AEE 2659: Don’t Be Thrown Off By This Vocabulary

This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2659. Don't be thrown off by this vocabulary. 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, Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA.

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Does your schedule often get derailed? Today, we answer an amazing listener question and teach four phrases for plans being interrupted. Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking, wait, what did they just say? Native speakers speak fast.

They interrupt. They use slang. They don't speak textbook English. If you sometimes feel one step behind, you're not alone and you're not incapable. You just need targeted listening training.

The first step, find out your exact level and where the breakdown is happening. Take our quick free fluency quiz at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. Again, that's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e.

Hello, Michelle. How are you today? Hi, Aubrey. I'm doing well. Good to see you. How are you? I'm great. I have a question for you. When is the last time your schedule got thrown off?

Happens a lot, right? Yes. Especially lately. Yeah. So I would say a lot of times, you know, with my kids, like, I'll... Well, we were just talking about this, Aubrey.

Maybe, you know, starting to have to actually write things down because now... My kids are starting to do like they each have an extracurricular activity. She does dance. He does.

He does little league. So it's trying to balance all of those things. So there's definitely been times where I'm like, oh, my gosh, what's get all confused? Yeah, I have to share.

So. Open Conversation Club is a couple times a week and anyone in our community can join. So a lot of you out there listening, you come often to Open Conversation Club. It's been so fun getting to know everyone.

And last week, I was supposed to start a call at 1pm. And my schedule had gotten thrown off. We had to take a car to the shop and some things had to happen that were sort of out of the ordinary. And I had an alarm go off on my phone five minutes before at 1255 my time.

That's like start the open conversation call. And I was 10 minutes from home. I was like, oh, no. So I'm driving and I called my husband and I said, can you start this Zoom call and just say hello to everyone and tell them I'll be there in five minutes.

And so he did. And I think it was really fun for everybody to meet my husband. Actually, I was glad he was available to do that because it means a lot to me that I like start that on time and everyone can count on us being there and starting it on time. So but it's just that you just never know.

Some things just happen that throw off your schedule. That is definitely true. Yes, that definitely happened. So we're talking about this, guys, because we got a really great question about phrases for someone's schedule being interrupted.

So guys, if you follow us on social media, you saw a sneak peek for this episode several weeks ago. And remember that you should definitely follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Yes, because if you missed that, you're missing amazing posts. Michelle and I both post interesting vocabulary, phrases, really fun stuff on social media.

There are also podcast clips. So follow us wherever you have social media, whichever platform you love or all of them. And sometimes we answer student questions there as well, like this one. I knew we were recording in advance and I wanted to answer this question right when we got it or as close as we could.

So I posted about this a while ago. And today we're doing the episode I promised where we're going to do a deeper dive into these phrases with examples and a role play. So let's first read the question. Do you want to read it for us, Michelle?

Sure. Sure. Okay. So here is the question. It says, this is Sahli. I'm an Iranian PhD student in the US. My 18-year-old niece named Daniz is a big fan of your podcast.

Right now, Iran is experiencing an internet blackout for 55 days now. So she can't listen to your episodes to practice her English. The last time I spoke with her on the phone, she asked a question that I'd really appreciate if you could address on your podcast. Here it is.

When something sudden happens, like an internet blackout, and it's out of your control, how do you express that it has interrupted your learning or progress? I suggested I'm behind on my schedule, but that doesn't feel quite right. I'd really appreciate your help with this. She'll definitely go back to enjoying your podcast once the internet is restored, but it would mean a lot to share your explanation with her during this difficult time.

I appreciate your help. Sorry if we're not pronouncing names right. I always try my best, but I never know if it's right. But I know our listeners understand.

But thank you for this amazing question. Yes. Thank you so much. And I'm happy to have heard that, you know, I love that we have fans all over the world.

I really am excited to answer this question. But because we're recording in advance, I knew it was potentially going to be months later. before we were able to answer it. So I'm glad we were able to post an answer on social media, but now we're going to do a deeper dive.

So I'm excited. Be sure to hit follow on the podcast, guys, so that you don't miss. Sometimes we will do this sort of a sneak peek and then you got to be following the podcast or you might miss it. So wherever you listen to podcasts, hit follow right here on All Ears English.

Yes, definitely. All right. So... Let's get into it. So what is the first phrase, Aubrey? The first one is to be thrown off by something. I probably use this the most.

I would say I've gotten thrown off by the internet blackout or this internet blackout threw me off. And really what I mean is it threw off my schedule, but I wouldn't necessarily say that. I would just say it threw me off. It's thrown things off.

Definitely. And I love the second one, derailed by. Yeah, this one makes me think of a train, right? It's gone off the track. So I've gotten derailed by the power outage or the power outage derailed everything.

So would you say derailed me or just derailed things, Aubrey? This is really interesting to think about. As I was coming up with these examples, I first wrote that, like, I, you know, the power outage derailed me. And I was like, that sounds really strange.

I wouldn't say that. I would say I've gotten derailed by this in, you know, a passive voice. But I wouldn't say derailed. It derailed. It sounds strange.

It's like, I wouldn't say that, but we will say it derailed my schedule, derailed things, derailed my day. And that means it's thrown it off. It's, you know, something's off. I'm having a hard time catching up.

I'm behind. And we use this for trains as well. Anything that was on rails and goes off of it was derailed. We use this idiomatically for our lives, our schedules when anything gets thrown off.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. All right. And then the third one is put me behind or behind due to the... So for example, losing those documents really put me behind.

There's no way I can make the deadline. And we say these, both of those, we also say like, I'm behind due to the website crash or I'm behind because I didn't Because I lost those documents, right? So we'll often use behind, meaning I'm off schedule.

My schedule's been thrown off and now I need to catch up. Right. Because it's kind of like everything is delayed. Exactly. Right. And then there's, we're going to teach one more.

I love this one. I do too. Throw a wrench into things. So you think of a wrench is like that tool. So I don't know why we say this, actually. Like, is it about I wonder what the origin?

Interesting. I haven't looked up the origin. I say this a lot. I say this probably the most. This is an idiom that is very common, at least in the West.

Is it also common where you live, Michelle? I say this a lot like, oh, that really threw a wrench into things. And it means it threw everything off, whatever. It's very general.

It's not specific to anything, right? It could be you're actually fixing a car with a wrench and you didn't have a wrench and that threw a wrench into things. It could be anything. You're cooking and you burn something.

That threw a wrench into things because now I have to start the sauce over, right? We use it in any situation. Yeah. So the internet blackout threw a wrench into things.

So I'm a bit behind. Or when she didn't submit the report on time, it really threw a wrench into things. Yeah. Knocked everything off. Right. And I don't know the origin either.

But if I imagine, I imagine someone running, like someone in a race, they're running on a track. And if someone chucks a wrench at them, that's going to throw off their, like they would get hurt. They would fall. Like that's the most violent thing I can think of.

That would be not great. Yeah. But also any situation you're in, if someone throws a wrench at you, it's going to throw you off. No, no, no. Don't throw wrenches at people.

No. But yeah, I don't know where that expression is from. If someone did throw a wrench at some of something, who knows? But it's just a fun idiom that we use.

And it's spelled just like the tool wrench, W-R-E-N-C-H, which has a lot of meanings in English. But to throw a wrench, you're imagining the actual tool. I built Ornod in 2013. We make bike clothes.

Thanks to Shopify, we can run the company without having a lot of technical knowledge. We can manage everything from the back-end to the front-end and sell easily online products.

All right, let's do a roleplay here. Michelle and I are co-workers here. I will start us out. Ready? Okay. Hey, did you finish the report yet? Not even close.

I got completely thrown off by all the last minute schedule changes yesterday. Yeah, that kind of thing really can mess up your focus. Exactly. And then the internet outage totally derailed my plans for the afternoon.

Oh, no. Sorry to hear that. Yeah. So now I'm really behind due to the technical issues this week. Man, sounds like everything just kept going wrong. Honestly, the surprise client meeting really threw a wrench into things too.

I had to stop everything and prepare for it. Well, hopefully tomorrow we'll be calmer so you can catch up. Yeah. You're being a good listener here, Aubrey.

It's just like, oh, well, I think everything will be good. And then I just keep on, oh, and this and this. But sometimes that's the conversation you have. If things are really going badly, you're like, and not only that, and you also want to share all the things that are going wrong so they understand why you're frustrated, why you're upset.

Like it's not one thing. There's a lot of things that have happened, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I also want to point like, I think you're right that I'm kind of being a good listener.

And I'm also doing something that I don't, that I am not that good at. Because sometimes when I'm in a conversation like this, I want to show empathy. But sometimes I'm in order to show empathy, I'm making it about myself. And I would be like, I also had a crazy day and sharing what was and sometimes you should just listen and let them express how difficult things are.

Because I feel that sometimes i'm like oh i shouldn't have made that by myself about me i should have just let them be upset you know no that happens but then you're also like trying to relate yeah it's it's a tricky fine line because i'm like i know that the reason i said that was to show empathy to be like i've been there i understand what you're going through but then i accidentally like pull the focus to me and realize like oh i should have given them more just a listening ear to help them know like someone's listening and feels your pain you know

It's interesting. Well, let's go through this role play. You first said, I got completely thrown off by all the last minute schedule changes. This is a perfect way to say that.

It means your schedule got delayed, something, you know, like you had certain plans that got moved, that got disturbed. And often the way we say that is, I got thrown off.

Mm-hmm. And then you said, then the internet outage totally derailed my plans. And then the internet outage totally derailed my plans for the afternoon. So think of my plans for the afternoon as a train and now they're derailed.

They're off the tracks. We use this to exaggerate. We love to exaggerate, especially in the United States. We love hyperbole. So we are, we're like, this is a big deal for a train to be derailed.

And that is what, that is the exact amount of drama that I want to add here to say my plans got derailed just like a train coming off the tracks. And often it is sort of like, really, was it that big? Probably not, but we like to exaggerate.

Exactly. So then I said, yeah, so now I'm really behind due to the technical issues this week. Yes. And then this is my favorite. You said, honestly, the surprise client meeting really threw a wrench into things.

So this is big. This isn't a tiny minor disturbance. If you're like, I was two minutes late because a car pulled out in front of me, you wouldn't be like, that really threw a wrench into my day. This is bigger, right?

Whatever it is that you would use this phrase for, it's something that really caused a delay, a disturbance. It's pretty big. yeah exactly so this one is very uh like very extreme um definitely uh so yeah guys check out episode 2658 that was english grammar that will make your day so that was just last episode Yes, scroll up if you missed it.

It's a great grammar episode. We make grammar fun here. Like sometimes we're sharing the grammar, what you need to know, but it's always still a really interesting episode. You're learning vocabulary.

So in my opinion, best way to learn grammar. Yeah, definitely. Yes, we should enjoy it. And then I also wanted to share just this morning. So I posted that post to social media.

And then I got an email back from Sashley. And I was just really happy to hear from them that they sent this to their niece, Denise. And I'm really excited that they were able to get that answer quickly. Hopefully...

Hopefully, internet is restored in Iran, but that was quite a while ago that I posted that. But we're just so grateful to have these loyal listeners, to have all of you out there, listeners around the world who listen every week. We're grateful for you. We love your questions.

Keep sending in questions for these fun episodes. And yeah, Michelle, thanks for joining me today. Oh, thank you, Aubrey. And thank you to Sashley for that question and to Denise also for listening.

And yes, we're hoping that you can listen again soon. Yes. Awesome. Thanks, Michelle. And we will see you guys next time. Bye. All right. Bye. Bye, Aubrey.

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