AEE 2617: From a Distance? Or in the Distance? How to Talk About Concerts, Sporting Events, and More

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2617, from a distance or in the distance, how to talk about concerts, sporting events, and more. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.

With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

just a few small words can change the meaning of what you're saying find out how this plays out when it comes to a few very similar phrases and build new skills to talk about events and points of view

Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary. There's speed. There's connected speech.

There are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training. Find out your exact level with our quick free fluency quiz.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? I'm feeling good today.

Everything's good. Michelle, what's going on in your world today? Not too much. Not too much. Lindsay, have you ever thought you recognized someone but only from a distance?

Oh, yeah. This can happen sometimes, right? Because everyone has a doppelganger. Yes. Like a twin in the world, it seems like. And yeah, sometimes I could swear it's that person, but it's not when I get closer, you know?

Yeah. Well, this is kind of funny. So I've had a couple times where I've been in my kitchen. Once it was when my mom was visiting and she and my daughter have blonde hair and they're sitting like I looked over and I saw

a hair of blonde a head of blonde hair on the couch in front of me and i thought it was my mom i thought it was my mom like sit like like sitting like very low on the couch okay and then i looked at it with my daughter that's really funny michelle it's hilarious vision you got to improve that yeah no and she and because they have like the same color hair and so she she was also like and then it happened again so it's just it's just kind of funny but as like from a distance so dan always he'll say somebody looks like something like someone and now he's really proud if i agree with him because usually i just tease him i'm like what are you talking about he he's always saying people look like celebrities or yeah

He's like, oh, Jerry Seinfeld over there? And I'm like, what? Like, no. Well, I mean, you guys were living in New York for a long time. So, you know, maybe it was Jerry Seinfeld at some point, right?

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, but I tease him. That's a common thing that I tease him about. But sometimes if I say, Oh, my God, you're right. He is so proud of himself.

Not that it's really that person. But if I actually say that the person does really look like resemble who he's talking about, he's proud. Well, it's sort of hard – like when you see someone and you think, okay, I know exactly who would play them in a movie. You know what I mean?

Like everyone has their celebrity doppelganger as well who would play this person and this person in the movie. They're always – usually they're better looking. Right. yeah exactly exactly but anyways so from a distance so that was in the question i asked you is a term that we use a lot in english but it can get confused with similar phrases so today we're going to answer a listener question about this term yes comes to us from youtube lindsey could you read it for us

Yeah. And by the way, guys, don't forget that we do have an entire YouTube channel, All Ears English Podcast. So find us on YouTube, hit subscribe right away. If you prefer to watch us on video, all five of these episodes per week are over there on YouTube.

All right, here we go. Perfect. So the student says, hi there. I'm a big fan of your podcast from Japan. I have a question about distance. What's the difference between at, from a distance and in the distance?

I don't understand why the articles a and the are used differently. I would appreciate it if you could answer my question. I will continue to support your podcast. Well, thank you.

We love that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Definitely. And that is a really good question. I mean, what a good observation, Lindsay. Yes. Yeah. I mean, English is very nuanced.

So you can change one or two words in a phrase and it takes on a whole new meaning. In this case, distance has a slightly different meaning depending on which phrase you use. So we're going to explain the difference and how to use each so we can really clear up this listener's question. But before we do that, we want to remind you that we have an awesome app, don't we?

We have an app and it is super cool because it allows you to see real-time transcripts For the show that have been checked by humans, they are correct and you can be sure about that. And you also get to tap on specific words that we have pre-selected for you and save to your power list, see the definition, practice those words every morning before you come back to the next episode. So you'll have your own personal list of the Allers English words that you're learning that we believe will take you to the C1 level, guys.

So Michelle, where can our listeners go to get the app? AllEarsEnglish.com slash app. A-P-P. Yes. Good. Okay. So we're going to get into it, Michelle.

Where do we start here answering our listeners' question? All right. So what does at a distance or from a distance mean? So in these phrases, at a distance and from a distance, distance is a concept.

It's not really a specific location. Yeah. It's just far away somewhere, but you're not exactly sure where. So Lindsay, let's do a little role play to show how that sounds.

Yeah. Do you want to get a front row seat for the fireworks? I'd prefer to watch them from a distance. They're just so loud up close. Lindsay, how is that for you?

Do you like to be up close at the fireworks? Ooh, fireworks. I don't feel like I need to be up close for fireworks. It's almost better at a distance. Yeah.

Because to actually see everything and see how big it becomes in the sky personally. Yeah. Yeah. And certain sporting events are actually better further back too, I think.

Like baseball. You know, if you're really close, it's great. You're very lucky. But I actually think you miss how huge the stadiums can be, which is so cool, you know?

Yeah. Actually, it's funny you say that because recently I took my son... My friend's dad had season tickets for a college game. So they were like really close up seats.

And I was like, oh, look how close we are. And then he said, oh, it was good, but it was kind of too close because I didn't really get to see the whole thing. And I was like, what are you talking about? So it's funny that this is coming up.

These are good problems to have, you could say. Exactly. Yeah, no, it was like a small game. It's not too big. Yeah, we never... Because if we go to an NBA game, we're always way in the back, right?

But I guess he likes that view. But college, we were able to get free tickets. So that was good. Sure, sure. Yeah, somehow my partner gets free tickets with really good seats to baseball games.

So we do occasionally end up behind... home plate. But the problem there is that you're on TV, like you're on national TV. And no one wants to be on national TV when they're scarfing down a big ice cream.

Are you self-conscious sitting there? Well, three hours, Michelle, baseball games are long. You're on TV for a long time. You're like, I don't want to be that person.

You don't want to be the next viral... You got to be careful there. So there are some downsides. Yeah. So yeah, use, I said, I prefer to watch them from a distance, right?

Yeah. A distance. It's not a, it's a concept, right? We're not saying where or how far away, right? Exactly. So let's go into another role play for at or from a distance.

You ready? Yeah. We do that. Okay. Yeah. Why didn't you recognize her right away? I only saw her from a distance. I couldn't tell who she was until she got closer.

So this is what you can also refer to a vague measurement. Right. I only saw her from a distance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not being specific about like meters or feet or anything here.

No. It's just from a distance. It's an arbitrary amount of space, right? Yep, exactly. So what about in the distance? What does that mean? Yeah, this phrase is referring to a kind of a specific place or area, right?

And that's why we say the, the distance is a place. It might be far away, but you can see it in the distance. It's up ahead. It's what's up ahead, right?

right? And you think of mirages in the desert, you know, you watch those movies where people are hiking through the desert. Yeah, they think they see the water. Yeah.

Right, right. In the distance, it looks like there's a lake up there. Let's go. And then they get there. It's a mirage. How heartbreaking, right? Yeah.

So here's an example. How was your bike ride? Beautiful. Our course followed the coastline, but we could see the mountains in the distance. So it's kind of just the horizon, right?

So and again, we're using the because it's more specific here. Right. Or did you see that bird in the distance? Yes, it's huge. Nice. So in the distance can also refer to a faraway place that's real, even if you can't physically see it.

So you can still imagine it, even if you can't see it. So it could be about sound, for example. So how would that sound? Wow, I can hear sirens wailing in the distance.

Yeah, there must be a big accident. So we're inside, we can't actually see it. But the distance it's it's we're talking about a specific far away place that is real.

Kind of like in the background a little bit or yeah, in a place we don't know exactly where it's just that we know that we hear the sirens. Yeah. Yeah.

But Lindsay, can you say from the distance or in a distance? You can't. Nope. We're going to be strict on this one here. You can't. These are just chunks that come together.

Right. I know there's, I don't know who sings the song, but I can't, I can't sing it on the show, but there's a, there's a song from the 80s. From a distance. Yeah.

From a distance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's going to be in my head all day long. Yes. And now it's in my head. Yep, yep, sorry to bring that up.

That's okay, that's okay. All right. So the listener also included in the question at a distance. So Michelle, what would be the difference then between at a distance and from a distance?

Hmm. So both of these still use distance as a concept, not a specific location, but from a distance focuses on how the viewer sees or experiences something. Yeah. So this is interesting.

So like from a distance, the house looked abandoned. Yeah. So this is kind of like the, it's about perspective point of view. Yes. The point of view of the speaker from a distance is,

it looked like Jerry Seinfeld, right? Right, right, right. But it wasn't. Right, exactly. At a distance focuses on the separation or boundary between things.

So that's interesting. So the zoo animals were kept at a distance. Yeah, and that's kind of from each other, right? So this is less about the perspective of the speaker, right?

more about the perspective of the objects in the sentence, right? Yeah, right, right, right. So it's just about a boundary. Or you could say she keeps people at a distance.

What does this mean, Michelle? This is more just like she doesn't, this is not so much a physical boundary. To me, this sounds more like an emotional boundary, right? She's hesitant to get too close to people, which is funny because we just did an episode about close to.

That's right. That's right. Totally. Well, let's roll these up into a role play, Michelle. Shall we roll? What are we doing here? Let's roll. So here we are at a music festival and there are multiple stages of this festival and we're figuring out where to go.

All right, here we go. Do you want to get closer to the stage? Not really. I kind of like watching from a distance. I can actually enjoy the music and dance more.

I get that. It's so crowded up there. Yeah, plus from a distance, the lights look even better. True. But wait, do you hear that cheering in the distance?

It sounds like a headliner might be starting on the other stage. Should we go? Can we stay here? It sounds a bit crazy over there. I'd rather keep the chaos at a distance.

Oh, my gosh. That's crazy. Those music festivals, you're just going all over the place. You're just darting from one place to the next. Have you ever been to like a big music festival?

Not really. I guess when I was really young, I went to the Kiss concert, which was not Kiss. The band is like a Kiss 108 FM, the radio station where they brought together all these incredible 90s. So just once I've been.

um 90s bands have you been to this kind of thing like not where it's been multiple stages like i've been you know where it's been many different people all together but not like where you're going and walking to different stages yeah yeah yeah yeah it's kind of cool though yeah in contrast to the model now that we talked about on a previous episode where it's like uh artists do residencies in cities and they just do like 30 concerts in a row And it's that one artist, but it's more of an event around the artist. I'd kind of rather go where I could see 20 different artists, you know, in one concert.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So you said, do you want to get closer to the stage? And I said, not really. I kind of like watching from a distance.

Yes. So you're saying that's from your perspective, right? As the speaker, you want the stage to be far away from you. Right? Right. Exactly. And this is more of the concept, right?

Yeah. It's just far away somewhere. You're not exactly sure where. Yep. Just from farther away. Yeah. And then I said, yeah, plus from a distance, the lights look even better.

Yes. So... Yeah. And then you said, do you hear that cheering in the distance? So again, the distance, now we're talking about from a specific place. And we can't see what we're talking about, but we can hear it.

So we know that it's nearby-ish, right? Right. Exactly. Exactly. And then the last thing we said was, can we stay here? It sounds a bit crazy over there.

I'd rather keep the chaos at a distance. Yeah. Meaning you want to keep that far away. A boundary. Yeah. And that's kind of both figurative and literal in a sense, right?

True. I guess it's like physical, literal. Yeah. But you also just don't want a lot of chaos around you. Yeah. anyways would you would you want to be up near the stage or do you like to no i i feel like well it depends on who's singing like what types of fans are there sometimes they have like the mosh pits and stuff i guess or they used to and i would be scared to be in the middle of that i'd probably get trampled

Yeah, definitely. All right. So guys, you can also check out episode 2567. That was a make a photo or take a photo. All right. So just final takeaways today, guys, just to reiterate, this has been a bit of a technical episode, but that's okay.

So we want to say that at or from a distance, the A is a vague distance or measurement. A is a vague distance or measurement. And Michelle, what else do we need to know? Yeah.

In the distance, the means a specific place or area, whether you see it or just imagine it or hear it, right? Yeah. So practice these, choose one of them to get comfortable with, and then add in the others. Don't try to understand all of them all at once.

And take it easy when it comes to connection. Always just, that's the goal. Just keep that in mind, guys. All right. Exactly. All right, Lindsay, this has been a fun one.

And thank you to our listener for that really great question. All right, Michelle, talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.

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