Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 44, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that's dedicated to improving your English and expanding your vocabulary. So you can feel more confident when you have to communicate in English. So, let's kick off today's list with a phrasal verb stick to, stick to. We spell this S T I C K, stick. To, T O. To stick to something means to continue doing something despite difficulties. So, even if something is difficult, if you keep going, then you are sticking to it. Now, if you were to sign up to one of my courses, then I would encourage you and try to motivate you to stick to it. Don't give up. Stick to it until the very end, until you achieve what it is that you want to achieve. Here's another example,"I find it hard to stick to diets and budgets." Personally, I find it quite hard to stick to a schedule that doesn't have much flexibility. So in my life, with my children, with all the work that I've got to do, I need a bit of space. I need flexibility. And so if you give me a very heavy and rigid schedule, then I find it quite hard to stick to, to be honest. How about you? Are you good at sticking to things? Next on the list is the adjective restrictive, restrictive. We spell this R E S T R I C T I V E, restrictive, restrictive. If something is described as restrictive, then it's preventing people from doing what they want. Okay, so a restrictive schedule will mean that I'm unable to do things with my time that I want to do because of this schedule that you've given me. Here's another example,"Many people can't stick to diets because they are too restrictive." Next on the list is the idiom hit the nail on the head, hit the nail on the head. Hit, H I T. The nail, N A I L. On the head, H E A D. And by nail, I don't mean the hard parts at the ends of your fingers. I'm talking about the metal spike that you use to hang pictures on; a nail. So you hit the nail on the head. The top of a nail is called the head. So if you hit the nail on the head, it means that you describe exactly what is causing a situation or a problem. So you say something that is exactly right. You hit the nail on the head. If I'm saying to you,"Oh, I'm learning French, but I'm having a lot of difficulty. I'm not progressing." And you talk to me a little bit about my routine, about my study schedule, and you find out exactly what's been going on. Then you say,"Anna. The problem is you don't study enough." And I say,"You know what? You've just hit the nail on the head. You've just described exactly what my problem is. I don't practice enough. You've hit the nail on the head. You really hit the nail on the head with your analysis of the problem." Next on the list is the phrasal verb step up. Now, do you remember we had step up not long ago, but that was as a noun. This is the phrasal verb step up. Step, S T E P. Up, U P. Step up. To step up is to take action or responsibility when there is a need or an opportunity for it. So, if I need someone to take control of a situation after the boss walks out in the middle of a room full of chaos. The boss goes,"I can't deal with this anymore." And he just walks out."Oh no, we need someone to take charge." And you stand up and say,"I'll do it." And you start telling everyone what to do. You take control of the room. You have just stepped up. You've taken responsibility. You've taken action when it was needed. You stepped up. Here's another example,"Unfortunately, Brenda has been taken ill, so we need a volunteer to step up and take charge of the project." Next on the list is the noun lodger, lodger. We spell this L O D G E R, lodger. A lodger is a person who pays rent, usually, or sometimes they might live there for free, but they pay rent to live in somebody's house with them. And they're usually staying in one room, but they share the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room. And a lodger might be a friend or a family member, someone that you loosely know. I was a lodger once. In fact, I've been a lodger a few times, where I've just paid to stay in one room of someone's home. And we've shared the kitchen and the other communal spaces. This is very different to being a tenant, which is what you call someone who pays rent for an entire property, an entire flat or house. Then you're a tenant, but a lodger pays to stay in the home with you. So if you have a lodger, then you have someone staying with you. Usually, they pay to stay with you. Here's an example,"If you have a spare room and need some extra money, you can take in a lodger." Have you ever been a lodger, or have you ever had a lodger at your home? Would you consider taking in a lodger? My mum once took in a lodger who promised to only stay for six weeks. He was a family friend at the time. Six months later, my mum was still trying to push him out. Because she didn't have much space and he was really taking the Michael, shall we say. Okay, so that's our five for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the phrasal verb stick to, to stick to, which means to continue doing something even though it's difficult. We had the adjective restrictive, which describes something that stops people from doing what they want. We had the idiom hit the nail on the head. Which means that you are able to exactly describe what's causing a problem or situation. We had the phrasal verb step up, which is where you take action or responsibility when there's a need or an opportunity for it. And we had the noun lodger, a person who pays rent to live in somebody's house with them. So let's do this now for pronunciation. Please listen very carefully and repeat after me. Stick to. Stick to. Restrictive. Restrictive. Hit the nail on the head. Hit the nail on the head. Step up. Step up. Lodger. Lodger. Very good. If we're talking about a problem that I'm having and you, in one sentence, just summarise what exactly the problem is, you summarise what's causing the problem. What am I going to say to you? What have you just done? You have hit the nail on the head. If I'm telling you about my diet and I don't like my diet because it's stopping me from doing what I want to do, how would we describe this diet? It's restrictive. It's too restrictive. I might have to try a different diet. I'm finding it really hard to continue doing this diet because it's so difficult. But I should try to continue despite the difficulties. What phrasal verb could I use here? I should what? Stick to it. Absolutely. Now, if there is an opening at work because someone suddenly disappears and there are many responsibilities that someone needs to take on, if I decide to do it, if I take action, what am I doing? I'm stepping up. Yes, I'm taking action, I'm taking responsibility, and I'm going to fill the shoes of the person who left. I've also got a spare room in my house, and a family friend has said that they need somewhere to live for a few months, so they're going to pay me a little bit of rent and stay in my spare room. What are they when they stay in my house? A lodger. Very good, a lodger. All right, that's our five, so let's listen out for them once again in today's storytime. Caroline had always enjoyed spending money, not saving it. She loved shopping and treating herself whenever she had a little extra cash. The problem was, she never seemed to have enough money left over at the end of the month. Her credit card bills were piling up, and she knew she needed to make some changes. Caroline decided it was time to get her finances in order. She sat down and made a budget, but she found the whole process really restrictive. It was hard for her to stick to the numbers she had written down."This is no fun at all", she thought to herself. One day, as she was scrolling through social media, she came across a post from a friend talking about how she had started renting out a spare room in her house."That's it!" Caroline exclaimed out loud."I could take in a lodger to help boost my income!" With a new sense of purpose, Caroline started looking into the process of renting out a room. She realised that not only would it provide her with some much-needed extra money each month, but it might also motivate her to be a bit neater and more organised around the house. As Caroline began to implement her new plan, something else started to click. She suddenly hit the nail on the head, she was looking at it all wrong. She didn't need to feel so restricted by a budget. Instead of seeing it as a restrictive set of rules, she could see it as a tool to help her reach her financial goals. And saving money could actually be fun, like a game to see how much she could put away each month. Caroline had really stepped up and taken responsibility for her financial situation. With her new mindset and extra income from the lodger, she was well on her way to getting her spending under control and paying off her debts. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you enjoyed today, and I really hope that you come back again tomorrow. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.