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Hi, I'm Olivier.
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Welcome to Oxford Online English!
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In this lesson, you can learn to talk about everyday problems.
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You'll hear a story of a bad day, and see different phrases you can use to describe
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everyday problems.
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I had the *worst* day yesterday.
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I slept horribly.
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I was tossing and turning all night.
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I had insomnia.
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I finally got to sleep about five in the morning.
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But then…
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I overslept.
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I missed my alarm.
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I slept through my alarm.
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On the way to work, the traffic was awful.
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I was sitting in traffic for an hour.
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My car broke down.
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I had to wait for an hour for the tow truck, and I was late for work.
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A tow truck is a vehicle which can transport a car.
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If your car has broken down, and it can't drive anywhere, you'll need to call a tow
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truck to bring it to a garage.
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At work, I got in a huge argument with one of my colleagues.
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We have a big deadline coming, so we're all under a lot of pressure.
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I was working late, and I spilled coffee all over some important papers.
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I had to stay really late to finish everything.
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I couldn't concentrate and I got frustrated.
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On the way home, I missed the last train.
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I couldn't find my keys.
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I was locked out.
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I finally got home, and saw that my flatmate had eaten my leftovers.
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There was nothing to eat for dinner, and it was too late to buy anything.
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Finally, to cap it all, I dropped my phone down the toilet.
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'To cap it all' is a phrase to introduce the last bad thing in a list of bad things.
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It means something like 'even worse'.
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That's our bad day!
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What about you?
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Here's a task for you: have these things happened to you recently?
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Try to use the phrases you saw in this lesson to describe a bad day you've had.
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Can you think of other everyday problems we haven't mentioned?
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Share your ideas in the comments.
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Thanks for watching!