This mini episode teaches you the useful phrase “one of these days.”
Episode 228 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful phrase “one of these days.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello! This is Basmah, from Saudi Arabia. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 228 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
I am going to teach you an interesting phrase today. And that phrase is “one of these days.” One of these days. That is spelled one: o-n-e, of: o-f, these: t-h-e-s-e, days: d-a-y-s. “One of these days.”
What does “one of these days” mean? “One of these days” means eventually. In other words, at some time in the future. Not a specific time—not a time that we know. We cannot say, “At this time, on this day.” It just means at some time in the future.
When we hear this expression, “one of these days,” we do not wonder, “One of which days?” No, this is an idiom. In other words, we cannot understand what it means by looking at each of the words, by looking at each of the parts. We need to think of it as just one single unit: “one of these days.” And it means eventually or at some time in the future.
Here is an example of a situation where you might hear somebody say, “one of these days”:
Imagine that I have all kinds of old things in my house—all kinds of old appliances and machines and other things. And I look at something on a shelf, and I say, “One of these days, I’m going to fix that old radio.” One of these days, I’m going to fix that old radio. And all that means is one day, I will fix that old radio. At some time in the future. Eventually. I don’t know when, but I know that it will happen, or I assume it will happen, or I hope that it will happen. It will happen eventually, at some time in the future.
And that is “one of these days,” a very useful phrase that I think you should know.
Outro
We have reached the end of episode 228 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Basmah recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with another episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye! I’ll see you soon.