Hello and welcome to English with Languissimo®, the podcast in English where I share stories of my week with you.
My name is Vanessa. I’m the founder and CEO of Languissimo®.
Let’s go!
The Voice of the New Year (La voix de la nouvelle année)
That’s it! 2023 is officially over! Although the battle I have been fighting for the last two years is still ongoing, I’m starting 2024 with hope, energy, and the will to succeed. I’m looking forward to completing new projects and accomplishing great things.
The Voice of Resolutions (La voix des résolutions)
The tradition is for people to start the new year with good intentions. Unfortunately, these intentions don’t last very long as the following statistics show:
23 % of people quit by the end of the first week which is this Sunday.
Most people quit by the second Friday of January which is next Friday.
43 % of people expect to quit by February.
Only 9 % of people keep their resolutions.
Isn’t that incredible?
I understand that exercising more, eating healthily, and losing weight are completely honourable and important resolutions, but deciding to implement them in winter may not be the best time to do it. Anyway….It’s up to you.
For my part, I never set New Year’s resolutions.
I don’t wait for the new year to take charge of my future and I think people shouldn’t either.
I’m usually very active towards the end of the year around November-December where I put in place a few things for the upcoming year.
For example, on the professional level, Languissimo® is going to offer new services within the next couple of weeks to help more people.
On the personal level, I’m going to start investing more actively in real estate because I want to have more passive income each month.
For me, taking care of my health, my life and my future is like giving love: you don’t only give it on certain dates, but all year long. That’s the reason why you must work on yourself every single day.
Some Study Points
- “I have been fighting” is the present perfect progressive of “to fight”. The present perfect is used with “for” and a duration. In this case “for the last two years”. I’m using the present perfect progressive because the battle is still happening today and the “ing” part is the best way to reflect that.
- “To look forward to + verb + ing” means “avoir hâte de + inf.”.
- “To expect” means “s’attendre à”.
- “To implement” means “mettre à execution”.
- “It’s up to you” means “à vous de voir”.
- “To wait for something or someone” means “attendre quelqu’un or quelque chose”.
- “To take charge of one’s future” means “prendre en main son avenir”.
- “Either” means “non plus”. It is used in a negative sentence.
- “Exercising, eating, losing, taking care and giving” are a few examples in my story where the structure verb + “ing” is translated in French by the infinitive: “faire du sport, manger, perdre, prendre soin, donner”.
- “That’s the reason why” means “c’est pourquoi, c’est pour cela” or in a more formal way, “c’est la raison pour laquelle”.
Some Practice Questions
- Are you going to be like the 9 % who keep their resolutions?
- Are you going to work on yourself every single day this year?
That’s it! That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Subscribe to English with Languissimo®, practice, take care and have a great weekend! Big hugs 😊