Phrases and practice

Learn a useful phrase in context, listen to its pronunciation and practise saying it.

• The narrator's later knowledge permeates the description of an earlier scene, but should not be attributed to the character at the time it unfolded.C2 · #4051
• The leap in time does not so much explain the change in the relationship as oblige the reader to reconstruct it from scattered clues.C2 · #4052
• What appears, in light of the ending, to foreshadow disaster may have been utterly trivial to the characters in the original scene.C2 · #4053
• Revisiting the same memory changes its appraisal, but not necessarily the set of events to which the narrator refers.C2 · #4054
• Without deciding whether the narrator deliberately withholds details, we can identify how the order of disclosure shapes our judgment of the characters.C2 · #4055
• The question sounds like an invitation to reflect, yet in this context presupposes an answer the other person cannot reject without challenging a shared premise.C2 · #4056
• The apparent compliment becomes a barb only when read against the preceding remark; the sentence alone does not establish an ironic intention.C2 · #4057
• If we read this reply literally, we miss the fact that it echoes the other person's words in order to challenge their aptness.C2 · #4058
• The retort draws its force not from insulting language but from an ostentatiously polite acceptance of a claim undermined by the rest of the scene.C2 · #4059
• Not every instance of excessive politeness is sarcasm; that reading requires identifying a tension between the wording and the situation.C2 · #4060
• The working definition serves this argument without claiming to exhaust every use of the concept beyond it.C2 · #4061
• A borderline example does not automatically refute the definition, but reveals where the chosen criterion of distinction needs justification.C2 · #4062
• If we shift the meaning of a key term halfway through the argument, the apparent consistency of the conclusions may stem solely from that unnoticed shift.C2 · #4063
• A narrower account makes the comparison more precise, provided it does not exclude the very cases that prompted the original question.C2 · #4064
• Rather than settle the dispute by a label alone, let us explain which features of the example support placing it in this category.C2 · #4065
• Standardising the characters' speech smooths the dialogue, but may also erase differences in their social positions and attitudes towards the conversation.C2 · #4066
• There is no need to imitate every regional expression to preserve the distance between one character's formal tone and another's ease.C2 · #4067
• An awkwardness left uncorrected may be a feature of the character's voice, so removing it requires more than judging the sentence inelegant.C2 · #4068
• When the narrator adopts a character's vocabulary, the translation should reflect that shift without automatically attributing the character's judgments to the author.C2 · #4069
• Here, consistency does not mean giving every line the same register, but consistently preserving the distinctions that structure the dialogue.C2 · #4070
• Seeing things through rose-tinted glasses helps the heroine endure everyday difficulties, but makes it harder for her to recognise that the old arrangement no longer works.C2 · #4071
• This reconciliation is a double-edged sword: it ends the open dispute while entrenching the dependence the protagonist was trying to escape.C2 · #4072
• The complaint about decorations becomes a smokescreen when it diverts attention from the unresolved allocation of responsibility for the event as a whole.C2 · #4073
• That remark was the last straw, not the sole cause of ending a collaboration already marked by mutual distrust.C2 · #4074
• A request for one exception opened Pandora's box: the conversation exposed numerous old grievances that no one had initially intended to raise.C2 · #4075
• Her invitation sounds warm, but the remark about how early she gets up subtly sets a limit on our visit.C2 · #4126
• When she says after your third helping that you surely cannot be hungry, concern starts to sound uncomfortably like a dig.C2 · #4127
• You need not explain your refusal in such detail that a polite answer turns into an invitation to negotiate your reasons.C2 · #4128
• Calling a guest undemanding can be a compliment, but it can also betray an expectation that they will express no needs at all.C2 · #4129
• I will take that remark as a joke, though it would be easier if you did not repeat it every time we met.C2 · #4130
• In this letter, a declaration of selflessness precedes a request for a favour, which invites a more cautious reading of the writer's assurances.C2 · #4131
• The change in how the recipient is addressed may signal distance, but without further evidence I would not call it a break in the relationship.C2 · #4132
• The reply's courteous tone does not rule out a refusal; that very courtesy may allow the refusal to remain unstated.C2 · #4133
• Reading only the surviving letters from one side makes it easy to attribute a silence to the other that the documents do not establish.C2 · #4134
• This sentence both maintains intimacy and recalls a debt, so I would not read its warmth as unconditional.C2 · #4135
• The sparse set does not so much remove the social context as compel the audience to reconstruct it from gestures and silences.C2 · #4136
• Repeating the same line after the lighting changes makes a promise begin to sound like a warning.C2 · #4137
• I would not equate the audience's discomfort with a failure of the production when the performance questions the spectator's very comfort.C2 · #4138
• The costume suggests the character's rank, yet the way the actress wears it unsettles that hierarchy.C2 · #4139
• The ending does not resolve the conflict but shifts the question from who was at fault to who still bears the consequences.C2 · #4140
• An apology loses credibility when acknowledging the harm immediately gives way to listing the wrongdoer's difficulties.C2 · #4141
• Explaining the intention may add to an apology, but its validity should not depend on whether the recipient accepts that intention.C2 · #4142
• Let us not expect the person harmed to reconcile immediately merely because we have publicly admitted our mistake.C2 · #4143
• Expressing regret about someone's feelings can evade the central issue: responsibility for the action that caused them.C2 · #4144
• A promise to make amends sounds concrete only when it is clear who will do what and by when.C2 · #4145
• Let us not add fuel to the fire by dismissing their objections as whims just before trying to reach agreement.C2 · #4146
• This proposal allows both sides to save face, although neither gets everything it sought.C2 · #4147
• The order of the names became a bone of contention, even though the main scope of the collaboration had long been agreed.C2 · #4148
• A victory bought at the cost of trust may prove Pyrrhic if the next agreement requires the same partners again.C2 · #4149
• Let us not bring matters to a head when only one detail remains and it can be clarified without an ultimatum.C2 · #4150
• I can accept that you meant well without also accepting your account of what happened.C2 · #4201
• I am not asking you to withdraw your opinion, but to leave room for an experience that does not fit it.C2 · #4202
• I appreciate your honesty, although the way you expressed it made it harder for me to address the substance of your remark.C2 · #4203
• Perhaps we agree on the facts and disagree only about how much responsibility follows from them.C2 · #4204
• If I am to answer without pretending to agree, I need a moment to separate my own disappointment from my assessment of your idea.C2 · #4205
• The absence of evidence of dissent does not make agreement a presumed fact that the other side must then disprove.C2 · #4206
• If an exception undermines their rule, it should undermine ours as well; otherwise the difference lies in allegiance, not in the criterion.C2 · #4207
• Demanding absolute certainty for one hypothesis while accepting tenuous evidence for another settles the outcome before the discussion begins.C2 · #4208
• Being able to imagine a scenario is not enough to oblige the other person to demonstrate that it never happened.C2 · #4209
• I am not rejecting this account because it is inconvenient, but because its details are insulated from every possible check.C2 · #4210
• The warmth of a commemorative text does not require polishing a biography until its subject no longer seems human.C2 · #4211
• I would prefer one specific gesture recalled from memory to a string of tributes that could fit anyone else just as well.C2 · #4212
• This passage says more about our desire for reconciliation than about a relationship that was actually rebuilt.C2 · #4213
• Let us not turn other people's recollections into a harmonious chorus when part of their value is that they do not form a single portrait.C2 · #4214
• The ending can give the writer a sense of closure without pretending to resolve every matter left behind by the subject.C2 · #4215
• The quotation borrowed from an advertisement retains its rhythm, but in this dialogue it turns from a promise into a comment on disappointed expectations.C2 · #4216
• The parody is recognisable to people familiar with the original; to others, the same passage may sound like an entirely serious declaration.C2 · #4217
• An abrupt bureaucratic phrase in an intimate conversation need not signal an absence of feeling; it may be an attempt to avoid revealing it.C2 · #4218
• In this dialogue, repeating the other person's term amounts to a refusal to accept its framing, although on the surface it sounds like agreement.C2 · #4219
• If we remove the awkwardness of this line in translation, we may smooth away the very feature that reveals the character's uncertainty.C2 · #4220
• Knowing the outcome makes it easy to see an earlier signal as an obvious sign of what was to come, although at the time it competed with many conflicting indications.C2 · #4221
• A bad outcome does not in itself prove recklessness, just as a good one does not turn a risky decision into a sound one.C2 · #4222
• I would assess that decision using the information available then and use later knowledge to improve the process, not to impute earlier certainty.C2 · #4223
• Pointing to a missed possibility is not enough; we must also explain why its importance could have been recognised before the outcome was known.C2 · #4224
• What now looks like a straightforward alternative may at the time have required resources the decision-makers did not have.C2 · #4225
• The narrator may accurately recount the events while misreading the motives they attribute to the other characters.C2 · #4276
• A gap in the story is not yet evidence of a lie; it may mark the limits of memory, attention, or willingness to speak.C2 · #4277
• The detail mentioned in passing undermines the narrator's certainty precisely because the narrator fails to recognise its significance.C2 · #4278
• Sympathy for a character does not oblige the reader to accept that character's account as the only possible interpretation.C2 · #4279
• By addressing the reader as an old acquaintance, the narrator creates an intimacy that may colour the assessment of the account before it is examined.C2 · #4280
• Thank you for the recognition, although I would rather not present a shared achievement as proof of my own exceptional ability.C2 · #4281
• I appreciate the compliment, but the comparison with my predecessor puts me in the position of judging work I do not know.C2 · #4282
• I am glad the result feels effortless, but I would not want that ease to obscure the work of those who prepared it.C2 · #4283
• I can accept praise for this project without also promising that every future one will succeed under identical conditions.C2 · #4284
• Your trust matters to me, but being labelled the person who always copes makes it harder to ask for ordinary help later.C2 · #4285
• Failure to fulfil the stated intention matters when evaluating the work, but does not settle the question of the value of what was actually created.C2 · #4286
• A novel form may attract attention without deepening the experience; the criterion of interest should therefore not automatically replace the criterion of value.C2 · #4287
• If we regard leaving things unsaid as a virtue, we cannot condemn similar restraint elsewhere without explaining why.C2 · #4288
• My boredom is an honest account of my response, but does not by itself prove that the slow pace serves no purpose.C2 · #4289
• A work may use a recognisable convention without mindlessly reproducing it; we need to show what it does with that convention at a particular point.C2 · #4290
• I can vouch for the quality of our joint projects, but do not want to imply firsthand knowledge of tasks on which we did not work together.C2 · #4291
• Praise for diligence should not inadvertently sound like a substitute answer to a question about independence.C2 · #4292
• If I limit the recommendation to a particular role, I will explain the reason for that scope so it does not look like a concealed reservation.C2 · #4293
• The adjectives will gain credibility only alongside an example showing how the person acted when the plan stopped working.C2 · #4294
• I will not sign an assessment whose certainty comes solely from the letter's expected tone rather than my knowledge of the person's work.C2 · #4295
• A title phrased as a question is not neutral if the question itself presupposes a phenomenon the text has yet to establish.C2 · #4296
• A headline promising a definitive answer may turn a cautious analysis into what appears to be an unfulfilled declaration.C2 · #4297
• The borrowed official formula gives the title the appearance of an institutional voice, although the text remains a personal statement.C2 · #4298
• The addition after the colon does not merely specify the subject; it may also reverse the expectation created by the first part of the title.C2 · #4299
• An apt title need not summarise the conclusion, but should remain honest about the scope of the question the text actually answers.C2 · #4300