Your English Five a Day #22.4

E225: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, your host, Anna! Join us for Week 22, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day, where we serve up a daily dose of essential vocabulary to enrich your language skills. Just like getting your five-a-day with fruits and vegetables, feeding your vocabulary with five new words a day is a healthy habit for your mind.

💸 In today's episode, we delve into the world of finances and responsibilities, starting with the noun "mortgage". Next up, we explore the colourful idiom "up to your eyeballs", commonly used together with the next word, which is the noun "debt". Moving on, we discuss the verb "prioritise" and finally, we examine the adjective "negotiable".

🏡 Don't forget that we run through some pronunciation practice and a quick quiz to see what you can remember! Then,  in today's narrative, we reflect on the challenges of adulthood, particularly the financial burdens that come with it. Reminiscing about past experiences, such as buying a first car or home, we acknowledge the struggles many face, especially when it comes to managing debt and prioritizing expenses.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 22, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day. Just like with fruit and veg, it's good to get five pieces of vocabulary into your system every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. Though I would suggest with fruit and veg, you should eat at least five pieces every single day. But today we are just talking about expanding our vocabulary. So, let's start today's five. The first one on our list is a noun and it is mortgage. Mortgage. We spell this M O R T G A G E. Mortgage. So, you'll notice that'T' in the middle is completely silent. Mortgage. Mortgage. A mortgage is a loan of a large amount of money from the bank in order to buy a property. So, you would only get a mortgage to buy a property. In the UK, property prices are through the roof. They are incredibly expensive. So, being eligible to get a mortgage on your own is becoming less and less likely for people as the years roll on. I don't have a mortgage. I am not able to get a mortgage because property prices are so expensive. The only way I could get a mortgage is if I were to join forces with someone else and we go in together on the loan. We combine our joint income in order to qualify for a mortgage. I know that in the UK, mortgages and buying property is probably quite unique. I don't think people buy houses very much in other countries. I think it's more fashionable to rent, but please educate me. Let me know if you don't live in the UK, let me know how it is in your country. Do you typically buy your properties or do you typically rent your properties let me know? I am curious. Here's an example sentence,"We found our dream home in the country, now all we need to do is pay the deposit and hope the bank authorises our mortgage!" The next piece on the list is an idiom and it is up to your eyeballs. Up to your eyeballs. How do we spell this? Up. U P. To, T O. Your, Y O U R. Eyeballs, E Y E B A L L S. Eyeballs. If you are up to your eyeballs in something, then it means that you're really busy with that thing, or surrounded by that thing. We often couple it with debt. So, if someone talks about being up to their eyeballs in debt, then it just means they have a huge amount of debt. You can use this for other things as well. So, you can say I'm up to my eyeballs in paperwork. I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry. So, it just means a large amount of something, and particularly that you're quite busy trying to deal with it, trying to get through it. You can't possibly take on any more of it because you have so much to deal with. I'm up to my eyeballs in it. Here's an example sentence,"I've had to take on a second job as I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. How did I let things get this bad?" Hopefully, you're not up to your eyeballs in debt. I've definitely been in that situation, particularly when I first moved to London. I just finished university and I was about to start in another university doing a master's degree and that was going to cost me a fortune. So, I had to pay a lot of money for that course upfront. And I still had my student loan from my previous course and I had to move to London. So, I was up to my eyeballs in debt and it was very hard to manage, to survive, to settle here in London, the most expensive city in the UK. Anyway, let's move on to our next word, this is a noun and it is debt. Debt. So, we've mentioned this word already a few times. Pay attention to the spelling. D E B T. So, debt. The'B' is silent. D E B T. Debt. Debt. A debt is an amount of money that you owe to somebody because you borrowed that money from them. So, if you take out a mortgage, then you have a debt with the bank. You owe the bank money. That's your debt to the bank. Here's an example sentence,"You've only been at uni for 3 months and you've already racked up£10,000 worth of debt. What on Earth have you spent so much money on and how are you going to pay it back?" Okay, moving on. We have a verb now and it is prioritise, prioritise. We spell this P R I O R I T I S E. Prioritise. Prioritise. To prioritise something is to put the most important thing first and deal with it first. So, let's imagine that you have three things that you really need to do. You need to pick up your child from school, you need to cook the dinner, and you need to do the laundry to make sure your child has clean uniform for tomorrow. Those are three tasks that need to be done today. Cooking, laundry, child. You need to prioritise because you can't do everything all at the same time. So, the first thing you're going to do is pick up the child from school because that needs to happen in the next 10 minutes so that's more important than anything else because you can't leave your child waiting at the school gates all by themselves. You'll probably get into trouble with the school for doing so. So, you prioritise picking up your child and when your child gets home, your child will be hungry, as will you because you've been running around all day doing all sorts of jobs. So, the next thing on your list of priorities will be to feed yourself and your child. So, you will cook, and the last thing to do is the laundry. That's the least important of the three things. So, to prioritise. Here's another example,"Right, with spring approaching I need to prioritise our Easter product line. The rest can sit on the back-burner for now." Alright, moving on to our last piece for today. This is an adjective and it is negotiable. Negotiable. We spell this N E G O T I A B L E. Negotiable. Negotiable. If something is described as being negotiable, then it means it can be discussed in order to potentially change it, or the outcome, or the result. So, an agreement might be negotiable, or sometimes, non-negotiable. You cannot discuss it in order to try and change it. Here's an example sentence,"Is the price of this car negotiable? I really like it, but it's just above my budget." I'm currently negotiating with some builders because I need some work done on the house. That's quite urgent. It needs doing, but the first price that they quoted me was quite high. So, they did say that this price is negotiable. We can talk about it and potentially adjust it in order to make it suitable for me and my budget. So, is it negotiable or is it non-negotiable? Can it be changed through discussion? That's our five for today. So, let's do our quick recap. We started with the noun mortgage. With that silent'T', mortgage, which is the agreement to borrow a large amount of money from the bank in order to pay for a property. Then we had the fun idiom, up to your eyeballs. And when using it to discuss debt, it means that you have a lot of debt to be up to your eyeballs in it. Then we had the word debt. The noun debt, meaning money that you owe to someone. Then we had the verb prioritise, prioritise, which is putting the most important things first. And we finished with the adjective negotiable. Negotiable. Something that can be discussed in the hopes of having it changed to suit you. So, let's now do this for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Mortgage. Mortgage. Up to your eyeballs. Up to your eyeballs. Debt. Debt. Prioritise. Prioritise. Negotiable. Negotiable. Fabulous. OK, let me see if I can test your memory now. You ask me if I'm interested in going on holiday with you, but I say I'm really sorry, I just can't afford it. I owe the bank so much money. What idiom could I use here? I'm up to my eyeballs. I'm up to my eyeballs in how much I owe to the bank. What noun could I use instead of saying the amount I owe to the bank? I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. It's awful. So, I really need to make sure that I can pay for the things that are most important in life and a holiday is not one of them. So, what verb could I use to describe this action of putting the most important thing first? Prioritise. I need to prioritise. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt, so I need to prioritise where I spend my money. The other thing that I need to do is to talk to the bank to see if there's any chance, any chance whatsoever that they would agree to lend me a huge amount of money, so I can buy a house. What noun would I use to describe this loan that I would get from the bank? Mortgage. Yes. I need to try to convince the bank to authorise a mortgage despite the fact that I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. I'm just trying to prioritise the house and my family and making sure we're stable and secure. That is something that I will not budge on. That's something that you can't talk me out of, this is non what, this idea of me not wanting to change my mind on what I'm prioritising. It's non... negotiable. It's non-negotiable. I will not go on holiday. I cannot go on holiday because I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. I need to prioritise my family and my home. I need to try and get the bank to agree to give me a mortgage. So, I'm not coming on holiday and that's non-negotiable. Alright, let's revisit our pieces from today in our little story. Do you remember paying for your first overseas holiday, buying your first car, or your first home? Were you up to your eyeballs in debt when you were a student? The problem with growing up, with becoming an adult, is that it's so damned expensive. I can hear you all agreeing with me here! As adults, we have to learn to prioritise, to think about things sensibly and plan carefully. We need to ensure that we have enough money every month to cover the bills, the mortgage, to buy food, to pay for the kids after school clubs and the gym membership that we never seem to find the time to use. It seems like a never-ending list of expenses and a non-negotiable list of expenses at that! Imagine walking into the bank and saying,"Sorry, Mr. Manager, but I can't make this month's mortgage repayment. Any chance we could negotiate like, maybe I could have a few months of not paying?" Ha! Not likely, is it? I guess there are things we could go without, like the gym membership we don't use. But as soon as you cancel it, I guarantee you'll suddenly have a free hour every day and wish you could go and do a workout! I don't know, navigating adulthood can be challenging, but I suppose facing those challenges is what makes us stronger, wiser and hopefully happier. So, next time you want to spend a little cash on something, stop and think about it... is it really worth it? What would your sensible adult head say? And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Remember that you can get more out of your listening experience by becoming a Plus Member, getting access to bonus material, transcripts, and vocabulary lists, and of course, supporting The English Like a Native Podcast. I'll leave a link in the description below. Until next time, take very good care, and goodbye.