DIALOGUE: Giving Your Opinion

This is a conversation between a couple who are planning their vacation.


JAKE: Where should we take a vacation this year? Let’s decide soon. 


MELISSA: Well, I’d like to go somewhere warm. How about the beach? Or we could rent a cabin on the lake. 


JAKE: You want to go to the beach again? I want to ski this winter. How about a compromise? What about traveling to the Alps in Europe next April? We can find a ski resort on a lake.

MELISSA: Oh, we’ve never been to Europe before! But I don’t know if it will be sunny and warm then. I need to do some research first. That will help me make up my mind.





LANGUAGE NOTES

  • To take a vacation means you are just taking a break from work or everyday things or taking your vacation time. You can also use the phrase 'go on  vacation'. To go on vacation means that you are actually planning on going somewhere.

Note: “Go on” is more colloquial/ casual.

  • Decide is a useful verb to express choice. The idiom “to make up my mind” also means “to decide”:
Example:  “There are so many choices in this menu. It’s going to take awhile to make up my mind/decide.” You can finish this sentence with either the idiom or the verb “decide.”

  • How about This phrase presents an alternative. This phrase can be followed by a subject plus a conjugated verb or by a noun: 
Example: How about we go swimming? / How about a movie tonight?
  • Cabin - a small shelter or house, made of wood and situated in a wild or remote area. 

  • Compromise - a way of solving a problem or ending an argument in which both people or groups accept that they cannot have everything they want.
  • Then - mean at that time or at the time in question. "I don’t know if it will be sunny and warm then."

Many verbs express opinions: to think / to believe / to suppose / to assume, etc. They are not all synonymous. 

For example, “to suppose” and “to assume” express that the speaker has a preconceived idea: He came back late from work, so I assumed that traffic was bad. /I suppose that may not have been the case, and that he might just have had a lot of work.


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