Hi. What’s up? No episódio de hoje eu falo sobre doing everything in your power, se você quiser dizer doing everything I can com um pouco mais de vigor.

Hello, everyone. How’s it going? We’re starting now a new episode of the Inglês online podcast. That’s right. We’re back!

Let’s get right into it, because on this podcast… We do not waste time. We go right into the expressions and here’s our idiom for today: everything in my power, everything in his power.

It’s quite a simple one to understand, but in Portuguese – or in Brazil, anyway – we say it… We don’t really say it this way. We wouldn’t translated (it) literally to Brazilian Portuguese this way, and I believe even European Portuguese. Everything in my power: that means “everything I can”. I will do everything in my power to make this or that happen. That means simply “I will do everything I can” – but if you use everything in my power, that shows you have a bit more vocabulary, a bit more English vocabulary than just “I will do everything I can”.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say Jane has seen a doctor… and the doctor had a serious heart-to-heart with Jane, and said: Jane, you need to lose some weight… because your excess weight is creating this and that health risk. You’re in a worse shape now than you were, let’s say, three years ago. You have to take care of yourself and get yourself back into shape.

What does Jane do for the next two months? She does everything in her power to lose a bit of weight. She starts exercising regularly… Ok, she starts walking, all right? That’s exercise too! She starts walking around the neighborhood before she goes to work, she learns how to cook better recipes… More nutritious recipes that are still delicious – she enjoys what she’s eating but now she’s eating more nutritious food, which means she is satisfied with less, I guess.

She cuts excess bread from her diet, she starts eating less pasta and more, let’s say, tuna. She looks up healthy recipes online, she starts watching TV shows, she learns a little bit about nutrition – the basics of nutrition. In other words, she’s doing everything in her power, everything she can, everything she has the ability to do. She’s doing everything in her power to go back to a healthy diet.

Another example would be if… Let’s say, you’re a guy and your sister is having a birthday party in three months and she really wants to waltz. You know, waltz? It’s a musical style. She wants to learn how to waltz. And your sister… She doesn’t have a husband or a boyfriend. She asks you – you’re her brother – she asks you Can you dance with me at my birthday party? I really want to dance to waltz. That’s my wish. You don’t even have to give me a birthday gift, seriously! Your gift to me will be: you dance with me.

You and your sister do everything in your power to become better dancers: you watch videos online, you practice every day, you even consider hiring an instructor… But then you find online classes that are pretty good and you don’t hire the instructor. But you are really doing everything in your power to become a better dancer. You’re doing everything you can.

Tell me: everyone can tell a story about this. Years and years ago I did everything in my power to improve Inglês Online when we were just… when I was just starting the website and people started asking me for help to learn English. I did everything in my power: I did research, I talked to other people, I wrote tips, I did videos.

What is it in your life that you did everything in your power to accomplish? Let me know and talk to you soon. Bye.

Key expressions

• Everything in my/your/his/etc power
  

Vocabulary

have a heart-to-heart with someone = ter uma conversa franca com alguém

lose some weight = perder peso, emagrecer

get yourself back into shape = voltar a ficar em forma

waltz = valsa