Speaker 1: So the other day I was on the phone with
my friend Ed. We had plans to meet at one
o'clock and it was already one p fifteen. I said
it's time to go, and he goes, h, it's about time.
Have you ever heard that phrase, it's about time? What
does that even mean? Well, today we're going to talk
about how to use a bunch of conversational phrases with
its time in English. I think it's time to start.
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 Jan and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode nine forty six
Phrases with its time in English. Thanks for tuning in.
Today we're gonna look at the phrase it's time, which
on the surface seems pretty simple, right, but as you'll see,
native speakers use this in a bunch of different ways.
Let's start with the most basic form, it's time to go,
it's time to eat, it's time to start the meeting.
You can use it's time to followed by a base
verb anytime that it's the right moment to do something.
For example, last weekend, I was working all morning and
around twelve thirty my stomach started growling and I said,
all right, it's time to eat, and for some reason,
my dog Max thought it's time for him to eat too.
We also use it's time for followed by a noun
when we talk about a specific thing or event. So
you might say it's time for lunch, or it's time
for a break, or if you have a doctor's appointment,
you might hear the nurse say it's time for your checkup.
It's time for something. It's a simple way to signal
that something is about to begin. Now here's where it
gets interesting. We can say things like it's time we left,
or it's time you got a new phone, or it's
time I took a vacation. Did you notice something? Yeah,
the verb is in the past tense. It's time we
left got took. But this doesn't mean it already happened.
Actually it hasn't happened yet, but it should. This is
a grammar thing called the subjunctive. It may sound a
bit formal, but we use it in casual conversation all
the time. And again, the pattern is it's time followed
by a subject and then a past verb, like imagine
you've been working way too much lately. Your friend might
say it's time you took a break. You didn't take
the break yet, but your friend thinks it's the right moment.
So we use the past tense to express something that
should happen now. Now let's talk about the phrase I
mentioned earlier, it's about time. This one adds emotion, sometimes relief,
sometimes frustration, sometimes both. Let's say you're waiting in line
at the bank, and finally, after twenty minutes, they open
up another window. You can say it's about time. When
you say it's about time, it's like you're saying, why
did this take so long? Like when you're waiting for
a bus in New York City, waiting and waiting and waiting,
and then finally the bus comes, it's about time. And
here too, we use it's about time followed by a
past sentence, like it's about time Jack came to work.
That guy is always late. Or when the city finally
gets around to fixing the potholes in the street, you
can say it's about time they fix the road. You're
saying it took them too long to do it, and
finally they did it. It's about time. That happened means finally,
why did it take so long? It's emotional. Maybe you
were annoyed or waiting, or just surprised that they actually
did it and finally. Sometimes we just say it's time.
That's it, just those two words, and it sounds kind
of dramatic, right. We use its time when we are
in charge of starting something big or important, like if
it's your turn to go on the stage for a speech,
someone may tell you, okay, Michael, it's time. You hear
people say this a lot in dramatic scenes in movies,
like when James Bond is about to start his secret mission,
or in Star Wars when the rebel Alliance is about
to strike the empire. Luke, it's time. Very dramatic and
mara emotional than saying, let's begin our mission and now
it's time to recap. We use it's time to to
talk about something that needs to happen now, like it's
time to finish this lesson. We use it's time for
followed by a noun like it's time for lunch. We
use it's time followed by a past sentence for soft
advice or things that are overdue, like it's time we
started packing for our trip. We use it's about time
when something took too long, like it's about time the
meeting started, and finally just it's time, which is a
dramatic way to say, let's do it. And keep in mind,
the best way to remember English 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. That's how you build fluency. Thanks for listening,
and 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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