Understanding the expression 'looking forward to'

https://www.send7.org

Full English Transcript:

Look forward to.

Do you have any favorite idiom or expression in English?


Yeah. Probably my favorite idiom expression is something which is quite common actually. It's not so difficult. But I just love it because it's something we use all the time and it's not very translatable. Well, it's not translatable into Spanish and French in a very good way. And it is just "ooking forward to" I look forward to, so, you know, I look forward to seeing you next week.


0:41 I look forward to that big talk.

Me too. Me too. I really look forward what Stephen is going to tell us about his favorite English expression. Thank you for tuning in guys. You are listening to the Vocab Man, as always, you may take advantage of the transcript, which is available in our show notes for free. In case you didn't recognize Stephen .

01:05 Special Guest Stephen Devincenzi from the SEND 7 Podcast

Stephen is actually the creator and speaker of the podcast called Simple English News Daily (SEND 7)

Good morning. This is SEND 7 world news in seven minutes. I'm Stephen Devincenzi it's Wednesday, the 24th of February, 2021,

Starting in Africa today. In Niger Mohamoud Bazoum has been declared the winner of the presidential election...


1:42 So usually,we listento him in a more formal context because he is reading out the news.

I'm looking forward to the summer. And of course, during pandemic times, I'm looking forward to hugging my mum again, this expression I think is just really, really nice.


And from trying to translate it into Spanish with some of my Spanish speaking friends, there's nothing, which is quite the same.

It just doesn't quite exist. And it in French as well, the same, it just, there's nothing, you know, there's some things which are similar, but not the same.


2:17 Could you give us an explanation in English or could you paraphrase this chunk of

Yeah, I'm looking forward to: so. Looking forward to is something that you will only say if you know that something is going to happen. So, you can't say I'm looking forward to winning the lottery because you don't know if you're going to win the lottery. Well, actually you probably aren't. So, I'm looking forward to would be for something that you know is going to happen.

2:49

So, you know, that Christmas is going to come again. So you can say I'm looking forward to Christmas. And you know, that's it can be a very nice thing to say, even in an email or something like that, it can be used in informal situations. As I said before, you're talking to your mum who you haven't seen in person for many months.

And you say, mum, I'm looking forward to hugging you soon or just, I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. But also you can even use it in a more formal situation. So if you are, for example, I don't know you having a business meeting or an interview with someone, even then, you can always say, I'm looking forward to seeing you.

Or, I'm looking forward to talking to you. so it can be both informal and formal. And I think it's just got a really nice feeling behind it, which is why I like it. And I use it a lot.

3:48
And is it something that students don't use correctly, maybe?

Do you see it?

Yes I do. I sometimes would see people, using it in ways probably because in Spanish and French, There is no good translation that it can be just quite difficult to use. For example, you wouldn't say I'm looking forward to eating a pizza, you know, you might say I'm looking forward to when that pizza arrives at my door, which I've already ordered on the phone maybe.

But yeah, I think it's just because it's quite a difficult phrase to translate that. Yeah, I think people just don't use it that much, but English speakers do use it a lot.

Ruby. I look forward to this. We all do I look forward to getting to know you Bianca?

There's nothing. I look forward to with a greater pleasure.


4:50 Thank you Stephen!

Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much, Stephen, for that, I really liked that. Stephen where can we find you to wrap this interview up?

Thank you very much. Wrap up the interview. That's a great expression as well. No. Well thank you for having me Daniel people can listen to Simple English News Daily in their podcast app. They just, all of them, Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, all of them. I think, you can look for simple English news daily.

Podcasts and the websites where you can find the transcripts and all old episodes is send7.org, S E N D 7.org. But yeah, I think I think that's pretty much it, Daniel.

So that's actually pretty much it for today, guys, as Stephen said it before. And as a matter of fact, this was only a small part of the whole interview, which I conducted with Stephen, which lasts about 45 minutes in which he talked about his language journey and his great podcast. I personally find it a great way to learn and improve English by listening to a news podcast, which is specifically tailored for English learners.

Have a good one.

You can listen to my interview with Daniel about my language journey and my podcast journey. On episode 92 of my fluent podcast, have a great day.

There's nothing I look forward to with great pleasure.


The full interview with Stephen is here: www.myfluentpodcast episode 92


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