English Listening - Learn new phrases & check your listening comprehension

[@NaturalEnglishListening]

Today's speaker was Alex 🇲🇽🇺🇸 thanks bro! Full transcript: Reported speech-this might be one of the trickier ones so far, but let's give it a try. Listening to a 30-second segment first, then taking a closer look. Here we go. ----------------------------------------- I don't know why Nathan told you he wasn't coming tonight. He told me that as long as we weren't meeting up too early, then to count him in, and that he'd catch a ride with all of us. I know we weren't sure when to meet up at first because of work, but that's why Kate pushed back the reservation to 7:30 to make sure that everyone could make it. What else did he tell you? If he's just going to bail for no reason, that's pretty uncalled for. Rachel even said that she'd make her own way just to make sure there was enough space in the car for him. I've just about had it with him. ----------------------------------------- Okay, so let's take a closer look at that. I don't know why Nathan told you he wasn't coming tonight. So already, we know that the speaker is talking to another person about this guy, Nathan. He told me that as long as we weren't meeting up too early, then to count him in. Counting someone in is to assume that someone is going to attend, come, or take part in something. If there are free drinks, then count me in. He said he's coming. You can count him in. So he had already told the person speaking that, oh yeah, as long as it's not too early, count me in. I'm coming, and that he would catch a ride. Catching a ride is an expression to mean to be given a lift. Thanks for letting me catch a ride with you. We can also say hitch a ride, get a ride, or in the UK, get a lift. We often say thanks for giving me a lift. He'd catch a ride with all of us. So this person, Nathan, has already said, yeah, yeah, I'm going to come. I'm going to catch a ride with you. I know we weren't sure when to meet up at first because of work, but that's why Kate pushed back the reservation. To push back a reservation means to postpone or delay it, to change an event to a later time. So you can say to push back something or to push something back. One example: we can't push back the meeting. It needs to happen today. So what exactly is the speaker saying right now? He's saying, I know we weren't sure when to meet up at first. So he's basically saying, yeah, at first we didn't know. So if we didn't know when to meet, then, you know, I can kind of understand why he would say he's not coming because he was worried about it being too early. But that's why Kate-this is another friend-pushed back the reservation to 7:30. So maybe it was at 6 or 6:30, but another friend has gone through the effort of making the reservation later to make sure that everyone could make it. Our other friend Kate has done this, so there's really no excuse that he could be making. Now the speaker is asking the person he's talking to for more information. What else did he tell you? And now, after asking that question, he's just going to continue and assume things. If he's just going to bail for no reason, so to bail means to cancel a plan. It usually means, like, at the last minute-they're kind of being a bit of a flaky person, to back out of an action. Don't bail on me now. It's often used in a negative way. If someone's bailed, then, you know, you can't-you haven't-they haven't been reliable, and this is kind of what's implied here. Don't confuse it with to bail someone out. To bail someone out means to get them out of trouble, just like bailing someone out of jail. So this is quite different. If he's just going to bail for no reason, that's pretty uncalled for, which means something rude or inappropriate. Literally means if something is called for, it means publicly people have asked for it. So uncalled for means nobody has asked for this or, the way we use it, something rude or inappropriate. That comment was uncalled for. She insulted him in front of everyone. That was totally uncalled for. That was unnecessary. That was rude. That was not acceptable. Now we go to another friend. Rachel even said that she'd make her own way just to make sure there was enough space in the car for him. So he's just kind of adding on to the efforts that the other friends have done to include him. So in the previous page, if I go back a second, he's coming as long as it's not too early, and he's going to catch a ride with everyone. So this friend, Rachel, made efforts to make sure he could do that. And he finishes by saying, I've just about had it with him, which is kind of understandable at this point. So to be very upset with someone-lots of things have added up. So, you know, oh, they said this thing, I wasn't very happy. Then they did this. Then they said that to me. That's it. She's just about had it with him. Honestly, I've had it up to here. We can often add "up to here." People often do this to show, like, the top, the max. Honestly, I've had it up to here with your excuses. If you hear this from somebody, then I don't know what you've done, but it's not looking good for you. So I hope that that speech, broken down, kind of made a bit more sense. Please feel free to go back again and take another listen. Thanks to KZbin, you can play around with the speed. You can shadow it so that you become a bit more familiar. And also, please drop a comment using your own example sentence. I hope it was beneficial for you. So thanks for watching, and see you again next time.