Episode 2 – Napping is good for you!

In this episode I speak to Dan again (I promise I am trying to find more interesting guests) and we discuss napping. What is a nap? Find out in this episode as well as the following vocabulary:

A nap splits up the day
Take it with a pinch of salt (because the Americans did the study)
He has to have a nap, without fail
Dan snores
The story is a myth
People that nap are lazy
I’ll be keeping a keen eye on it
Do you ever feel groggy when you wake up after a nap?
I wake up absolutely shattered
This is the most ludicrous thing that I’ve ever seen

RnR Grammar Point

When Dan was describing his boring story about Thomas Edison, he used the word ‘would’ to talk about the past. Let’s have a look:

“He used to go to sleep with ball-bearings in his hands thinking about a problem, then when the balls would drop out of his hands, he would wake up and write down whatever was in his mind”.

In this example, ‘would’ is used to describe a regular past action that doesn’t happen anymore in exactly the same way as ‘used to’. We often prefer to say ‘would’ in this context, as it is shorter than ‘used to’.

You can always use ‘used to’ instead of ‘would’ to describe these past actions, but you cannot always use ‘would’ instead of ‘used to’ because…..

‘Would’ cannot be used for state verbs! Example:

I used to live in New York

NOT I ~~would live~~ in New York