The English We Speak: Twig
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Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too.

I'm Feifei and I'm here with Beth. How are you? Hi, Feifei. I'm great, thanks. And I have a funny story to share with you. Oh, go on. So I was at a fancy dress party last weekend and I was talking to a person in a superhero costume. I had no idea who it was. I was talking to them for ages, but then they finally took their mask off and I twigged it was my cousin. Oh, must have been a good costume.

And that's a great example of the word we're looking at in this programme, twig.

It's an informal British English verb and if you twig, it means you realise or understand something, often after some time or confusion. Exactly. And you can suddenly twig something or it can be a slower realisation. Can you give us an example of when you have twigged something, Feifei? Yes, actually. I was in the lift the other day and the person standing next to me looked really familiar. But...

But I didn't know who it was until I got out of the lift. I suddenly twigged. It was a famous actor. Ah, that's cool. Twig can often be used in situations where you've been a bit slow to understand something. Like maybe you're watching a mystery film and it's only in the final scene that you guess who the murderer is. You finally twig.

Yes, and we always twig a thing, the realisation. Here are some more examples of the verb twig. So I know this man in the office and then I also know a woman in my choir and I've only just twigged that they're actually siblings.

So a friend of mine has really smelly breath and I tried to tell him gently by offering him mints and I even bought him a toothbrush once and he finally twigged and sorted it out. My wife kept telling me stories about her friend who was going out with someone called Dave. It was months later that I twigged it was my friend Dave.

So, twig is used to describe the moment you finally realise something. Yes, it's really useful for describing those 'aha' moments.

For example, the other day I only twicked where my son was hiding when I heard a sneeze from inside a kitchen cupboard. Oh, so cute. So, to recap, we've learnt twig, which we can use when we realise or understand something, often after some time or confusion. And that's all from us. We'll be back next time with another useful English phrase. See you then. Bye.

Learn English from the News with BBC Learning English. One big story every week, three news headlines and all the vocabulary you need to understand the story in English. Plus, you can download a free worksheet on our website for every episode. Search Learning English from the News on your podcast app or visit bbclearningenglish.com.

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