In this mini episode, you will learn the phrase “in the long run.”
Episode 291 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the phrase “in the long run.” 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, everyone. My name is Ateros. I’m from Brazil, and you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 291 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 am going to teach you an interesting and very common phrase. And that phrase is “in the long run.” In the long run. That’s “in the long—l-o-n-g—run—r-u-n.” In the long run.
What does “in the long run” mean? “In the long run” means “eventually, at the end.” And it usually suggests the end of a long process or the end of some situation that goes on for a long time.
Let me give you a situation where somebody might use the phrase “in the long run.”
Let’s say that your friend is studying to become a doctor. And because your friend wants to be a doctor, he has to study a lot. He needs to study all day, every day. And he knows that this will take many years. It will take many years for him to become a doctor. And one day, when he is feeling a little bit discouraged about all of the hard work that he has to do, you tell him, “I think in the long run, you will be glad that you worked this hard.” I think in the long run, you’ll be glad that you worked this hard.
In other words, you are saying, “At the end, at the end of this period of working so hard, eventually, after all of this is over, you will be glad.” In the long run, you will be glad.
There’s one interesting thing that I want to say about “in the long run.” And that is that the stress is a little bit strange. Usually, when we have a phrase that combines an adjective and a noun, we stress the noun. In a typical situation, that’s how it works. So we might say something like, “Yesterday I saw a big dog.” A big dog. You can hear that I am stressing the noun: a big dog. I’m not stressing the adjective. I didn’t say, “Yesterday I saw a big dog.” Instead, I said, “Yesterday I saw a big dog.”
You can hear this same pattern of stress in a sentence like this: “My friend lives in a small house,” where the noun house gets the stress instead of the adjective small getting the stress.
Or “I hope I get a new job.” A new job. You can hear the noun gets the stress. I hope I get a new job.
But in the phrase “in the long run,” you can hear that the adjective gets the stress. We always say, “In the long run.” We never say, “In the long run.” We don’t stress the noun in this phrase. That’s just not how it works.
And that is “in the long run,” an interesting and common expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 291 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Ateros recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!