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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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toya0831

China

The only way of me to wast time is sleep. I do think it’s the best way to wast time and relax.

07:02 AM Oct 31 2013 |

1 person likes this

Erise

Erise

Poland

Well, what’s exactly “wasting time”? Opinions differ.There are so many provoking ideas about this term but most agree that time spent on something with pleasure was not wasted.


Everything matters, every single day and hour; it’s not wasted.

08:57 PM Mar 25 2013 |

laptop786

laptop786

India

waste time or free time has one saving grace is that u can watch your fr8 movies.there are many more ways to reduce waste time like reading books,do exersice or hang out with ur friends but watching movies is big one for me!!!!

06:53 AM Mar 16 2013 |

1 person likes this

Olivine

Olivine

Indonesia

do the things we like is not a wasting time, we enjoy it.


do the things we do not like is not a wasting time either if we get benefits and able to learn something by doing so.


however sleeping and space out too much is a waste of time.

05:41 AM Mar 16 2013 |

1 person likes this

vicmay_lo-flo@live.com.mx

Mexico

They could lose thousands of ways.


that at the beginning you can be nice, but … all the time you lose.. never returns.!!!!

06:16 PM Feb 06 2013 |

mjsymbol

United States

There is something quite annoying about these english lessons. Can’t there be a notification that lets you know the level that is requiered to understand this lesson?



I beg you 

08:59 AM Feb 04 2013 |

1 person likes this

Sajjad Monti

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

I think it’s not wasting time, It’s just free time! :)


I like to read newspapers and magazines in my free time, Like Machine Mag, a very famous magazine about cars in Iran, I like it so much!

07:32 PM Feb 03 2013 |

1 person likes this

Gentleman in Ebaby

Saudi Arabia

hey Seiyf


how r u doing there ? a long time we didn’t talk ???

06:49 PM Feb 03 2013 |

AppleRome

AppleRome

Antarctica

I dont agree with your perception about your “wasting time” habit, peeps ^^.. It sounds like you did crime and then reflected it with fear. 


Wasting time 2-3 hours around is completely okay. What do you expect when you live in busy 21th century with so many interesting things around and so many things to achieve? I see wasting time as a happy exit to me. And Sunday is really “holy day”.


The more important issue than this: People have less-time for each other nowadays. Even they prefer to go wasting time alone.


06:38 PM Feb 03 2013 |

MimKun

MimKun

Yemen

I visit the gym in my free time & play video games ! 

02:59 PM Feb 03 2013 |

maliesfand

maliesfand

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

hi my name is maliheh i live in iran plz add me into your list and speake with me


i born 24 feb 1990

11:17 AM Feb 03 2013 |

Tracy_green

China

I‘d like to say people are either too busy or too idle nowadays. I think we should live in a balanced life. Never go to extremes.

03:16 AM Feb 03 2013 |

yuminaga

yuminagaSuper Member!

China

We are human being so we can get sick of doing same thing for a long time even its the very impotant thing we havto cope with .having a moment to take a break can balance  when we  start to feel bad about ourself. peruse internet , watch Tv shows ,movies ,amble arong house ,anything like space out .it can be good for us .a friend of mind is kind of productive ,she play game with iPhone occasionally to take a break. for me I always like to be doing something perfect ,but I dont have a lot of enengy a lot of time ,thats when I find  myself geting sucked in to that trap such as I could get frutrated with myself when something i do is not perfect .Wow its really horrible, i feel like  i could be killed by myself .I dont like to waste time  but waiteting time is neccesarilly a bad thing,i have realized recently .life is glorious , have fun with it ,be happy everyda ,everytime!

03:09 AM Feb 03 2013 |

chaumy

chaumy

Viet Nam

I allways be crazy with the karoke programs of Apple. I spend most of my free time to doing some cover songs for fun. Probably, it is a boring liking with some people, but it is so much intereting for me. I usually cover some famous English songs. You might tell I am wasting my time for a kid game, but it is not. When i record my voice, I can heard what makes different between my English pronunciation with other one. I can fix my mistakes little by little through my singing.

01:26 AM Feb 03 2013 |

J.milk

Brazil

This dialogue is about me.

01:14 AM Feb 03 2013 |

1 person likes this

Defang

Defang

France

I waste so much time doing nothing but hanging out on the internet, reading dumb websites like 9gag, Facebook.. It’s truly uninteresting but just a funny way to do nothing, time really flies when I do that, it’s a bad thing I guess…


At least I learn english with those fooleries. :)

05:58 PM Feb 02 2013 |

DAMAVAND

DAMAVAND

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

If you do anything without any enjoyment, you actually waste your time,however it’s your job or you want to make money more!!

















02:56 PM Feb 02 2013 |

Ya Nina

Kazakhstan

I’m sure that all of us have to time for relaxing, spacing out. It can be anything at all. We have to sit around in our uneasy, heavy life. We hurried to manage with all our responsibilities, cares, private matters every day, every hour, every minute… Therefore it is very important that we have time to to stop and to think of our life: for what I live, how I live and where I hurry?

02:35 PM Feb 02 2013 |

haitham4vip

Egypt

u have to find many things to cover this point

01:16 PM Feb 02 2013 |

kareem_10

kareem_10

Egypt

From my point of view, using computer and cell phones is a big waste of time..I know that they ‘re sometimes useful but most of the time spent sitting on them goes in vain..and they say that modern technology was ment to save our time!!! 

10:50 AM Feb 02 2013 |

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