Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 42, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day. In this series, we are expanding your vocabulary, improving your listening and hopefully entertaining you while you do whatever it is that you are currently doing. So, let's start today's list with the idiom to make someone's heart flutter, to make someone's heart flutter. Make, M A K E. Someone's heart, H E A R T. Flutter, F L U T T E R. Make someone's heart flutter. If someone makes your heart flutter, then it means you find them very physically attractive and you feel really excited when you see them or when you talk to them. That fluttering is that nervousness or excitement when you think of or interact with someone that you are really attracted to. When I was a young girl, I had a huge crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. I had my walls covered in posters of Leo and whenever I'd see him on the screen, my heart would flutter. Who was your childhood crush? Here's an example sentence,"His earnest gaze and gentle smile made her heart flutter with a mixture of excitement and trepidation." Next on the list is the phrase take someone for granted. To take someone for granted. Granted we spell G R A N T E D, granted, granted. To take someone for granted is to be so used to someone that you don't see their value anymore, that you don't appreciate someone or something. It's not just about people. It could also be about things that you have. Maybe it's about freedoms that you have or luxuries that you have in life that you are so used to, that you don't even acknowledge how valuable it is anymore. You don't realise how good it is until it's gone. You're not grateful for them in the same way. And often if you take a person for granted, you may not treat them kindly. You may forget to say'thank you' when they do something nice for you. You may forget to be romantic with your long-term spouse, your husband or your wife, and that might make them feel bad. It might make them feel unappreciated and unloved. And that might lead to a breakdown in the relationship because you took them for granted. So, it's very important that we don't take the people we love for granted. And we don't take things like our good health for granted. Mostly we do. We don't recognise the privileges that we have. And we sometimes, abuse those privileges. You know, a healthy adult will go out and drink heavily, eat badly and do things that they know are not good for their health because they take their good health for granted. Okay, so here's another example,"She felt that her family took her for granted and she resented it." Have you ever felt that someone takes you for granted? Okay, moving on. Now we have a noun and it is childhood sweetheart. Childhood sweetheart. Childhood, C H I L D H O O D, childhood. Sweetheart, S W E E T H E A R T. A childhood sweetheart is a boyfriend or a girlfriend from your very early stage of life. So when you first have that sense of falling in love with someone, when you're a teenager, or maybe even when you're 11, 10 years old, and you really feel very strongly about another person. And maybe you have a relationship that lasts for three months, which to a teenager or to a child, three months is a lifetime. And then when that relationship breaks up, you are devastated. I had a childhood sweetheart when I was at primary school, so I was quite young. I fell in love at primary school. How old was I? I must have been about 10 and I had this boyfriend called Dale, and I was completely smitten. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. I thought he was the bee's knees. I was completely head over heels in love with him. As a child. And he dumped me and I remember being so beside myself, so deeply upset by the fact that he dumped me and he dumped me because he fancied my best friend. Like that was even worse. That was like rubbing salt into the wound. It was horrible. And I sat on the bottom step in my house, and I just sobbed and sobbed. And my mum was like,"What's the matter, darling?" And I said,"Dale has dumped me for my best friend." He was my childhood sweetheart. He broke me. Anyway, I am over it now. I've recovered. So here's another example,"We are in our thirties, but we were childhood sweethearts and have been married for 15 years." Who was your childhood sweetheart? Moving on, we have the idiom young love, young love. We spell this young, Y O U N G. Love, L O V E. Young love is the love between young people. Very simple. Now, this could be young people in their twenties or teenagers. Here's an example,"Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, has become synonymous with young love." Okay, last on the list is the adjective complacent, complacent. We spell this C O M P L A C E N T, complacent, complacent. To be complacent is feeling so satisfied with a situation that you feel you do not need to try any harder. A really good example of this is that very famous tale of the hare and the tortoise. I'm sure you've heard this tale. They have a race and the hare, being a very, very fast animal, scoffs at the idea of racing against a tortoise, but he does it anyway, and he's so complacent with his ability to win that he stops trying. And in fact, he then takes a seat and has a nap by the side of the track because he just thinks that he's going to win and that there's no way the tortoise will overtake him. And while he's napping, of course, the tortoise wins. So, his complacency actually failed him. It did him a disservice. It's not great to be complacent. It's good to be complacent in one respect if you're happy with your situation. For example, if you're a business owner, you're building something and you work hard for years and years. I know I'm laughing because I've been working hard at my business for, it feels like decades. It's been about a decade. And it doesn't seem to get easier. It just seems to get harder. But if I got to a place where I felt like everything was exactly as I wanted it to be, then I would feel complacent and I might stop pushing so hard. I might actually have a proper break. I might actually have a real holiday. I might stop working nights and weekends. It's never going to happen. But actually, being complacent can often lead to negative outcomes. So, it's not a negative adjective, but it could create negative outcomes. So, that's our five for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the idiom to make someone's heart flutter, which is when you feel excited and nervous when you see someone you're really attracted to. We had the phrase take someone for granted, which is when you stop recognising and appreciating how wonderful something is. We had the noun childhood sweetheart, which is a boyfriend or a girlfriend from your early stages of life. We had the idiom young love, which is love that happens between young people. And we had the adjective complacent, feeling so satisfied with the situation that you don't try any harder. Okay, let's now do this for pronunciation. If you can, please, repeat after me. Make someone's heart flutter. Make someone's heart flutter. Take someone for granted. Take someone for granted. Childhood sweetheart. Childhood sweetheart. Young love. Young love. Complacent. Complacent. Very good. Alright. What's the idiom that I'd use when I see someone who's really attractive and it makes me feel really, really excited? What are they doing to me? They're going to make my heart flutter. Yes. And if I'm describing love between a couple of people who are in their late teens. What idiom would I use? This is what? Young love. Of course, of course. In fact, it reminds me of my own young love, a particular person from the very early stages of my life, who was my boyfriend. What noun could I use to describe this boyfriend that I had when I was 10? My childhood sweetheart. Yes, absolutely. Now I recognise how important it is when you find the right person to spend your life with, that you show that you appreciate them every single day. You never forget the value that you have in them. So, what phrase could I use? What should I avoid doing? I shouldn't take them for granted, ever, because I love them and I want to always show that I'm grateful for them. And finally, if I'm feeling so satisfied with my current situation that I just don't need to try any harder, what adjective would you use to describe me? Complacent. I am complacent. Fantastic. Okay, please listen out for these items once again in today's storytime. Lisa sat by the window, sipping her coffee and watching the rain fall. Her mind drifted back to when she first met Tom, her childhood sweetheart and now husband of 15 years. She remembered how Tom would make her heart flutter every time he smiled at her in the school hallway. Young love had been so exciting, full of butterflies and stolen glances. They were inseparable throughout high school and college, dreaming of their future together. Now, as she looked around their home, Lisa realised how much had changed. Photos of their children lined the walls, bills sat on the kitchen counter, and a to-do list for house repairs hung on the fridge. The flutter in her heart had been replaced by a steady rhythm of everyday life. Lisa sighed, wondering when they had become so... ordinary. Between their demanding jobs, raising kids, caring for aging parents, and maintaining their home, there seemed little time for romance. She thought about how Tom still brought her coffee every morning, even on his busiest days. How he always remembered to call her mother on her birthday. The way he patiently helped their daughter with her homework, even after a long day at work. Suddenly, Lisa understood. The excitement of young love had evolved into something deeper, more enduring. But she also realised they had become complacent, taking each other for granted in the whirlwind of daily responsibilities. Lisa stood up, determined. She couldn't expect her heart to flutter like it did at 16, but she could work harder at appreciating Tom and nurturing their relationship. They needed to make time for each other, to reconnect beyond the routine of family life. As she heard Tom's key in the door, Lisa smiled. Their love had matured, but with some effort, it could be just as beautiful as their youthful romance. She was ready to put in the work. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please take a moment to leave a like a rating or review so that others may find this podcast too. Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.