Find your way
Today’s English expression is “find your way.” When you find your way, you have a destination, and you don’t exactly know how to get there, but you figure it out. You have a place you need to get to. You’re not sure exactly how, but you manage to get there. You find your way.
Let me give you a few examples. Imagine you are visiting friends or family in a new city and you’re staying with them in their home. You all go out for dinner and drinks later. It’s getting late and you’re ready to get to bed. So you tell your friends, “I think I’m going to go back.” But you don’t want to stop the party. You don’t want your friends to have to go home with you. So you tell your friends, “I can find my way back.”
“I can find my way back” means, I don’t know precisely how to get back home from here, but I can figure it out . I have Google Maps. I might be able to take an Uber. I can figure it out. Don’t worry about taking me home. I can find my way back.
We’ve all heard stories of lost dogs or cats that somehow find their way home. Dogs have a great sense of smell and direction, so if they get lost, they can sometimes find their way back home. They don’t know exactly how to get there, but they use their sense of smell and direction to find their way home.
In today’s lesson, we were talking about immigrants who cross the southern border of the United States . Some people arrive without a destination in mind. But many people cross the border with some idea of where they’ll go. And the destination is usually based on connections with family, friends, or others from their home region.
When people arrive, just in those first few days, they need help in the border area, closest to where they crossed or where they were released by immigration. But in the next few weeks, they typically find their way to their destination—New York, Chicago, Maryland, New Jersey, California, wherever. They find their way. They might not know how to get from Brownsville, Texas to New York City. But they find their way. They have a general destination in mind and they figure out how to get there.
JR’s song of the week
It’s time for JR’s song of the week. This is an old one and a classic. “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. Vanity is a negative personality trait. If you’re vain, you’re worried too much about your appearance or your own accomplishments. It’s like being a little too proud of yourself, in an unhealthy way.
There’s a funny line in the song that goes like this: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” In other words, you think so much about yourself that you probably think this song is about you. But the song is about how the singer moved on from her relationship with the vain person in question.
“You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon is the song of the week. Thanks, JR!
See you next time!
And that’s all for today’s Plain English. Remember this was lesson number 517, so you can find the full lesson at PlainEnglish.com/517. The full lesson includes a step-by-step video walkthrough and today’s video shows you exactly how to use the phrase “for as long as .” So if you’re not exactly sure what “for as long as” means, then you’ll want to check out today’s video lesson online at PlainEnglish.com/517.
We’ll be back on Monday with a brand new Plain English. See you then!
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