To get back on your feet
Today’s expression is “to get back on your feet.” It’s helpful here to picture someone being knocked down to the ground, maybe in a fight. The person can either stay down or he can get back on his feet. When someone gets back on his feet in a fight, he’s ready to continue fighting. But we most often use this metaphorically. When you’re going through a bad time, you might feel like you’ve been knocked down. But when you’re ready to move on, when you’re ready to continue with your life, you get back on your feet.
Imagine you know someone who just went through a messy breakup. That feels terrible. The person is probably going through a few weeks, or months, of gloomy feelings or worse. But eventually, hopefully, your friend gets back on his feet. When he starts to recover, when he starts to feel better, when he’s ready to resume his life, he gets back on his feet. He’s ready to fight another day!
It can happen at work, too. You might lose a big customer, lose a grant, face an unexpected expense. Maybe a key coworker quits and leaves you high and dry. You might go through a few days or weeks of lower productivity. But eventually, you as a team or a business, can get back on your feet. You can recover your energy. You can go win a new customer, hire a new employee, whatever. You’re back in business. You’re putting the bad days behind you. You’re back on your feet.
That’s what I said is happening with the tourism industry as a whole. They’re not totally recovered from the meltdown of 2020, but they’re back on their feet. Borders are starting to open, people are vaccinated, museums and attractions are open, and people are feeling comfortable to travel again. Sure, it isn’t like before. Entire countries like China and Australia are off-limits. But the tourism industry is starting to get back on its feet. The flights I took were half- to three-quarters full. People were in the museums. There was a line outside popular restaurants. The tourism industry is back on its feet.
A lot of people who work in the tourism industry have to get back on their feet, too. We talked about music venues that had to shut down during the pandemic. All the bartenders, servers, bands, workers at attractions: they all need to get back on their feet after being out of a job for so long.
Quote of the Week
Today’s quote of the week is from Oscar Wilde, a famous British writer. Now before anyone gets mad at me, I’m going to say that I saw this quote on the cover of menu in Vienna, okay. So don’t say I’m being insensitive by choosing this quote: I saw it in a German-speaking country.
Here’s the quote. Oscar Wilde says, “Life is too short to learn German.”
I laughed when I saw it. The café near my apartment in Vienna had an English menu and a German menu. The café was also a bookshop, so it had a literary vibe. And on the cover of the English menu, it had that quote from Oscar Wilde, “Life is too short to learn German.”
Now, this was my first trip in a long time to a country that isn’t either English- or Spanish-speaking. I’ve been in my comfort zone traveling to Mexico, Colombia, Spain, India, Ireland, and London. The last time I was in a country that did not officially speak English or Spanish was 2013, so it’s been a while. It was a good to get out of my comfort zone and not be embarrassed about not speaking the local language. As Oscar Wilde says, “Life is too short to learn German!”
See you next time!
And that’s all for today, Monday, October 4, 2021. Remember this full lesson is available at PlainEnglish.com/404. JR has made sure of that. Coming up on Thursday, I’ll take you step by step through everything I had to do to stay compliant with the rules in the five countries I visited during this trip. That’s on Thursday. See you then.
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
