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Wasting Time
简体
Wasting Time
浪费时间

Learn English with this time English lesson

Date: Feb 01 2013

Themes: Time

Grammar: Phrasal Verbs

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.

为了浪费钱,你可以选择买一些荒谬的东西。但是,时间呢,无论你是否合理利用,都会流逝。

浪费时间未必是坏事。可能会充满乐趣。有时候,每个人都需要放松,只要不经常浪费过多的时间,可能对你有益。

如果你太长时间无所事事,便会出现麻烦。你可能会忘掉自己的责任。浪费时间还会让人感到厌烦,你开始自我感觉很糟糕。

在本节有关时间的英语课上,萨拉发现杰夫此刻似乎不是太忙。

Dialog

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

Sara

Sara

Jeff

Jeff

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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Nabilo

Nabilo

Germany

Yes Irene, a human needs from 7/24 to 8/24 hours for sleeping only. Thank you for the calculation, it really shows in an exact way, how many years sleeping takes from our life. So we have to be aware of this fact. I thank you for your judgment concerning my English, it is not quite correct since it needs much more improvement especially my speaking skill, it is still terrible;), but yours is perfect and I learn from you a lot. I have to admit though, that we can learn faster thanks to Ebaby. As Ola33 said, we can see how many useful expressions are contained in this lesson;)

12:22 PM Feb 01 2013 |

Irene Forever

Ukraine

Knuschu, communication with nature is never wasting time for me. I also associate those phrase with something bad without delivering me any pleasure. To tell the truth, I can’t wait for spring to go to the countryside,  therefore in my mind there is a thought about speeding the time.:) Still time can’t go faster.:) And no neeed for it as life is half spent before one knows what it is.

11:48 AM Feb 01 2013 |

knuschu

knuschu

Germany

After work sometimes I just like to sit in the garden – warm weather assumed – despite the weeds is growing. I thought I wasted time with sitting here, coz further work is needed. I always connected the frame “wasting time” with a bad thing. Coz of this lesson, now I know it’s not necessarily. Relaxing some minutes is often needed to fill up your tank.

10:51 AM Feb 01 2013 |

Irene Forever

Ukraine

Nabilo, I’m totally agree with you in all aspects you have mentioned in your comment. By the way, your English is good, do you know it? :) I’m still surprised by people who think the time wasted while they are on the similar sites studying languages. :) So what are their purposes of being there, I wonder. As for oversleeping, you are also right. Have you ever interested in how much time we spend on that process? I was killed when I calculated  it. It’s 1/3 of our life. That’s why I hate sleeping, but I have too.:)


(7 hours * 365 days) * 70 years= 2555 hours  * 70 years= 178 850 hours or 20.4 years! Oh, my!.  

S&W

S&W

China

It hurts to know you are  wasting time .But sometimes it can’ t be stopped,i mean you just can’ t pay attention or focus on something like you want yourself do.

10:34 AM Feb 01 2013 |

La Princesse de la vie

Egypt

Jeff typically has told my story.. Without any exceptions, that what happens with me :( .. 


It’s so sad to let your time pass without something done at it knowing that every moment passes means that a moment of your life has passed..

10:22 AM Feb 01 2013 |

1 person likes this

Nabilo

Nabilo

Germany

I agree with you Irene, spending time on Ebaby has nothing to do with wasting time since we have to learn new vocabulary and often look for the appropriate words to write down, describe things or improve our listening skill, even I sometimes feel like I have to relax from Ebaby;). I also find ambling around or hanging out with friends is not a kind of time wasting at all because we simply need to do that regularly in order to remain productive at work or during studying. I find wasting time is like when someone everyday sleeps longer than a human needs;) or sitting around and spacing out all the time because we don’t need that every time. It’s true that we need to be alone from time to time, but that could be kind of frustrating if we lose control of this.

ClaireChiu

ClaireChiu

Taiwan

Jeff just said what I want to say. I always regret after I waste the time.  I want to do a lot of things, but eventually I just did less of them. 

09:45 AM Feb 01 2013 |

Irene Forever

Ukraine

Ren97, you can never waste your time while studying.

09:04 AM Feb 01 2013 |

Irene Forever

Ukraine

Due to my work I have some time to spend it on my favourite activities: reading, singing, cooking, going out etc. My working day begins at 2 PM and finishes at 8 or 9 PM, but sometimes I have lessons in the morning. I don’t think I waste much time on nothing as our lifetime is limited. We should enjoy every moment of it, what I successfully do. :)


I love spending my time on Ebaby, and from time to time I have a quick visit on some other sites or peruse the Internet. Still Ebaby is my favourote one.


I used to spend much time on chatting on msn and Skype before, and as I realised later, I have wasted much time on it. Why? Because I felt people like to use others for their benefit forgetting about them very fast. Some of them had special purposes. I’m not going to waste my precious life on them.


Therefore I deleted  many of them one by one, and now I have only people I can trust and like chatting with them. I hope it’s mutual. But they are just a few.


Actually, I am very happy now. Let it go on…


Sung H Won

Sung H Won

United States

I always try not to waste time but i think when i finish one day i wasted too much time. 

ola33

ola33

Japan

My schedule is packed that sometimes just wasting time is a great relaxation for me between busy tasks. It’s just like playing hockey. The players are playing for a minute or two and then they’re sitting resting. But during those two minutes they give it their all by scoring the goals…


Very nice lesson with lots of expressions I didn’t know.

I M P E R I V M

United States

“Dont waste time, because life is made of it” gone with the wind movie.


Oh no! I just wasted precious time by writning this! I’ll do my homework isntead…

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