make a man of someone

Imagine your parents think you're too immature for your age and therefore should learn about obligations and responsibility. You two see in making your son join the army a great opportunity to make a man of him. That'll teach him how things work in this world and surely will become more responsible.

When you make a man of someone, it's like you're turning a young male into an adult. But that's not always the case. You can be a male adult, but still very childish. Maybe an experience like getting married or having children will make a man of you. That's it for today. Take care!

TESTING A VERY LITTLE POST

When you're part of the furniture of some place, it means you've been there for so long you've become a natural part of it. Many teenagers spend much time of their days in front of their computer and stuck in a room. When their moms call them out, they may say they seem like part of the furniture, because they never leave that room. And that's the expression of today. Take care!

CRANK SOMEONE UP

Sometime it is difficult to get out of bed in the morning and start your day isn't it? Especially for those people that are definitely not morning people, it becomes a nightmare to have the alarm ring indicating it's time to go to work or school. One day, you get very late at your office, and your secretary asks what happened that caused so much delay. You said it was hard to crank yourself up this morning to get to work on time. I hope you're the boss in this case, because otherwise you'd be fired at the second minute.

Have you ever had to crank someone up when they were feeling down? Maybe you have a friend who's just come out of a relationship and he still likes her. He's been stuck at home without wanting to leave or eat or do anything productive for very long, until you have the idea of cranking him up. You take to his house all the video games he's always enjoyed and you can finally make him forget for a few moments how miserable his life has been lately. That's it for today. Take care!

be part of the furniture

So imagine you've been working in the same office for a very long time. You are there almost everyday, and leaves at night only to go to sleep and return first thing in the morning. You feel like that office is so part of you that you've become part of the furniture.

When you're part of the furniture of some place, it means you've been there for so long you've become a natural part of it. Many teenagers spend much time of their days in front of their computer and stuck in a room. When their moms call them out, they may say they seem like part of the furniture, because they never leave that room. And that's the expression of today. Take care!

go forward with

Imagine you have a plan that's very likely to go wrong. Your friend have said you should give up on that idea, but you're not giving up until you get that done. Here's what you say: I'm going forward with my plan no matter what happens later.

To go forward with something means to do something that is planned. Maybe you spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not you should carry on with that plan, but now that you've made up your mind, you're going forward with that plan no matter what. That's it for now. Take care!

ingles com cartoon

First of all, expand the image by clicking on it to better read what's in the balloons. We're talking today about the expression "behind schedule". And as you can see on the image above, there's a situation where the expression was used in. We could say that they're very late with their project and are almost falling behind schedule. That mean they are almost failing to do their project by the appointed time.

One day at college I fell behind schedule because I was off sick. So the teacher allowed me as an exception to bring the project and present it at a later time so my grade wouldn't be affected. Have you ever gone through a situation like that? Leave your comments down bellow.

como dizer isto em inglês?

You have a child that loves to play with fire. You've warned him several times how dangerous it is for him to set on fire everything she gets his hands on, but he seems not to care. One day, while he's playing with some matches, he gets burned and goes crying after you. While you're going through the basic emergency kit to help him out with the burn, you tell him: I've told you million times that playing with fire is asking for trouble. I hope you've learned your lesson this time.

When you ask for trouble, you behave stupidly in a way that's likely to cause problems for you. Now imagine you go to a party and the driver that took you all there spends the night drinking a lot. When it's time to go home, he wants to take control of the wheel, but you say "drinking and driving is just asking for trouble". So since you didn't take any alcohol during the party, you take the keys and drive everybody home safely. And that's it for today's post. Take care!

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"Qualquer viajante que dá a volta ao mundo coloca-se inevitavelmente numa escala planetária, como um ator em um palco do tamanho do mundo. Nenhuma outro tipo de viagem - aliás, nenhum outro tipo de experiência humana - é tão abrangente no sentido planetário. Na verdade, uma volta ao mundo nos dá essa dimensão em três medidas: o tempo, o espaço e a morte".

Começo hoje com esse trecho (na minha tradução sempre apressada) de um livro que ganhei no ano passado, mas só li recentemente. Joyce E. Chaplin, uma professora de história de Harvard, juntou uma fascinante coleção de relatos de viagens - mas não exatamente qualquer viagem. Como esse texto na introdução sugere, seu foco foram os pioneiros nessa aventura incrível que é dar uma volta ao mundo. E o pioneirismo aí não é só dos "descobridores dos sete mares". Como o título do seu livro indica - "Round about the earth - Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit" -, ela nos conta histórias de desbravadores também dos nossos tempo modernos, de uma maneira nunca menos que fascinante.

Eu tenho, claro, uma "queda" pelo assunto... Fui eu mesmo uma espécie de pioneiro - há exatos dez anos. Isso mesmo. Atrasei (de propósito) um dia na publicação deste texto, que geralmente sai numa quinta-feira, para completar uma data redonda, já que no dia 16 de maio de 2004 eu partia para aquela que foi certamente a maior e melhor aventura da minha vida: "A Fantástica Volta ao Mundo"!

Era uma noite de domingo, claro. E lá estava lá eu ao vivo, do aeroporto Tom Jobim, no Rio de Janeiro, conversando com os estúdios do "Fantástico", esperando a primeira decisão do público sobre qual seria meu próximo - na verdade, meu primeiro - destino: México ou Guatemala? Mal sabia a "confusão" que eu mesmo tinha arrumado para mim...

A ideia dessa grande reportagem - pioneira na TV brasileira, não só pela ambição do roteiro, mas também pela maneira como transmitiríamos todo o projeto - tinha surgido mais ou menos seis meses antes. Resumindo bem um longo processo, um belo dia eu estava de férias num cybercafé em Hoi An, um pequeno vilarejo no Vietnã - basicamente uma rua ao longo do rio, a rua de trás e apertadas travessas que ligavam as duas. A julgar pelas casas antigas no estilo chinês, o lugar era um daqueles esquecidos pelo tempo. Mas lá estava eu então num cybercafé, mandando e-mails e fotos para meus amigos no resto do mundo, quando me dei conta que eu podia também estar mandando imagens pela internet.

Amor e carne

Ele estava a cinco passos de distância da porta. O dia estava quente e seco, a terra amarelada do chão fazia subir uma poeira que secava os olhos e a boca e fazia nosso nariz sangrar.

 Eu podia ouvir cigarras cantando, e me questionei por um segundo se as cigarras cantam durante o dia, ou se era um zumbido no meu ouvido. Minhas mãos escorregavam no chão de terra amarelada enquanto eu me ensurdecia com o zumbido agudo nos meus ouvidos e meu nariz sangrava. Ele estava a cinco passos de distância de mim, deitado e cansado. Mastigando.

Meu melhor amigo me observava escorregar no meu próprio sangue enquanto ele mastigava um pedaço do meu braço. Amigo é pra essas coisas. Enquanto eu sentia meu corpo inteiro latejar, eu ficava mais tonto a cada pulsação. Eu não conseguia diferenciar se era dor ou calor, se estava queimando. O dia estava seco e quente, e eu sentia frio e escorregava minhas mãos na terra amarelada do quintal. Ele é um amigo legal. Nem considero isso uma traição. Ele estava mastigando um pedaço do meu antebraço, um naco de carne que ele tirou enquanto eu tentava proteger o meu pescoço.
Minhas mãos escorregavam no meu próprio sangue enquanto meu corpo latejava enquanto eu olhava o meu rádio e o meu úmero tilintarem brancos no meio de um emaranhado de fios de carne e sangue. A imagem de um açougue e uma pizza me vieram à cabeça. A mordida de um dobermann é de 1.8 toneladas por centímetro quadrado. Dá pra arrancar o seu braço se ele tiver vontade. O exército de Hitler usava esses cães para fazer patrulha e torturar prisioneiros. Mas ele é o meu melhor amigo. Sempre foi fiel. Acho que nunca deixou de ser.
 Enquanto ele mastigava um pedaço do meu braço e eu delirava com cigarras e açougues, eu pensava em ligar para alguém, para a ambulância, chamar um vizinho, qualquer coisa do gênero. Não sei quanto tempo se passou até eu conseguir tirar as minhas costas do chão.
 Ele mastigava o pedaço do meu braço e eu me perguntava se ele viria pegar outro pedaço caso acabasse de comer. Ele dormia comigo. Assistia tv comigo. Sempre foi fiel. Lembrei que a cigarra canta durante o dia. Estava com vontade de desmaiar. Me olhava e abanava o rabo. Não sei se de nervosismo ou felicidade. Não sei se ele estava com fome ou se me confundiu com outra pessoa. Talvez eu não tenha sido um cara tão legal assim. Talvez eu tenha mudado tanto que ele me estranhou e me atacou pelo próprio amor e fidelidade que tem comigo. Aquele pedaço do meu braço que ele estava mastigando poderia ser na verdade uma prova de amor.

 Dói porque importa. Alguém que você ama levando um pedaço de você. Enquanto a poeira subia do chão e o meu braço se tornava uma mistura de sangue, carne e terra, enquanto eu estremecia de frio e calor ao mesmo tempo e meu corpo latejava, eu pensava que seria impossível sacrificá-lo depois disso. Preferia conviver com o cuidado constante que eu deveria tomar com esse amor fiel. O risco iminente de ser mordido no pescoço enquanto eu achava que iria me lamber. Sempre foi assim. Pensei que tive sorte até então, porque as pessoas não tem mordidas de 1.8 toneladas.

 De tantas relações de amor que tive, essa só me arrancou um pedaço do braço.

2 idioms com a palavra STRAIN [expressions with the word strain]

Are you familiar with the word strain? If not, stick around and not only will you learn the definition of the word, but also learn three new expressions. Strain can work both as a verb and a noun. As a verb, to strain means to make a great effort to do something, as in "I strained forward to get a better view". Strain as a noun refers to "a severe demand on strength, resources, etc", as in "It's a real strain having to get up early every morning". I've googled the word strain for some combinations and here's what I've found: muscle strain, eye strain, physical strain, mental strain, etc. Now let's learn some expressions with the word strain!

Imagine you have a relative who's been working great amount of hours a day and everybody's worried about his health. One day, when you have a rare chance to get a minute of his attention, you try to talk some sense into him. You say: If you continue to work like crazy that way, you're eventually going to crack under the strain. What does that mean? When you crack under the strain, you have a mental or emotional collapse because of continued work or stress. If we try to think of some more examples, we may remember that more and more women these days have to take care of their home and still work outside, which may be a great source of too much stress. If they never break that strict routine, they may crack under the strain. What do you think about that?

Now let's suppose your friend's been dating this really jealous guy who never lets her do anything out of his sight. You think that relationship is making her more and more depressed and soon he'll drive her crazy. Before that happens, you call her aside to have a little talk and among the many things you tell her, one of them is: I think you should break up with your boyfriend. Your troubling relationship puts a strain on you. If something puts a strain on you, it burdens or overloads you. That's the figurative usage of the expression, but we can also say something is putting a strain on something or someone in a literal way. For example, you're in your car about to drive across a fragile bridge when you see there are too many trucks passing past you at the same time. You're worried the weight of the trucks might place a strain on the bridge, so you pull over for a minute until the way's clear. That's it for today guys. See you next time!