AEE: Don't Overdo It With Textbook English
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This is an All Ears English podcast. Don't overdo it with textbook English. 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. If you listen to native speakers talk, you'll hear them use a lot of words that start with over. How can this be a clue to maximize your vocabulary options when you talk about things that are excessive? Find out today.

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One more time, go to allearsenglish.com slash LinkedIn. Lindsay, how are you? Hello, Michelle. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm excited to go to Run Club tonight. What about you? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah, I am good. I'm good. My kids are going to be starting school soon, so that's exciting. And I'm excited. I'm happy it's going to be full. I think I've had enough.

Oh, you've had enough of summer. Yeah, I get that. I get that. Well, hopefully, you know, yeah, seasons change. And especially in the Northeast, you get a lot of nice changing of the seasons. Um, yeah, really good stuff. I'm going to regret saying that soon when I'm freezing in the

morning. Yeah. We'll hear about it. I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. I'm the weather complainer. Well, anyway, Lindsay, but I have a question for you. Have you ever been overcharged at a restaurant? Oh, have I? Yeah. Yeah. Like the wrong charge. You mean? Yeah. It happened to me recently at the grocery store. Someone charged me for like 17 cabbages. Like,

What? Or something like that. I know. It was so funny. We're like, that's kind of a high bill. Let's because we always look at the receipt and there were like 17 of them. They just made a mistake. They just went fast. You know? Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. What would somebody do with 17 cabbages? Good question. Make a lot of stew? I don't know. I guess. So how did you, so you told them what happened? Yeah. We just went back in and just politely said, we think there was a mistake and

Then, yeah, they just solved it for us. But what about you? Has it ever happened to you at an actual restaurant? I'm sure it has. Nothing's coming off the top of my head. But those things just happen from time to time. Just mistakes like that or whatever it is. But, yeah, today we're actually going to be talking about this prefix overuse.

over, right? So because I said overcharged. So we're going to be talking about that in just a second. But we today, we're excited because we've been doing these Spotify polls and we are going to share the results of one of them today. Yeah, this was back from episode, well, an episode on a Saturday. Do you bicker with your family a few weeks ago? And

And we asked you the question, who do you squabble with the most? Meaning fight with, right? And I'm not surprised about the first one, Michelle. What is it? The highest percentage. So the highest one is your partner. So that was almost 28%. Yeah. That's who you fight with the most. It makes sense to me. That's kind of who you're around the most, right? As an adult, that's who you live with day in, day out. There are things about your partner you don't like for sure. Yeah.

And then the second one also to me makes sense is siblings, Lindsay. So this was 26% of you. I think it makes sense, especially if you're close to them. You know, if you're not super close to your sibling, you also when people's parents pass away, there might be some bickering, some fight, arguing, not a good thing. Then parents, right? 21.6%. Yeah. Yeah.

Then friends, 17.4%. Now, yeah, you'll notice, I feel like it's kind of going further and further away, right? Somebody, so you spend the most time with your partner, you might fight with them the most. Siblings, parents, they're also extremely just close to you. And then friends might not be as much because you don't

have to be as tied to them. And then colleagues are even the least, right? It goes all the way down. The furthest out, 7.8%, about 8% of you bicker the most with colleagues. So that does make sense. I mean, whoever we're closest to, we tend to fight with the most. Makes total sense. Exactly. So very, very interesting. So, okay. Well, we are about to answer that question, but we also want to remind you guys that we have this great app

If you don't have it already, it's the All Ears English app available on iOS and Android. Lindsay, tell us about that. Yeah, well, what we like about the app the most this season is that we now have different listening speeds. So there are no other apps that I know of where you could listen to a podcast, an episode of this show at 0.8

or .9x or 1.1x or 1.2x, you want to challenge yourself a little bit more, you can do that over on the app. Plus, you get transcripts, your personal power list of vocabulary episodes, really good stuff, guys. Go over to othersenglish.com slash app to sign up.

up. All right. Okay, great. So love it. And this question today comes to us from Ben from Japan. Lindsay, would you like to read it? I would love to. Here we go. Hi, Allers English team. This is Ben from Japan. It's been five months since I found your podcast program for the first time. I've learned a lot from your topics in the program since then. Well, that's so good to hear, Ben. We're

Anyway, I have a question for you. There are a lot of verbs with over something, such as overestimate, overcharge, overhear, overload, and so on. Is there common meaning among them? Can you explain these words you frequently use? Great question, Ben. Yeah. Well, thank you, Ben, for that question. And the wildest thing was I was planning this episode for

someone texted me something that said, I don't want to overlook something. Weird, Michelle. Do you have some kind of strange AI thing happening in your world? Like did Alexa come on and say something to you? AI or something? I don't know. Yeah, it was wild. And I will go over what that means in a second. But yeah, I wasn't going to teach that one. And then I thought, oh my God,

Gosh, it's the coolest thing when that happens when I'm planning episodes. That's really cool. I think it makes sense, though, because these are, as I was saying, Ben's question, overestimate, overcharge, overhear, overload. They are super common. Okay. Very common. So, yeah, this is about using that prefix over. So when added to a word, what does over usually mean?

I think it generally means too much. Yeah. Too much of something. Yeah. Uh-huh. More than needed. So, but we're going to go over this. Let's go through these words that Ben asked about. Let's start with those. And here we go. So, overestimate, Lindsay means. I over, just, you estimated too high, too much of something, right? So, for example, I overestimated how much food I needed for the party. Ah.

That can happen sometimes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Mess up the shopping list. Or if you go to Costco or somewhere where you're buying in bulk and you think, do I need one giant package for this party or two? And you go with two and then you have leftovers for three weeks that no one wants to eat. It's the famous Costco effect, right? The famous Costco. You go in for one thing and you come out with an entire pantry worth of things.

Yeah, absolutely. Or what's so another thing that's interesting is do you ever hear somebody say you overestimate me or you overestimate my ability to handle technology or something like that? What does that mean to you when used like that? Yeah, it kind of means you're saying you give me too much credit. You know, maybe you received a compliment about something. You're so great at technology because you fixed maybe the computer shut down. You fixed it. Oh,

you overestimate me. I just, you know, I just knew one thing that happened to be the key thing. Right. Right. Right.

And I wouldn't really recommend saying this too much, right? Because it's kind of rejecting a company. Self-deprecating. It's a little self-deprecating. But something that you might hear. The next one is overcharged. So we already did this one. But yeah, charged too much, like our example from the beginning. So you might say, I'm sorry, but I think you overcharged me for the coffee. So maybe when you go and you get a coffee, if you ever get anything extra, maybe you get...

some sort of special milk or you get some sort of special syrup in it, some flavoring, but maybe someone charged you for something that you didn't get. Yeah, for sure. And remember guys, you always have the option to put that in the passive voice. If you want to kind of take it, it does feel a little direct. Am I in the wrong environment? Am I feeling right? So you could always say, I'm sorry, but I think I was overcharged. Yep. That's a really good option. That takes it away a little bit. You're not so direct or maybe sound, you might,

You're not going to offend someone if you use that. It's just hard. You know, in coffee shops, sometimes people are just tired. They've been working all day. It could be crowded. You don't want to add to the challenge of being a barista behind the counter that day, right? If they're having a bad day. So putting into the passive voice, you can still use the word, right? Which is fantastic. And thinking about different ways to say things. I love it. Yeah, definitely.

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Okay. Michelle, over here is our next one. Tell me about this. This one's interesting. Yeah, this is interesting because I was thinking, does this really work with the too much? And it's a little bit different, but you could justify it. So you're hearing too much, basically. Maybe you're hearing something you're not supposed to, not something that isn't supposed to be heard. So in a way, it does work with that over. What do you think, Lindsay? I think

I think it works. I think it works right here. You heard too much more than you should have, but it really just means you, maybe you eavesdropped or you just happened to hear something that you shouldn't have heard. So I overheard them talking and I think you may want to start looking for a new job. Oh, that's not good.

Yikes. Budget cuts, budget cuts. Not good. Yeah. So that's a good, but common, right? Often you could overhear conversations. I remember when I lived in New York, I used to enjoy like just overhearing conversations, right? Yeah.

Or even in Japan, I would try to listen and try to understand what people are saying because I was learning Japanese. I don't know. It's just kind of a fun thing on the subway. Yeah, absolutely. So over here, though, on eavesdrop, I think there's a slight difference because when I hear over here, it sounds a little bit less purposeful. Totally. That's a good point. Right. So if you're wondering about a difference, guys, you could try.

try to overhear something, but it's a little eavesdrop is more direct. You were going for it. You wanted to hear. Oh yeah, exactly. I love that's a really important difference. And so then if you want to say that in that context, you could essentially be trying to add a layer of meaning by saying you're a little ashamed of that, right?

Right. Sometimes I would try to overhear. Do you know what I mean? There's a little bit of a subtext there. So we're getting into super high levels of fluency, but I think our listeners are ready for it, Michelle. Is there another one? Oh, yeah. We're still going for it. Okay. So we have overload. Our listener asked about this one as well. So to put...

more than can be held. So for example, he overloaded the truck. So the tire actually broke. Yeah. I mean, at home, some common things. Oh, I'm famous for overloading the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer. Let me just jam some more in there. We don't want to leave it. Yeah. You don't want anything. You want to just get it done. It's a Sunday trying to finish your chores. No. Yep. Yeah. Or this also makes me think of the expression information overload.

Or cuteness overload or things like that. We could do a whole episode about that. But yeah, too much information or there's too much in my head, whatever it could be. But so these are the ones that that our listener asked us about. Would you like to continue with a couple?

- Let's throw in maybe one more, Michelle. Do we have one more we can do here? - Why don't you choose your favorite? - Okay, so I really like oversee because this could also apply at work, right? To oversee. It doesn't really mean though what we've been defining this as, to see too much. The meaning changes with this one a little bit. - Right, right, right, right. However, every time I found one that didn't quite work, I was able to,

think deeply about it and realize, oh, okay, well, it kind of works, but it's a little bit tough. But, you know, basically to see more because you are the leader in a way. Does that make sense? Yeah. But don't think about it like that, guys. Just...

Right. It just means to, um, to direct let's, let's say the verb to direct a project. You're the director or the manager of a project you're in charge of a project. So you kind of have that bird's eye view in a sense, right? You're up high or you can see more. I think that's what it is. Uh, yep. Yeah. So for example, Jen is going to oversee the projects. Very common

vocabulary for the workplace. And by the way, Michelle, where should our listeners go if they do want to get that business English vocabulary? Oh, well, I'm so glad you asked. We are over on the Business English podcast. It is me and Lindsay and Aubrey, and we talk about all sorts of things dealing with business English. But even if

no matter what, we talk about real life things, right? So because you're not a robot just because you're in the workplace. You got it, Michelle. You are not a robot. All right. So where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? Well, there are so, so, so many more, but this gives you the most basic idea of what it means to

Yeah. So should we do a role play? Let's do it. So Michelle, in this case, you are a customer and I'm the barista. Okay. So we're in that scenario. All right. Here we go. All right. Here we go. Thank you so much. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Ooh, I think, I think you may have overcharged me for this cappuccino. Oh no, really? Oh no. It's overflowing. Oh, let me get you a napkin. Oh, thank you. I'll take a sip.

Wow. It's great how the vanilla flavor doesn't overpower the coffee. Isn't that good? Okay. So I'm so sorry. I overestimated how much milk you wanted. That's okay. I like it. Okay, good. And sorry for overcharging you. I'll fix it right now. Thanks. Nice. So chaotic moment. Yes, it is a little bit of chaos here.

here. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like that. These scenarios are so creative, right? How do we get in all these over words into one moment in a cafe? I don't know. I just got to figure it out. I got to overload these role plays. Um, so, but with the vocabulary, so some of these were ones we taught already. Some of these might be a little bit new, but we can go through it. So the first one we know, I said, I'm sorry. I think you may have overcharged me for the cappuccino. And

I could have said, I think I was overcharged. However, I think the fact that I said you may have softens it also a little bit. That's a good point. It's not always just putting things in the passive voice to soften a little bit. There are other words instead of might or instead of you did, you may have done this thing, right? Much also very good to soften the blow of what you're about to say. And then I said, oh, no, really?

oh no, it's overflowing. So there's some things that are happening. I'm realizing I overcharged you. And then I'm also, I guess maybe handing it to you or still doing the thing, making the cappuccino. Um, yeah, it's overflowing. So meaning the milk or the coffee's coming out over the top of the cup, right? Yes, exactly. Big problem, especially with hot coffee. So, um, this is

So I said, I'll take a sip. You know that moment when something is overflowing. So you just kind of have to do that awkward bend over and you just have to carefully, even if it's super right. And we've all been in that situation. I wish we could throw a photo on the screen right now of a moment we've had to do that. It's very awkward. Just imagine it. Imagine it. I'm sure. Yeah.

Yes. So I had to give it a try. So then I commented on it and I said, wow, it's great to have the vanilla flavor doesn't overpower the coffee. So overpower is another one, Lindsay. And I really like this one in the context of food, because, you know, if you watch any cooking shows, which I do in the winter all the time, all the tournament of champions and all this, where they really analyze these dishes and they say, you know, this flavor overpowers that. And that's the reason that points get docked.

off, right? They go into all the nuances. It's just incredible, Michelle. It's incredible. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So I'm saying the vanilla flavor doesn't overpower the coffee. So am I saying that the vanilla flavor is stronger than the coffee or weaker? No, we're saying it's kind of even, or it's just, it's in proportion to what it should be. It's in proportion period. Like it's in the right amounts.

Right. You can still taste the coffee over like the power of the coffee. So it doesn't over take more power. Right. Yeah. When I first started drinking coffee, my gateway drug, my gateway coffee was a vanilla latte from Starbucks. Right. And I feel like a lot of people, that's what that is because it really does overpower. I mean, first of all, latte milk and all these things. Then vanilla latte, you have the flavor, you have the milk and then you kind of taste the coffee. It's a gateway. Right.

Right, right, right. Exactly. Yes. And sometimes if I get a coffee and I get a little flavor in it, then it's one too many pumps. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't do it. I don't do the flavored stuff anymore. Black coffee. I know. You're so tough, Lindsay. You're so tough. I'm so cool. You're so cool. All

All right. Isn't and then I said, isn't that good? Right. So I'm obviously nerding out about the coffee I just made you. Right. I'm really excited. It's probably a high end coffee shop where the barista really gets into it. And these places do exist. Maybe they made a little heart in the coffee. Yeah, yeah. They'll do that. That's that's the thing. And then I say, OK, so I'm so sorry. I overestimated how much milk you wanted. Right. And that's the reason that I overcharged you.

Right. Exactly. Yep. Overestimate. So, and then you said, I'm sorry for overcharging you. I'll fix it. All right. That's a great conversation and something you honestly might experience in a cafe, right? All these things are happening at the same time. Right. That's the funniest part about it is that you have to put out all the fires. We have the issue of the being overcharged.

And then, oh no, it's overflowing. And then probably there's a line of 10 people. So it's all crazy. For sure. This is the way to be able to maximize your learning on vocab, guys, is learn prefixes. Right, Michelle? Yep, absolutely. It's a fantastic way to build your vocab. So if you're curious about another prefix or suffix, let us know. Send it in to a question to support at allersenglish.com.

All right. Absolutely. Thank you so much to Ben for that question and have a great one. All right, Michelle. Take care. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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