Name: Money spent on time makes you happy: BBC News Review
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T15:43:32.000Z
Duration: 8 min 15 s
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Hello and welcome to News Review, the programme where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English.

I'm Dan and joining me today is Catherine.

Today's story, Dan, is about two of everyone's most valuable resources, that is money and time.

I certainly do not have enough of either.

OK, let's go to this Radio 4 bulletin to hear more.

The old adage that money can't buy you happiness has been put to the test by scientists in Canada.

They discovered that when you use money to free up time, by paying someone to do your chores, for example, you're more likely to feel happy than if you spend it on material goods.

So Canadian scientists there have discovered that when we use money to buy time, to get things done so we have more time, that makes us happier than using money to buy things.

So, Dan, next time you're thinking of buying a new pair of shoes, spend your money not on the shoes, buy someone in to do some cleaning for you and you'll be much happier.

That actually sounds like a really, really good idea. Thank you. I'll do that.

So you've been looking around at the news for three words and expressions that we can use to understand and talk about this story. What have you found?

I have found chores, underrated and outsourcing.

We can. Let's go to the i and the headline is Revealed. Paying others to do your chores is the secret to happiness.

OK, so chores are things that you do at home. It's work, jobs that you do around the house. Most people don't like doing them but you have to do them to keep your house running smoothly. So things like doing the washing up, putting the rubbish out, vacuuming or cleaning. Homework?

It's normally to do, can be a chore in a different sense but it's generally sort of domestic tasks.

English and American culture where kids in particular have to do jobs around the house and they call them chores. But we know and use the word in English, British

English as well. OK. Also any chores you don't like doing at home?

Well, I actually have a chore that I really like and that is washing clothes.

There's something really satisfying about emptying your laundry basket. So while it's a chore for some people, it's actually a pleasure for me.

OK. And is there a second meaning to this word?

There is actually and I've just sort of touched on it there. If something is a chore, it's something that you have to do, maybe not at home, but you don't like it, it's boring, it's repetitive but necessary.

So, for example, admin that you have to do at work. Maybe you've got to fill in forms a lot and it's boring and you don't like it, you don't look forward to it but you have to do it. It's a chore. It's a bit like saying something's boring.

OK, like when I'm standing in the queue in the cafeteria waiting to get breakfast.

No, standing in a queue when you're hungry is a real chore.

We do. You can have an errand if you've got to go and do something and bring something or just a job. A chore, a household chore is a household job.

OK, so before this programme becomes a chore for our listeners, let's move on to our second headline.

This is the best, most underrated way to make your money feel worth more, according to science.

Underrated, not given the high level of approval that it deserves.

Exactly that. So if something's really good but people don't recognise that it's really good, it's underrated. They underrate it.

Or Vincent van Gogh, as I often call him.

And he was an artist who never sold any work during his life. Nobody bought his paintings but now if you want a van Gogh, you have to pay millions for one. So we can say that during his lifetime, Vincent van Gogh was underrated as an artist.

OK, but paying millions and millions and millions for a painting, don't you think that's maybe too much?

I think you're trying to say some people think he's overrated. So overrated is the opposite. When people give, when we think that something's better than it actually is, we can say it's overrated.

Goji berries? So yes, well I was expecting a lot. Maybe I was expecting too much. I had a bowl of goji berries. I was expecting to feel ten years younger. I ate them and really nothing happened.

Oh, it's a terrible shame. So completely overrated, goji berries.

Alright, let's have a look at our third headline, please.

OK, so looking at now the Vancouver courier, outsourcing chores makes us happier so why aren't we doing it?

Outsourcing – paying someone else to do your tasks for you.

Yes, and it comes from the world of business and industry in particular.

When a business, for example, clothing sales companies, all the high street shops in the West, most of them sell clothes but they don't make them.

They design them but they outsource, in other words, they get another factory to make the clothes that they can sell.

So it's where you get, we can also use it in maybe in a big office where you they have a canteen. The office doesn't actually run the canteen. Another company runs the office canteen so the office outsources the canteen.

Or like a hotel outsourcing the cleaning of its bed sheets to a smaller laundry company.

But is this something I can use on a personal level? Would I say like I outsource the cleaning of my house to somebody?

Yeah, you could say it and it would be understandable but slightly over formal so you'd be more likely to use it something you'd say like I had the cleaning done or I had my windows cleaned, something like that.

Hang on a minute, to have something done, that's a grammar structure, isn't it? What's it called?

It's called the causative, Dan. To have something done or to get something done is a way of saying you got somebody to do something for you.

I see. Have plus the object plus the past participle.

Not just vocabulary but grammar too on this week's News Review.

Alright, so before we recap our vocabulary, let's go to our Facebook challenge. Now, scientists have discovered that the old adage that money can't buy you happiness may be incorrect. But which of these is not a synonym for adage? Is it...

Mixed response this week. Some people got caught out but for everybody who, including Abbas Raid,

Roberto Ventimiglia and Dirk Gutschmann, who said catchphrase is a phrase that's connected with a particular person, especially someone famous such as a television entertainer. Catchphrase is not the same as adage.

Very nice. Good. Alright, could you please recap the vocabulary for us?

I could. We had chores, which means boring but necessary tasks, underrated, not given the high level of approval that it deserves and outsourcing, paying someone else to do your tasks for you.

Thank you very much. Now, if you'd like to test yourself on today's vocabulary, there's a quiz that you can take on our website bbclearningenglish.com, where you'll also find lots of other fantastic resources and videos to help you learn

English. Thank you very much for joining us and goodbye.