily range between the two extremes. People who have this disease often take medicine to help stabilize their mood.

Everyone’s mood changes from time to time but manic depression is a very extreme case. Sometimes you will hear this word used lightly in conversation. You might hear someone describe themselves as being “bipolar” or “manic depressed”. You should note that sometimes people say these terms to exaggerate someone’s behavior even though the person may not actually have this disease.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Andy

Phrases and idioms Psychology

This saying is a great one to use when you have the right opportunity. It basically means that the secret is out in the open and is no longer a secret.

Imagine this situation:

You plan to quit your job but you don’t want to tell too many people until after you actually quit. You decided to tell only one friend but don’t want to tell any other people. Now you are together with many friends, including the one you told. By accident, the friend you told you are going to quit your job asked you in front of everyone, “so when exactly are you going to quit”? Everyone hears this question and says, “What? I didn’t know you were planning on quitting”.

Then you could say, “Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag”. It means that the secret is out in the open now and I’m not going to hide from the truth anymore.

Andy

Learning and Improving English Phrases and idioms

A pigeon is a type of bird, and a pigeon hole is a very small hole made in a piece of wood for pigeons to stay in. This hole is only slightly bigger than the pigeon, so the pigeon has little room to move.

If you “pigeon hole” someone, it means that you make too many generalizations about that person based on a steriotype. It’s a bad thing to “pigeonhole” people. For example, a common steriotype is that accountants are a little boring. If you meet an accountant and think that he must be boring just because he is an accountant, you are pigeonholing him.

You could say to someone, “You shouldn’t pigeonhole all accountants as being boring. I know a few accountants who are a lot of fun to hang out with.”

Phrases and idioms

If you “take something in stride” it means that you didn’t allow a bad situation to make you too stressed or depressed.   It means that you handled the bad news well.  It’s a good thing to be able to take something in stride.

Here’s a possible dialog:

A: Hey, did you hear that Jim got fired from his job?

B: Ya, he called me last night and told me.

A: How’s he doing?

B: He seems to be taking it in stride.

This means that Jim is doing a good job at handling the disappointment of getting fired. He’s not getting stressed out and going crazy about it.

Here’s another example:

A: Hey, I’m really sorry to hear that your girlfriend left you. How are you feeling?

B: I’m doing ok. I think this breakup might actually make us both happier.

A: I’m glad to hear you are taking it in stride.

Andy

Phrases and idioms

This phrase is an old and fun one.
Snoozing means sleeping, or napping. The idea of this phrase is that if you are snoozing, ie. not paying attention, then you lose.

Imagine that there is one slice of pizza left in the box. Then you take the last piece of pizza and your friend beside you says, “hey, I was planning on eating that”. You can make fun of him by saying, “you snooze, you lose”. It basically means, “you were too slow and not paying attention, so too bad, you lose, and I get to eat the pizza.”

Andrew

Phrases and idioms