0400_... per se

0400 Daily Easy English Expression PODCAST—... per se
中譯/ 中文意思: ...本身
Dialog at: 2:47 and 7:39

A: Should I throw this away?
B: Don’t touch that T-shirt.
A: Why not? It’s not worth anything! It’s a rag!
B: It may not be valuable per se, but it means a lot to me.



Dictation:

Hello, everybody,

My name is Coach Shane, and welcome to Easy English Expressions. You and me everyday. Come on. Let’s master English.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Daily Easy English expression. Oh yeah, the weekend is here again. When you say the weekend, what do you think of? Do you think of no work, relaxing, sleeping late, meeting friends. Well, for most of you, the weekend is here, but for me, it’s not the weekend per se. That’s today’s expression. Something, something, something per se. It’s an adverb. P-E-R S-E.

Have you ever heard an American or British person said something, something, something per se? Well, it’s a great expression. So for me, it’s not the weekend per se. And what that means is the normal person’s idea of the weekend. Well, that’s not the same for me. For me, actually, my weekend is very busy. I have my hangout, I have my live classes. This is one of the most busy. My weekend is actually Monday. Monday is my day off. That’s my free day. So, my weekend per se, it’s Monday. You can say Sunday and Monday. Now, some people, especially the Muslims and the Jewish people, their weekend is Friday night. It’s Friday and Saturday. The Christians: Saturday and Sunday. And Coach Shane: Sunday and Monday. So, we all like the weekend, but our weekend per se can be different. How we think of the weekend, it can be different. Now, the definition of per se is actually something like in itself or as such. And this is gets a little bit confusing. So the best way to understand “per se” is by listening to examples. So check out today’s dialog, it should help:

A: Should I throw this away?
B: Don’t touch that T-shirt.
A: Why not? It’s not worth anything! It’s a rag!
B: It may not be valuable per se, but it means a lot to me.

Great dialog and it’s a true story. For many people, do you have a T-shirt. Maybe it’s very old, maybe there’re some holes in it. Maybe the quality of T-shirt isn’t that good. But maybe that T-shirt has special meaning to you. Maybe it was from your university days. Maybe your brother gave it to you. Maybe it’s a special tease T-shirt. So to you, it’s valuable. Now, when we say valuable, we think of money. So, it’s not valuable per se, it’s not valuable the way most people think. But, to me, it’s valuable.

So let’s go back the weekend. Saturday and Sunday is the weekend. But my weekend per se is that actually Sunday and Monday. Most people think of the weekend is Saturday and Sunday. But my weekend per se as most people would think, it’s Sunday and Monday. Is that making sense? Let me give you two examples. How about the word, disaster, D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R. Can you image a disaster? What’s an example of disaster? How about an earthquake or a large fire? Right, a disaster’s something really terrible. People might die, it’s very, very, very horrible. But what about this sentence: “Oh no, I failed my test, it’s a disaster”. It’s really a disaster, no, it’s not really a disaster. So we can say: “Well, it’s not a disaster per se, but it is really terrible for you”. What most people think about as a disaster? Your situation is not a disaster. It’s not a disaster per se, but it’s a bad situation. And had you ever heard this expression? If you work hard, you will be successful. But that’s not always true. Some people work hard their whole life and maybe they’re happy but they’re never rich, like Bill Gates. Many people think a success as becoming rich like Bill Gates. So we could say this sentence: “Hard work per se does not guarantee success”. Hard work in ??? self, hard work by itself is not enough to guarantee success. You have to be lucky. You have to know people. You have to win the lottery. That’s the idea.

So per se, per se is a very common word, well, not super common, but you’ll hear it probably two or three times a month if you listen to American TV shows, if you listen to the American news or you read American newspapers. You’ll probably see it two or three times a month. Per se, P-E-R S-E, it’s used in America usually as an adverb. And it’s a great word to get to know. It’s not an easy one but you want you to do. It’s I want you to pay attention. Start listening for it. Maybe do some google searches. Find other examples. And the easiest way to find this example is just type “per se, but”. But there’s quotation marks, quotation per se common but quotation, and then you will find lots of examples on google. Okay? It’s a great expression, but you need to practice it. That’s it. Check out the dialog two more times, have a great day. Together, let’s master English.