Speaker 1: Man, I gotta tell you, I was pretty surprised when
the boss paid for lunch today. I mean, he pays
our salary each month, but he's never treated us to
lunch before. Of course, we were all pleasantly surprised when
he took out his wallet and paid the check for us.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven twenty two.
Let's pay. English vocabulary can be tricky sometimes, especially when
it comes to prepositions. The verb pay is a good
example of this. Pay is such a sin word, but
we can use it on its own, or we can
use pay for pay by, pay in, pay down, pay up,
and even pay back. Let's check it out. First of all,
we use pay four when we use money for something.
Pay four introduces the thing or service we got with money,
like the boss paid for lunch yesterday, or I pay
for my lessons each month, So you pay for goods
or services. If you want to mention how much you
can use pay four like this Paul paid two hundred
bucks for those concert tickets. Every morning, Gray gets breakfast
at the company cafeteria and he he only needs to
pay three dollars for it. Again, you pay for goods
and services. Are you generous with your friends, your family,
or your coworkers. Maybe when you have a meal with them,
it's your treat. That's nice, isn't it. In situations like these,
you can also use pay for you pay for someone,
like I paid for my coworker when we had lunch
at the diner. The boss offered to pay for us
after lunch yesterday. On the other hand, you can use
pay without four when you give money to a person
who provides you with goods and services, like I paid
the pizza delivery guy, or Jen pays the landlord on
the first of the month. In most restaurants, you pay
the server directly. You can also pay a bill, pay
the rent, or pay the check in a restaurant, Hey,
my phone has no signal. Did you pay the phone
bill this month? Let me see. I paid the rent,
I paid the guests, I paid the electric bill. I'm
all set for this month. We also have some different
phrases when we talk about how to pay. You can
pay by credit card, pay by check, or pay by
wire transfer. But keep in mind when you use cash,
you pay in cash, like I usually pay by credit
card to build up miles at the coffee shop in
my neighborhood. If you pay in cash, you get a
three percent discount. And I just mentioned I think these
days not many people pay by check. Next up are
some phrasal verbs related to using money. Have you borrowed
money from anyone? If so, you can pay someone back
or pay back the money you owe. Someone like Sarah
promised to pay back the fifty dollars she borrowed for
me next week. She's gonna pay me back next week,
she said. She would pay me back as soon as
she can. And you can pay back the money you
owe to the bank. After getting his bonus, Daniel paid
back his student loans faster. Of course, it's not easy
to pay back a big loan quickly. Most people just
pay down their debt, which means to reduce the amount
of money you owe on a debt over time. Like
Paul and his wife are paying down their mortgage by
making extra payments each month. Emily has been working extra
hours to pay down her car loan sooner. And what
happens when you totally pay down your debt You pay
it off. Of course, like Alex finally paid off his
student loans after five years, you should pay off your
credit card before buying more stuff. And finally, does anyone
owe you money but they are late in paying you,
or maybe they're just avoiding paying you. In tough cases
like this, you may just have to tell them to
pay up, Hey, pay up. Pay up means to give
someone the money you owe them, like come on, come on,
you owe me twenty dollars. Time to pay up. We
often use pay up when someone is late in paying,
like the landlord told them to pay up or move out.
And keep in mind, the best way to remember vocabulary
like this and any other word or phrase in English
is to take that word or phrase, write it in
a sentence that's true for you or true in your world,
and then memorize your sentences and check this out. Do
you need more experience speaking English? Well, you know you
can get the chance to practice this kind of English
with me directly. That's right. You can get more practice
using your English when you join my podcast Learner's Study group.
There you can make new friends join us for live
group lessons every week where we practice these podcast lessons together.
Plus you get access to the PDF, transcript and audio
download for every Happy English podcast lesson in the past
and in the future. And on top of that, each
episode has exercises where you can practice this English point
with speaking and writing also checked by me. To learn more,
just visit Myhappy English dot com and choose podcasts Lesson
seven seventy two. Remember learning another language is not easy,
but it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you
on your journey.
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