- pull your weight: meaning and explanation
- Listening exercises
- Micro-listening #1
- Accent: Scottish
- Micro-listening #2
- Accent: North America
- Micro-listening #3
- Accent: England [London]
- Micro-listening #1
pull your weight: meaning and explanation
When you are doing something as part of a team, you arepulling your weightif you are working as hard as you should be working, or contributing as much as the others in the group.
This expression is generally used in the negative, to say that someone is being lazy or not contributing much to a project. This person isnot pulling their weight. In these situations, the other members of the group or team have to work harder to compensate for the lazy team member
This expression comes from the sport ofrowing. Based on someones weight [i.e. their size] you can expect them to pull or row with a certain amount of strength. If they contribute less than this, they are not pulling their weight [and their team mates will have to work even harder if they want to be successful].
Have a go at these micro-dictation exercises to hear this expression being used in context how much can you understand?
Listening exercises
Micro-listening #1
Accent: Scottish
- Hard
- Medium
About the sentence
let your boss know straight away
Straight away is a useful synonym for immediately.
Notice the useful structure to let someone know something, which means to tell someone something. e.g. Ill give you a call to let you know that weve arrived safely.
Micro-listening #2
Accent: North America
- Hard
- Medium
About the sentence
a word of warning
The phrase a word of warning is commonly used to introduce a warning. e.g. Its a good film. A word of warning though, it gets a bit violent towards the end.
Im not going to put up with anyone
You can get some practice with the phrasal verb to put up with someone here.
Micro-listening #3
Accent: England [London]
- Hard
- Medium
About the sentence
How are you getting on
The phrasal verb to get on with something can be used to ask someone about the progress they are making with something. e.g. How are you getting on with your book? You didnt seem to be enjoying it yesterday.
Extra practice
Here are some questions/links to help you learn the new vocabulary:
- Almost everyone has experienced being part of a team which includes someone who doesnt contribute as much as they should. What is your experience of this? What did you do about it?
- Be totally honest do you think there has ever been a time when you didnt pull your weight?
Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash
Tagged in:
England [London], North America, Scotland