Everyday phrases for communication — Post 21
Read post 20 here
Today’s mini-dialogue:
— I have a sneaking suspicion she has a grudge against you.
— Who cares?
What you need to remember:
- The set expression 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗼𝗻 means the same as 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁, but it is more emotional. It means you think or feel something that can be a surprise for the person you are speaking with.
— I have a sneaking suspicion (that) she’s not telling the truth. (=I think that…)
— She had a sneaking suspicion that he was lying. (=She had a feeling that…)
2. If you want to say that somebody is offended or angry with you and treats you unfairly because of that, use the phrase 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 / 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 / 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗔 𝗴𝗿𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 or 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 / 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 / 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘀.
— He appears to have a grudge against certain players. (=He treats some players unfairly)
— He has a grudge against the world. (=He is angry with the whole world).
— I don’t bear grudges. (=I don’t remember anything bad)
3. If you want to say that the situation or the opinion of another person is not very important to you and you disagree, you can use the following set expressions:
— Who cares?
— So what?
— I don’t care.
— Whatever.
They all mean ‘I don’t want to pay too much attention to it’ / ‘It’s not important to me’. They can sound a bit rude so use them only in INFORMAL communication. 😀 If you want to sound more polite, you can use:
— It doesn’t matter. (=It’s not so important)
4. CARE in this context means ‘to see as important, to value’. We also can use it in a phrase 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 / 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆
— I care about you. (=You are very important to me)
— I don’t care about it.(=It doesn’t matter / It’s not important to me)
Today we have learnt a couple of spoken set expressions and learnt how to say that something is not important for you.
If you speak Russian, you can read these lessons in Russian (and practise) in my Telegram channel. Join us!
My name is Daria Storozhilova and this is a series of mini-lessons teaching you how to communicate in English with helpful phrases and spoken expressions.
Read our Smart English Blog (grammar and vocabulary lessons, free quizzes for practice, and podcast for English learners).
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