AEE 2355: Don’t Get Tripped Up By English Vocabulary
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This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2355. Don't get tripped up by English 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 host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz.

and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, 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.

It is 100% normal to make mistakes in English. Today, you'll get three new and natural ways to use phrasal verbs to get back in the game when you make a mistake. Do you struggle when new topics come up in conversation? Not sure how to transition to the next idea or jump in when a group of native speakers are having a conversation? These are all skills you build right here on All Ears English.

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Hello, Aubrey. How's it going today? Happy Thursday. We're recording today on a Thursday. Happy Thursday to you. I have a question for you, Lindsay. Okay. When is the last time you tripped? Oh my gosh. Unfortunately, I had a recent event. My brother and my niece came to ski with us on Sunday.

And we had gotten all our stuff out of the car. I was already feeling a little rushed. And I also had this feeling that I kind of had to prove myself as a skier in front of my brother this particular time. And we were stepping into the bike, just still in the parking lot. Okay, we're not even on the slopes yet. We're still in the parking lot.

And I'm stepping onto the shuttle bus that is gonna take us to the mountain. I step in hard with my ski boot. It's slippery, but yeah, I can handle it 'cause I've done it many times, right? I step in and somehow I catch my boot on the little yellow rubber thing that's sort of the ridge. And I have never seen a more flailing fall in my life. I do a lot of this trying to save myself back and forth and I'm gonna fall and I'm not gonna fall. All of a sudden I'm on my butt and I'm like intertwined with some guy's boot.

And it was the most embarrassing, one of the most embarrassing moments. I almost started crying. It was really, really bad. Meanwhile, my brother and my niece are like, what's going on with you? Just staring in shock. He's like, are you going to stop the lift too? And I'm like,

I'm actually a really good skier. And so I don't know. It was, oh, it was so bad. Oh, wow. In the parking lot. Yes. And I tripped right on that little ridge. Yeah. Just be careful. Yeah, I have tripped getting on off of a ski lift. I just like I'm trying to get off and just fly.

fall yeah like on your out of the way so they don't have to stop the ski lift oh it's so bad yeah and when that happens if you're a good skier and it happens it's even worse it's like okay no i could do better than this you know right i'm better than this i know right well i asked you about this i love that you have a very recent story because we got a great question about

about tripped and all of the different ways we use it tripped up. We use trip a lot in English, so I'm very excited to dive into this today, but make sure to hit follow guys. If you're not following, we have five episodes every week and you're likely missing some of them if you don't follow the show. Yeah. I love that we're starting with this episode too, Aubrey, with the physical concept of tripping. And then we're going to extend today into what else that can mean in a more metaphorical way. So good. Exactly. So good.

- Yeah, so this is from a YouTube subscriber, Basil Mohammed, 8431. So thank you for leaving this comment on YouTube. Do you wanna read it for us, Lindsay? - Yes, here we go. So Basil says, "Hi Jessica, Aubrey, Michelle and Lindsay, the All Ears English folks.

You guys are doing a great job cheering us on through a journey of learning that's full of excitement, fun, and a great sense of humor. The thing that stimulates us to carry on our long learning practice. Thank you a lot. Well, thank you, people. Oh, I love that so much. That's lovely. So good to have you as a listener.

I recently come across an IELTS Energy episode when I heard Aubrey say tripped up. It's a very interesting phrase. And after a little research, I see that there's not only tripped up, but also tripped over and sometimes trip off. I'm no expert, but they pretty much sound the same, even from the overall context. For instance, I could say, I'm terribly sorry. I don't mean to trip you up. Or I tripped over my own feet and fell down the stairs. The exact problem that I'm facing is in the usage.

How can I throw in this phrase succinctly when I'm speaking to someone else? Would you please give us some information on the differences? Thank you in advance. Wishing you all the best and cheers. Nice. Such a great specific question. I love that Basil heard this on the IELTS Energy podcast. If you're not subscribed or following, go and follow IELTS Energy as well because a lot of great vocabulary comes up even if you're not studying for IELTS.

100%. I love this. And this is a very native and natural way of upleveling your vocabulary. So we're going to show our listeners how to do it today. So let's dive right in, Aubrey. Where are we starting today? Yeah. So we are going to share the three main ways that we use trip with phrasal verbs, trip up, trip over, and trip on.

And then we're going to do a great role play where you can see how we use all of these. So the first one, you've heard this a lot. Lindsay shared that physical tripping, but there are other phrasal verbs that have a very different meaning.

Yes, for sure. So starting today with tripped up, right? So this is not the physical version. And we're going to come back to trip to tripping physically in the next one. But tripping up is really to make a mistake, right, Aubrey? Exactly. On IELTS Energy, we do say this a lot when we're talking about how students get tripped up on the exam, right? It can mean to make a mistake or cause to make a mistake. We often say exam writers intentionally try to trip you up.

It's almost like they're trying to fool you, trying to make you miss answers. Yeah, the tricks and the traps of the exam, right? Aubrey, if our listeners are interested in learning about those tricks and traps, go over and subscribe. Hit follow on the IELTS Energy podcast. All right. Yeah. So a couple examples here, you might say, I got tripped up when the direction said head north and I went south. Right. So it just means I made a mistake.

Exactly. Or daylight savings time often trips me up. And a lot of people complain about this, right? When we put the clocks forward and back and

The first morning, they're tired. Yes, you guys have definitely heard me mention this. Daylight savings time definitely trips me up because Arizona doesn't change. So I have to keep track of where the rest of the world is. Very confusing. Yeah, you're in a weird zone there where it ends up being quite complicated. All right, so trip up. Just to kind of make a mistake. Not physically making a fall or anything like that, but just making a mistake, getting confused, falling into a trap.

- Exactly, right? And it is important that if you're talking about physically tripping, you wouldn't say, you know, I tripped up on the ski hill or when getting into the bus, right? That only means making a mistake. So keep track of the prepositions we add to these phrasal verbs, it does change the meaning.

Exactly. And this next one, now we're going back something similar to the example I shared about the bus, right? Trip over something or trip on something. We'll start with trip over. Aubrey, what's this one? Yeah. So trip over, it's physically like catching your foot on something and then either falling or almost falling. So we wouldn't just say, oh, I tripped over.

If it's, you know, if you're not talking about what you tripped on, you might say I tripped over a log on the hike and twisted my ankle. So we use tripped over when we're stating what it was that made us trip.

And we can also do this when it comes to speaking. And I love this use of it, right? That's quite a tongue twister. I keep tripping over my words, right? And this can happen for sure when we just, it's like word salad or something that comes out, word vomit. Oh yeah, you guys hear us do this on the podcast, right? The more you talk, the more you're likely to trip over your words every now and then. I often, I'm like checking transcripts for keywords for the app.

and I'll hear us trip over our words in a funny way sometimes. It's always pretty entertaining. I'm sure you guys have heard that as well. And we love showing our listeners that, right? We really don't go back and edit these episodes of All There's English or Business English because we want you to see that that's normal and that doesn't impede connection.

Right. You can always connect even if you're tripping over your words, you're making mistakes. This is how native speakers connect. All right. Yes, exactly. But it's interesting to look at that sentence. If we're going to say trip over, we'll still say what, even if it's not physical, I tripped over my words. Right. So be sure to when you use this one, trip over, you're going to state what it is that made you trip either physically or metaphorically.

But I think it's also important to say, you can just say, "Oh, I tripped and fell." You don't have to say, obviously, if you're going to use a preposition like over on, then you need to say the thing that was in your way. But I can just say, "On Sunday, it was so embarrassing. I tripped and fell on the bus and everyone stared at me and I started crying." Exactly. You can just use the verb trip by itself, I tripped. But if you're going to say trip over, then you have to state what it was that you tripped over.

Exactly. Exactly. And then we have one more physical tripping, right? Yes. And Basil had asked about trip off. We don't actually use this, but we do use trip on. So they might have heard trip on. We might say I tripped on the uneven sidewalk and almost fell. So this is very interchangeable with trip over. You're still going to state what you tripped on.

I love it. Or sometimes I trip on my words if I speak too quickly. So when we're talking about the same concept that we mentioned for trip over my words or trip on my words, both work here. Yeah, exactly. And I hear both. I use both. These really have the same meaning. You don't have to think twice about should I say trip on or trip over? Either works. And I actually think this is a fantastic resource for our listeners. If they are feeling like they're making mistakes and they're feeling awkward and they want to say something,

And that would actually boost your confidence by just going ahead and saying, sorry, I'm tripping over my words here. What I meant to say was X.

Because you're inserting that high level expression that could boost your confidence and get you back in the game that could probably work on IELTS too. Yes, I love that idea actually and it does it gives you a way to sort of diffuse any awkwardness and the native speakers do this as well because we trip over our words as well. Yeah, I love that idea of using a resource not just being quiet or feeling embarrassed or I don't know breaking eye contact instead you go to a vocabulary resource. Yeah, absolutely.

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Okay, Aubrey, did we want to mention as a quick asterisk here anything about the word tripping? Yes. You guys might be aware of this. If not, we're going to share. Often this verb or these phrasal verbs will be used for drug usage. So people might say they are tripping on a drug or trip out is used to talk about someone who is experiencing the effects of a drug. So when you hear the verb trip or tripping, just to be aware that that might be what someone is talking about.

All right, let's move into the role play Aubrey. So here we are classmates and you are wearing a cast on your leg. So it looks like you broke your leg. All right. You want to start us out?

Oh, what happened to your leg? I tripped over a rock when I was hiking and fell and broke it. Oh no, sorry to hear it. It's so weird. I feel like I've tripped on rocks a lot but never got injured. Just bad luck, I guess. How long do you have to have the cast? Eight weeks. Hey, by the way, were you able to complete the homework? Oh yeah. A few of the questions tripped me up, but then I figured them out. I had a hard time. I may need to meet with a professor during her office hours. Yeah.

Yeah, so a lot of different versions of tripping up here, tripping over, tripping on. I love it. Exactly. And you'll see I used trip over and trip on here, both with rocks because these are very interchangeable. We could switch these out. I could have said I tripped on a rock when I was hiking at the beginning and then I feel like I've tripped over rocks, right? Don't stress about which to use. These have the exact same meaning. They really do. Trip on a rock, trip over a rock. It's really the same thing.

So, don't worry too much about that. For both of them, be sure to state what you tripped on or tripped over. I couldn't just say, "I've tripped on a lot." Right? If so, you got to leave the preposition off and just say, "I trip. I trip a lot, but this time." Right. And like I said earlier, you could totally say, "Oh, I tripped when I was hiking and I fell and I broke my leg." But if you're going to specify the item, you do need a preposition in there. Exactly.

Then I said, yeah, a few of the questions tripped me up, but I figured them out. You asked about the homework. Yeah, and this is the very different meaning of causing you to make a mistake, right? Some of these questions really tripped me up. That has nothing to do with physical tripping or tripping over our words. It means they were difficult, they were confusing, or they caused me to make some errors.

Yeah, I love how practical this episode is and how our listeners are going to be able to go out there and just implement this right away. This is so good. Aubrey, is there another episode maybe on the Business English podcast that our listeners should check out? Yes, we talk about phrasal verbs a lot. And there was an episode I want to make sure you guys caught on Business English. It was 354, take on your workday with this English phrasal verb. All the ways we use take on at work. So

Whether you work in English or not, we cover a lot of great vocab over there. And you want to make sure to follow the Business English Podcast as well. Yeah, exactly. So just go ahead and open your search bar wherever you're listening today.

Search for Business English. You'll see the yellow come up and go ahead and hit the follow button on that show too. All right. Now, I think a great way to leave our listeners is what we said earlier is mistakes are inevitable. They don't have to get in the way of human connection. We believe connection is the most important thing. And what can we do now, Aubrey, if we do make that mistake?

We have an option. We have a resource. I love that idea of not hiding from it or pretending it didn't happen. State it, right? Name it. Be like, oh, I tripped over. I'm tripping over my words. What I meant to say was, and it diffuses awkwardness and is using impressive vocabulary.

and that builds confidence i mean like i said get yourself right back in the game by saying wow i just used yeah i made a mistake uh but i didn't break the eye contact i didn't shy away or lose my energy or slump my shoulders i kept my shoulders back i maintained eye contact and i used a cool idiom expression right whoever

you're talking to is going to, first of all, not mind that you're tripping over your words and then be impressed by the vocabulary you're using. The recovery. I love it. It's so good. All right, Aubrey. Good stuff today. Guys, don't forget to hit the follow button and thanks for hanging out on the show. Awesome. See you next time. Take care. Bye. Bye.

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