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Wasting Time

Learn English with this time English lesson

Date: Feb 01 2013

Themes: Time

Grammar: Phrasal Verbs

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Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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In order to waste money, you have to choose to spend it on something foolish. Time, however, passes whether you’re doing something useful with it or not.

Wasting time isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be fun. Everyone needs to relax sometimes, and as long as you don’t waste too much time too often, it can be good for you.

If you space out for too long though, it can get you in trouble. You can get behind on your responsibilities. It can also make you tired and you can start to feel bad about yourself.

In this English lesson about time, Sara notices that Jeff doesn’t appear to be too busy at the moment.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jeff

Sara

Sara: What are you doing Jeff?

Jeff: Just wasting time. I don’t feel like doing anything.

Sara: Yeah? What do you do when you waste time?

Jeff: Sit around...watch movies or TV shows that I’ve already seen…peruse the internet…

Sara: Is it relaxing or it is frustrating?

Jeff: I don’t know, it’s kind of frustrating to me because I always want to be doing something, but I don’t have a lot of energy a lot of the time, so that’s when I find myself getting sucked in to that trap.

Sara: Yeah, I know what you mean. I usually like to be really productive, too, but sometimes you just suddenly realize that you’ve been on Facebook for half an hour or something.

Jeff: Oh, yeah, that’s a big one for a lot of people I think.

Sara: It is! I’ve heard you can get some blockers to kick you off after a certain amount of time.

Jeff: I’ll look into this. Stuff like that, I get frustrated with myself when that happens, but I feel like sometimes having a moment to just do nothing is healthy in a way. You just need to balance that out with productivity.

Sara: It’s true, like a Sunday morning when you can just sort of amble around the house, walk around the house and…

Jeff: ...space out.

Sara: Yeah.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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Like almost everyone, Jeff wastes time occasionally. Sometimes he watches boring TV shows he has seen before or looks at the internet. Other times he just spaces out.

Sara asks Jeff if wasting time is fun for him or frustrating. He says it can be frustrating because he likes to be productive, but that it’s healthy to take a break and waste a little time sometimes. Sara agrees. She likes to amble around the house on Sunday mornings.

How do you waste time? How does it make you feel? Do you wish you wasted less time?

Comments

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Julissita

Peru

From time to time I think it’s necessary to just relax doing nothing. I sometimes like to sit around, not being productive, watching TV, changing the channels or taking long naps until I feel it’s enough and I need to continue with my duties.

Erise

Poland

Well, what’s exactly “wasting time”? Opinions differ.There are so many provoking ideas about this term but most agree that time spent on something with pleasure was not wasted.

Everything matters, every single day and hour; it’s not wasted.

laptop786

India

waste time or free time has one saving grace is that u can watch your fr8 movies.there are many more ways to reduce waste time like reading books,do exersice or hang out with ur friends but watching movies is big one for me!!!!

Olivine

Indonesia

do the things we like is not a wasting time, we enjoy it.

do the things we do not like is not a wasting time either if we get benefits and able to learn something by doing so.

however sleeping and space out too much is a waste of time.

vicmay_lo-flo@live.com.mx

Mexico

They could lose thousands of ways.

that at the beginning you can be nice, but … all the time you lose.. never returns.!!!!

mjsymbol

United States

There is something quite annoying about these english lessons. Can’t there be a notification that lets you know the level that is requiered to understand this lesson?

I beg you

Sajjad Monti

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

I think it’s not wasting time, It’s just free time! :)

I like to read newspapers and magazines in my free time, Like Machine Mag, a very famous magazine about cars in Iran, I like it so much!

Gentleman in Ebaby

Saudi Arabia

hey Seiyf

how r u doing there ? a long time we didn’t talk ???

AppleRome

Antarctica

I dont agree with your perception about your “wasting time” habit, peeps ^^.. It sounds like you did crime and then reflected it with fear.

Wasting time 2-3 hours around is completely okay. What do you expect when you live in busy 21th century with so many interesting things around and so many things to achieve? I see wasting time as a happy exit to me. And Sunday is really “holy day”.

The more important issue than this: People have less-time for each other nowadays. Even they prefer to go wasting time alone.

MimKun

Yemen

I visit the gym in my free time & play video games !

Liliya Liliya

Belarus

Agree with Tracy green – those who are used to work and active style of life, don’t have enough time for useless things. And those who are lazy as a rule to do anything useful for their self-development, for society or even for improving their relations with the others, often spend most of their time just frustrating and trying to ensure themselves that tomorrow they will change their minds. Must do everything today!

maliesfand

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

hi my name is maliheh i live in iran plz add me into your list and speake with me

i born 24 feb 1990

Tracy_green

China

I‘d like to say people are either too busy or too idle nowadays. I think we should live in a balanced life. Never go to extremes.

yuminaga

China

We are human being so we can get sick of doing same thing for a long time even its the very impotant thing we havto cope with .having a moment to take a break can balance when we start to feel bad about ourself. peruse internet , watch Tv shows ,movies ,amble arong house ,anything like space out .it can be good for us .a friend of mind is kind of productive ,she play game with iPhone occasionally to take a break. for me I always like to be doing something perfect ,but I dont have a lot of enengy a lot of time ,thats when I find myself geting sucked in to that trap such as I could get frutrated with myself when something i do is not perfect .Wow its really horrible, i feel like i could be killed by myself .I dont like to waste time but waiteting time is neccesarilly a bad thing,i have realized recently .life is glorious , have fun with it ,be happy everyda ,everytime!

chaumy

Viet Nam

I allways be crazy with the karoke programs of Apple. I spend most of my free time to doing some cover songs for fun. Probably, it is a boring liking with some people, but it is so much intereting for me. I usually cover some famous English songs. You might tell I am wasting my time for a kid game, but it is not. When i record my voice, I can heard what makes different between my English pronunciation with other one. I can fix my mistakes little by little through my singing.

J.milk

Brazil

This dialogue is about me.

Nolove

Ukraine

How much i love wasting time. The more, the better!

Defang

France

I waste so much time doing nothing but hanging out on the internet, reading dumb websites like 9gag, Facebook.. It’s truly uninteresting but just a funny way to do nothing, time really flies when I do that, it’s a bad thing I guess…

At least I learn english with those fooleries. :)

King-ft

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

In my opinion living in the current time is an art and will result in not wasting so much time. If we just dream the future and regret the past we definately will lose the time!

Also if we learn how to be creative we can always find a way to spend our time in a good and useful manner. I myself usually could manage my time but some times I really cannot do that. After that I regret:(

I think It has just one exeption: spending time with family even without any result would not be considered as a wasted time.