AEE: Should You Say “Gotcha” on April Fool’s Day?
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This is an All Ears English podcast. Should you say gotcha on April Fool's Day? 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 host,

Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

What's the difference between saying gotcha, I got you and understood? Today find out plus learn how a shared global day plays out around the world.

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hey aubrey how are you today i'm great lindsay i have a fun question for you do you ever play april fool's jokes on anyone oh my gosh not lately but when i was a kid of course you know a lot of kids were playing jokes right i think i got my car toilet papered once but i don't know what the joke is with that though i'm not really sure what the joke is like there's toilet paper all over your car with april fools your curse toilet paper

Yeah. I did a lot when I was a kid. I remember we pranked my dad really well once. We took a wet towel and put it just outside a bathroom. And we went and found him and told him the bathroom was flooded and he needed to take care of it. He was so upset. And he went and opened the door and we were like, April Fool.

April Fools. That's so funny. We were so clever. It really sounds like a kid's joke, right? It's really good. It's really good. Yeah. This was interesting. We got a question in our community about this. Caroline, who's from France, she's amazing. And she posted asking everyone like, what's this like in your culture, in your country? Do you celebrate April Fools? What's that like? And so many people were answering. I was loving reading all the answers. And I thought this would be so fun to talk about today. Yeah.

Yeah, this is what I love about our community. We're sharing cultures, we're sharing ideas, we're connecting with each other. But guys, go ahead and hit that follow button as a way to connect with our community of listeners, right? And with us. So you don't miss the five episodes a week that we put out. So hit the follow button right inside your podcast player. Okay. And we're also teaching some vocabulary here because in our Q&A, we...

We had a question about gotcha. One of our students had heard gotcha used a couple of different ways. So we're going to share the ways that we use this and a couple of alternatives in English. And then stay to the end. We're going to dive into April Fool's, April 1st, and what that looks like around the world.

Yeah, it's so fun. And I love that we're covering the term gotcha because nothing could be more native and natural than this. Seriously. Yes. All right. Let's do a little role play. I'll bring to kick it off today. Yeah, because this first option is we say gotcha after like an April Fool's joke after we prank someone if they fall for it. And we'll just be like, gotcha. So here's a little role play. I'll start us out. I forgot to pick up your dry cleaning. Sorry.

Oh, bummer. No worries. Gotcha. Here it is. Oh, so funny. Oh my God. It's really interesting. It depends on the person. Some people love playing pranks and some people think it's funny to be pranked and some people have no patience for it. My partner, if you try to prank him, he would be so annoyed. He does not think it's funny, especially if it's like,

more serious. Because sometimes I would want to prank him and it would be like, oh, our daughter broke her leg at school or something. And I'd be like, gotcha. He's like, no, that's not funny. It can't be serious. It can't be something that someone's really upset about. Right. It can't cause your heart to sink. You know that feeling when your heart sinks? Please don't do that to me.

yeah you don't want it now yeah different material right for sure maybe a little less serious things i'm like oh i forgot to pick up will can you go get him gotcha just kidding so would be annoyed it's like no not funny yeah for sure i love it so that's one way that we use this term gotcha after someone uh pulls a prank on us they say that right it's the prankster that says it right if

Like if they fooled you, if you bought it, if you believed it, then they might say, gotcha. They could also say like fooled. Yeah. Right. There's other things we say, and especially kids will say this. My kids love this. Like, gotcha. Yeah. My go-to is just kidding. Just kidding. Right. Just kidding. But just kidding has been repurposed in other ways. So that's another episode for another day, Aubrey. But what would be another way we use gotcha? Yeah. We also use it just to mean I understand. Right. Let's see how that would look in a role play. All right.

I need you to arrive at 7 p.m. if you can. Gotcha. I'll be there. All right. So that's totally different. I'm not playing a prank on you here. You know, I'm dead serious. Right. This is not. And it's interesting how this is so sort of slang. And when we spell it, it's G-O-T-C-H-A. But really, that would mean like I have got you. But even in this, which is a less slang.

informal scenario, this might even be at work. I still would be like, gotcha. No, I think this is a good one. I think this is a great one for work because it's important to make it clear that you understand a task, right? If you've been assigned a task. But sometimes...

It's hard to find something that's not too formal to respond to that. I understand. It's so fast. Gotcha. Yeah. Got it. Gotcha. Got it. Gotcha. Yeah. I love that one. What else, Aubrey? And then one thing I want to point out that I'm just realizing as we teach this, if you wrote this out, right, it would be, I have got...

you. And we're saying it quickly and we're shortening it to gotcha. What's also interesting is when we say like, I've got you, that really means something else in English. It would be more like, I've got you covered. I'm supporting you. So if you need me to sub for something, like let's say your volleyball team needs a sub and you text me, I'd be like, I've got you. That means I will be there. I will cover for you. Interesting. Interesting. But I wouldn't say gotcha. I wouldn't say gotcha. I'd say

Got you. I've got you. That's why, again, learning context matters so much, right? Yeah. You also want to teach a more formal way to say this if you are at work and you're trying to speak more formally and you want to tell someone you understand what they say. You can say understood, but this is quite a bit more formal. We don't use this conversationally, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Yeah. Understood or I understand. Again, yeah, quite formal. Quite formal. So let's do an example.

Okay. Oh, okay. Here's the same thing. It's the same scenario, but let's look at how different it is if I say understood. I need you to arrive at 7 p.m. if you can. Understood. I'll be there. Yes. And also your tone of voice kind of dropped there, right? It feels so much more formal.

Yes. And that just depends for our listeners on what kind of workplace are you working at guys, right? What is the environment like? And that's just something you want to do a lot of listening when you're new in a place. Yeah. And this is interesting to think about too. I feel like sometimes someone will say understood,

when there's hidden meaning here. Like if someone is being criticized or I think about couples, like if someone is being asked to do something and they don't want to, and they sort of want to get the meaning across that they're not happy about it, but they will do it. They might say like, understood, right? And it's, there's the tone and there's the facial expressions, right? Yes.

Yes, sometimes for sure. We can say a lot through just taking like arbitrary words and adding tone or understanding context or understanding history of relationships and things, right? Right. It's interesting, right? So, yeah, I mean, you never know. But this is where communication can break down if someone's being passive aggressive and they're just like, understood. And you're like, wait, wait, what's understood? What do you mean? I feel like there's more here. Let's talk it out.

Yeah, don't be passive aggressive, right? That's not a good character trait. Don't be passive aggressive. Right. I love it. All right.

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Okay, Aubrey, we're back from break. And I am so excited to hear what our listeners said about April Fools in their countries. Again, this is where we asked our listeners to share about this, or I think Caroline asked our listeners to share about this. Inside the community, what did people say? Yes, I love this. And first, Caroline shared about France. And having lived in France, I was aware of this tradition that I love. It's Poisson d'Avril, which means April Fish. And

And children will have these paper fishes that they're trying to tape to each other's backs or to someone's back to see how long it's there without you noticing. So on April Fool's Day, people might have a fish on their back and it's so adorable. I think it's the cutest tradition. But interestingly, she said this is becoming less and less popular even among kids. She said sometimes it's seen as sort of cheesy. So this is interesting to see how traditions change.

But maybe where Caroline, she lives in Brittany, it might be less popular there, but maybe elsewhere a little bit. Who knows, right? Yeah. Things kind of go out of style, go in and out of style. Maybe people are not interacting as much in person. So something else is becoming more popular to do, right? Interesting. And she also said this was interesting. And several people mentioned this, that where they live, the media will publish pranks.

and then everyone is looking to spot fake news all day. There'll be like an announcement of something that happens and then you have to figure out if it's the news media pulling an April Fool's joke or if it's real news. Interesting. It's like a good exercise, a good exercise to exercise our brain in the States, do we? Not that I'm aware of. We probably should to build up.

Our ability to recognize fake news. It's so true. Yeah. So I love that. I fully endorse that strategy. Good stuff. What about Brazil? So Aden, one of our students from Brazil, she said that they celebrate April Fool's with like dad's pranks, dad jokes, silly jokes that, and sometimes fake news, like she was saying, but nothing serious. So it's more like you, kind of like I was saying, you would tell someone something happened

That's not true. And just see if they believe you. And you're trying to have a poker face, which means no reaction. You're trying to not make it obvious that you're joking. And then she said your goal is just to laugh and see if you can make your friend appear foolish for believing, for being gullible. Right.

Yeah. So dad jokes. I love that term. I wonder why it's called dad jokes, not mom jokes. I mean, yeah. Maybe just because dads are sometimes a little cheesier. Goofy. I know my dad was when I was growing up. He was definitely cheesy. Yeah. Goofy. I don't know. In my experience, that holds true. Dads love dad jokes. Yeah. It kind of holds true, right? It does. That's interesting. What about in Sweden? Do we have a student from Sweden? Yeah. So in Sweden, and I looked...

Mm-hmm.

But there's this cool rhyme. I'm going to try to say this in Swedish, too. I was trying to look up some of the pronunciation. And for everyone out there who's from Sweden, forgive me. Leave us a comment on YouTube to let me know how I did. So it's like, Which means, April, April, you silly herring. Like a red herring. We use that in English. I can fool you anywhere I want to. So it's this little chant that they say if someone believes the joke.

then they have this chant in Swedish to sort of be like, gotcha. But it's like longer to be like, I told you. Yeah. Pronunciation sounds great to me, but I'm not a good judge. I'm very, I'm going to be looking on the YouTube to see, let me know, let me know how I did. Yeah. Don't forget everyone. We do have a YouTube channel. So go over and check that out. Hit the subscribe button and leave a comment under this video to let us know how Aubrey's pronunciation was. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Um,

But also in Sweden, the fake news and media is also big. Media outlets. And you can look online and see all of the biggest ones throughout the years. One of them, there was like an announcement in the media that like part of an island had broken off and was like coming towards it. Like a lot of people believed it.

And that made me think of there was one thing in U.S. culture, the War of the Worlds, when they were reading War of the Worlds on the radio. Did you hear about that? And people thought it was real. So it wasn't an April Fool's joke, but that's the only thing I can think of in U.S. culture that was sort of similar, where people collectively believed. Correct.

Right. Well, we do have the onion, right? Which is sarcastic, not sarcastic. What's the word? Just satire. Satire. Just on April Fool's. It's all the time. The onion, you know, it's satire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's sort of similar, I guess.

And what about Germany? Our student Helmuth, Heli, is his name. - Yes, I love it. He's like, "Call me Heli." Yeah, so he, I loved this. So it was sort of similar. They do celebrate April Fools by sort of pranking each other. And he shared a story. He tried to prank people at work

And he like changed the shift plan in their WhatsApp group. And so he changed the starting time for the day shift from 7 a.m. to 4 a.m. Oh, no. Confusing the staff. But then he said, unfortunately, a lot of employees believed it. And like, I think came in early. Maybe he said it caused all these problems. Oh, no. I love that he shared this story, but it definitely goes to show you if people believe it, you have to let them know before like real problems occur that you're fooling them. Yeah.

Yeah, that can happen. I feel like I did something in high school. My friends and I devised a joke that really had like real consequences, but I can't remember what we did. Sometimes this does happen, right? Because maybe you have to tell a lie, tell a fib, and then yeah, someone shows up at the wrong time or something goes wrong. It's kind of stressful. Yes. Oh, that's funny. I'm curious. Maybe by the time we do our quiz, if you remember that, let us know if you guys are subscribers in Apple or have our app.

then you may be able to hear the quiz and maybe Lindsay can share that with us. 'Cause I'd like to hear it if you remember. - I'll try to come up with it. I'll try to come up with it. Aubrey, what's our takeaway for today? We covered a lot of good stuff, right? We talked about gotcha and the different things that that can mean. We talked about April Fools and what we do, what people do around the world.

Yeah, and this is interesting. Customs that you have in your country and your culture, something similar may exist elsewhere in the world. And this, I feel like, really opens us up to realizing we're more alike than we are different when we see so many shared traditions. I love that this came up in our community and

members were sharing this interesting information. Come back to YouTube, like Lindsay said, leave us a comment. What is this like where you live? Do you celebrate April Fools? Have you ever pranked someone? Leave a comment and let us know. Yeah, I can't wait to see what our listeners say to answer that. Good stuff. All right, Aubrey. Well, thanks for being on and bringing these quotes from our students. Love it. So fun. Awesome. See you next time. See you soon. Bye. Bye.

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