204: Expression: To See Eye to Eye

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Hello, welcome back. This is episode 204. And before we jump in, I'd like to give a quick heads up. The next episode will be an irregular verb episode about Helen Keller. As you may know, Helen was both deaf and blind, so she couldn't hear, she was deaf, and she was blind, she couldn't see. Yet, against all odds, she learned to read, Read both braille and hand movements. She learned to write and speak.

Her life is full of achievements and I guarantee next week's episode will inspire you. So be sure to stay tuned for that. It will be posted shortly.

As usual, part one is related to part two. So in today's episode, we'll be focusing on a very common and very useful expression to see eye to eye. I'll start with a joke, teach the expression, and then we'll finish with some pronunciation exercises. So let's go ahead and begin with the joke. Now as you may know, sometimes I tell dad jokes. Dad jokes are typically corny or cheesy. They're not immediately funny, but I love the word play.

I think it's a great opportunity to learn double meanings, to learn puns. So the other day I actually told a joke to my eyes. You know what eyeballs do when they hear a bad joke? They don't laugh, they just roll. Get it? If you did, you're probably rolling your eyes right now. Now what does it mean to roll one's eyes? So it's that movement that people make when they're annoyed, when they're bored, or unimpressed. It's a good response when somebody tells a joke that's just not funny.

So instead of saying that's super silly, people will just move their eyes upwards and around to show how they feel. To roll one's eyes. You might often see people roll their eyes in arguments or when they hear something that they strongly disagree with. Especially when people are talking politics in the United States, there's a lot of eye rolling. So have you ever rolled your eyes? Back to the joke. You know what eyeballs do when they hear a bad joke? They don't laugh, they just roll.

Hope you enjoy that. Other than rolling one's eyes, what else can eyeballs do? Well we blink. That's when our eyelids move up and down unintentionally, sometimes to stay wet, I guess. We can wink, which is when we intentionally shut one eye. Maybe if we think somebody's cute, we'll wink at them. We can stare. That's when you look at someone for a prolonged period of time without diverting your eyes, without changing their direction.

So there are quite a few things eyes can do, but the most important thing is that eyes make it possible for us to see.

Which brings me to the expression of the day, which is to see eye to eye. Let's look at the definitions of the individual part. To see is a verb. And it doesn't only mean to perceive the surroundings with one's eyes. In English to see often means to understand. It's like, I get it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I see what you mean. Or you can just say, yeah, I see. I. Well, you know what an I is.

It's those two balls that are placed uh on your face, slightly above your nose or to the sides of your nose. And it's an organ that we use to see. So an eye consists of the whites of one's eyes, the iris, The colorful part and the pupil. That little black thing in the middle. But I, when used in expressions and idioms, often represents perspective or point of view. For example, in her eyes, it's one of the worst restaurants in the city.

in her eyes is the same as saying in her opinion or from her point of view. In her eyes, it's one of the worst restaurants in the city. So we had to see, we had I. Now put these all together and we've got the expression to see eye to eye. Now to see eye to eye means to agree with someone, or to share the same opinion, beliefs, or perspective. So for example, in my family, some members see eye to eye on topics like parenting and education.

In other words, we agree on topics like parenting and education. However, we don't see eye to eye on politics. In other words, we don't agree on politics. You'll regularly hear this expression used in the negative, which basically means to disagree. We don't see eye to eye on politics. It's pretty easy. Um the key is remembering to use the preposition on before a noun. So we see eye to eye on parenting and education, but we don't see eye to eye on politics.

Now, where does this expression come from? According to Languages United, the expression to see eye to eye actually goes back to biblical times. It's believed to come from the book of Isaiah, where a similar phrase is used to describe people sharing the same vision. Imagine two people standing at the same level, looking in the same direction, seeing the same thing. Over time, that image turned into the idiom we use today, which as I mentioned, means to agree or when in the negative, to disagree.

Let's go ahead and go through three more examples so you feel confident using this in everyday life. My first example is about the founding fathers, the people that founded or created the United States. So our founding fathers consisted of early presidents and strong political figures. And they didn't always see eye to eye. They didn't always agree. Alexander Hamilton, who you'll see on our one hundred dollar bill, believed in a strong federal government, while Thomas Jefferson,

Who's on our five cent coin and two dollar bill, but those are really rare. Um Thomas Jefferson wanted to give more power to state government. So these disagreements helped shape the US political system we have today. States control some issues while the federal government controls others. And even today, people don't always see eye to eye on this topic. Wanna make a difference in your community but not sure how?

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Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. G-O-F-U-N-D-M-E.com. This is a commercial message brought to you by GoFundMe. Example number two. Fans of Star Wars don't always see eye to eye on which movies are the best. Now some people love the original trilogy, others love the prequels, and some strongly believe that the newest films are the best. So there's a lot of disagreement here. The fans don't see eye to eye on which movies are the best.

Which makes sense. It's a big group of fans, lots of opinions. And yeah, I've heard some debates. They get surprisingly passionate. But I guess that's part of the fun. Example number three. Let's talk about music. Parents and teenagers rarely see eye to eye on music. They don't agree on what's good. They don't see eye to eye. Now parents might say, This isn't real music while their teens play a new jam that's on the radio. And same goes the other way around.

So this generational disagreement has existed for a very long time. In fact, I remember doing an episode a long time ago about Elvis Presley. Uh that was episode number seventy. I remember specifically lots of conservative parents hated his music and the way he moved his hips. They considered it too sensual and too provoking

Which is kind of funny nowadays because things have gotten considerably more provocative. But yeah, do you and your parents see eye to eye on music in terms of what makes it good? I feel like my mom has good music taste. My dad has some interesting choices. So I say I see eye to eye with my mom, but not so much with my dad.

All right, did you notice anything interesting about these examples? They were all in the negative. Um, we spoke about people not seeing eye to eye on political matters, on films, on music. As I said previously, this expression is commonly used in the negative. If I go online right now and head to a news source. Any news source in the US I'll see hundreds of articles about how Democrats and Republicans don't see eye to eye on issues like health care reform, education, gun control, immigration.

But you know what? This expression is also used in the positive form, so let's end on a positive note. Uh recently I met a very nice girl in Asheville, and I think we'll be good friends. We've spoken about travel, living abroad, food, and work. It seems like we see eye to eye on a lot of matters. All right, so once again to see eye to eye means to agree or share the same point of view. To not see eye to eye means to disagree.

So yeah, there you have it. Let's move on to the pronunciation exercise. We'll use the sentence, we don't see eye to eye. Repeat after me, we don't. We don't see. We don't see eye to eye. Great. Now let's practice the conjugation. Repeat after me. I see eye to eye. You see eye to eye. She sees eye to eye. He sees eye to eye. It sees eye to eye. We see eye to eye. They see eye to eye. Now, my tip for you guys, I think you caught this. The reduced form of two is.

It doesn't sound like two at all, right? Because the stress is not on to, right? It's an unstressed word. The stress of this sentence is heavily on I, eye to eye, I to eye. So we don't see eye to eye. Do you see eye to eye with your coworkers? Remember, not seeing eye to eye doesn't always mean conflict. People often disagree and still work together. They can remain friends. They can respect each other. A wise person once told me, don't argue with people, just let them be wrong in peace.

That wraps up today's lesson. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to tune in and to practice your English. I think podcasts are a fantastic way to improve listening comprehension, but also to learn new vocabulary in context. So if you like this episode, if you learned something, take a minute, please, to uh give a five-star review on your favorite listening platform, whether that's Spotify, Apple, Uh Wherever you listen, I would really, really appreciate it.

Next week we'll be talking about one individual, Helen Keller. who couldn't see, but she was a visionary. Think about that for a minute. Yeah, it's gonna be a great episode. Stay tuned. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English Podcast. Remember, it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension.

But to show you how to speak like someone from the States. If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode, or you just want to support this podcast, make sure to sign up to premium content on American English Podcast.com. Thanks and hope to see you soon.