This mini episode teaches you the very useful phrase “to occur to someone.”
Episode 243 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful phrase “to occur to someone.” What does it mean? And how do you use it? 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
“Hi! This is Puyan, from Iran. And you’re listening to Everybody ESL—English as a Second Language.”
Welcome to episode 243 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
In this episode, I want to teach you a very useful and common phrase. And that phrase is “to occur to someone.” To occur to someone.
That is occur: o-c-c-u-r, to: t-o, someone. To occur to someone.
Before I talk about this phrase, let me talk about the word occur. Do you know this verb? Occur means “to happen” or “to arise” or “to come into being” or “to take place.” Those are all good synonyms for occur.
We often use the verb occur when we talk about interesting or remarkable events. That is occur. It means “to happen.”
So what does “occur to someone” mean? If something occurs to you, that means something happens in your mind. It really means a certain thought happens in your mind, or a certain thought comes into your mind, or a certain realization comes into your mind. If something occurs to you, that means you think of it. You realize it.
We use “occur to someone” when we are talking about somebody having a certain idea or realizing something.
Let me give you an example of a situation where you might hear “occur to someone.”
Let’s say you are going to have a big party. (I guess this situation is happening before or after the pandemic, when it would be a good idea to have a big party and lots of people gathering together.) You are going to have this big party, but your house or your apartment is not very big.
Your friend says to you, “I think you invited too many people. There is not enough room in your house (or your apartment) for all of these people to come together.” And you say, “Yes, that occurred to me. That’s why we will have the party outside.”
That expression—”that occurred to me”—means “Yes, I had that idea, too,” or “I realized that.” “That thought or that idea came into my head.” “That thought or idea or realization happened inside my head.” Yes, that occurred to me. Yes, I had that idea. I had that realization.
There’s another construction that uses “to occur to someone.” Instead of a sentence like “That occurred to me,” you will often hear a sentence like “It occurred to me that…” something.
Going back to my example about the party in the small apartment, somebody might say, “Yes, it occurred to me that… the apartment might be too small. And so we will have the party outside.” It occurred to me that the apartment is too small.
You will often hear “occur to someone” in both of those expressions: “It (or something) occurs to someone,” or “It occurs to someone that…” something is true.
That is “occur to someone,” a very common and useful phrase that I think you should know.
Outro
We have reached the end of episode 243 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 use at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Puyan 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.