Hey! What’s up?

Welcome to another episode of Walk ‘n’ Talk Level Up, our all-English podcast series! No diálogo de hoje, vamos acompanhar a Emmy, ela vai fazer uma prova importante e o pai dela vai dar umas dicas importantes! 

Não se esqueça de repetir as frases em voz alta, junto com a teacher Becs, para praticar bem a sua pronúncia e confira o material extra que preparamos para você aqui abaixo!

Nos vemos na próxima semana, take care! Have an awesome week!

In this episode of Walk 'n' Talk Level Up, you got to practice your pronunciation and learn many structures and now you can continue studying here by reading the dialogue, and checking out the written explanations with loads of examples. Don’t forget to repeat all the sentences!

Dialogue

Emmy: Dad, I feel as if I have my heart in my mouth. My SAT is only a week away!
James: Sweetheart, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve been studying nonstop lately! Remember: a good beginning makes a good ending. 
Emmy: Got it, dad. You’ve already told me that, like, thousands of times. Haven’t you got any hot tips? 
James: Well, I suggest that you be there at least 30 minutes before the exam kicks off and I also assume it’s essential that you be chilled out. 
Emmy: That’s easier said than done! I wish I were just like you since, when it comes to SAT, you seem to know it like the back of your hand!

New expressions and Vocabulary!

- To be hard on oneself

In the dialogue we studied today, our character Emmy is feeling anxious and not really believing in herself. When someone doesn’t believe in themselves or have unreal expectations, we can use this expression. Let’s see some examples: ‍

Jack is our best engineer, but he is always hard on himself.
Stop being hard on yourself! You are a great dancer.
Kelly is becoming less hard on herself with time.
Don’t be hard on yourself, you are learning English very well.

You can use this expression to talk about expecting too much from other people as well, or judging things that other people do, causing them to argue or to be mean. In this second case, we don’t use the reflexive pronoun:‍

My manager is hard on me, he always expects a lot.
Don’t be so hard on Emily, she is very young.
Tim is very hard on his children.

- When it comes to

This is an idiomatic way of saying “when the topic is” or “when the field is”, it is a way of specifying the topic in the middle of a sentence, it helps your sentence become clearer! It can be used in many different contexts and it is quite common in daily conversation!

When it comes to food, it is important to be well informed about ingredients. 
Kyle is an expert when it comes to the TikTok algorithm.
What is your preference when it comes to movies?

You can also use to talk about the past:‍

Gavin was very intense when it came to Christmas decorations.
She made all the decisions when it came to financial problems.
When it came to organization, I loved giving tips.

- SAT‍

This stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test, it is a test that the young population in the United States takes to get admitted into university or college, and you may have already heard about it in movies and series! The content in the test questions is closely related to what students learn in high school. People refer to it as “SATs” and talking about “SAT scores” is common in daily life: ‍

When are you taking your SATs?
Did you hear about Tina’s SAT score?
My SAT is going to be next week.

- Like the back of my hand‍

In Portuguese the common expression that is equivalent to this one is “like the palm of one’s hand”, but in English, the most common equivalent is “like the back of one’s hand”:‍

Let’s call Sarah, she knows this app like the back of her hand.
My dad knows this car like the back of his hand, he will notice a scratch.
Jenny and Lisa know that book like the back of their hands.

Listen to this episode as many times as you wish, and follow it up with this extra content. That way, you'll be able to memorize these new structures! You’ll also be able to use them in conversations in the future. And remember, the more daily contact you have with the English language, the better you’ll get. So make sure you don’t miss out on our next episode!