Hello, everybody. It’s me, Elliott from ETJ English. Lovely to have you here. Have you ever heard somebody say something like “Oh, I’m literally dying.”

大家好，我是 ETJ 英语频道的埃利奥

特。很高兴见到大家。你有没有听过有人说：“哦，我真的要死了。”

It’s quite common to hear the word “literally” overused a lot in English, British, American, Australian, any kind of English. So today, we’re going to learn about this word and learn when we really should and shouldn’t be using this.

在英语中，英式英语，美式英语，澳大利亚英语，任何一种英语中，“literally（简直/真正地）”被过度使用是很常见的。所以今天，我们将学习这个单词，并学习什么时候应该和不应该使用这个词。

Of course, we’re going to talk about the British pronunciation of the word “literally”, but I also want to explain kind of how it’s overused and maybe to help you understand when actually we should be using this word. Technically, there are kind of two ways of pronouncing the word “literally”.

当然，我们会讨论 literally 这个词的英式发音，但是我也想解释一下这个词是如何被滥用的，也许可以帮助你理解我们应该在什么时候使用这个词。从技术上讲，literally 这个词有两种发音。

Um. You can do it with more schwa sounds, for example, li-te-ra-lly, li-te-ra-lly. So, remember the schwa sound is the // sound.

你可以把它的弱央元音都发出来，例如 li-te-ra-lly，li-te-ra-lly。记住，弱央元音就是//音。

We don’t really do much with the mouth, we keep the tongue kind of in the middle of the mouth, //, /l-t-r-li/. But you’ll find that nowadays in modern RP, which is the type of British pronunciation I teach, other accents are available, we can actually shorten it and we can just say /ltrli/, /ltrli/, /ltrli/, /ltrli/.

嘴巴不用张得很大，舌头放在口腔中间，//，/l-t-r-li/。但你会发现在现代标准英式发音中，也就是我所教的发音类型，也有其他口音，其实我们可以缩短它的发音，只说/ltrli/，/ltrli/，/ltrli/，/ltrli/。

So, this is the quicker way of pronouncing it. If you’re talking faster, you probably will do this.

这是它的最快速的发音方式。如果你说话快些，你可能会这样发音。

So, “literally” is literally an overused word. It’s a word which is used in many different situations and it’s kind of started to go out of context in everyday life, which technically means that these mistakes or these wrong ways of using it could actually be correct and widely accepted now in English.

所以，literally 真的是一个被过度使用的词。这个词被用在很多不同的场合，在日常生活中，它开始脱离语境，这意味着这些错误或错误的用法实际上可能是正确的，现在在英语中被广泛接受。

So, don’t be afraid if you do make these mistakes because natives do it too, and if natives do it, surely, you can also. I’ve even heard members of parliament using this word “literally” in the wrong way.

所以，如果你犯了这些错误，不要害怕，因为当地人也会这样做，如果当地人这样做，当然，你也可以。我甚至听过国会议员用错误的方式使用 literally 这个词。

So, “literally” means “in literal sense, this is what it is”, “it’s literally this”, “not exaggerated”. Okay? That’s basically what it means, so “it’s not more than this, it’s not less than this, it’s not different to this, it is literally this”.

所以 literally 的意思是“从字面上看，这就是事实”，“这就是这样”，“没有夸张”。基本上就是这个意思，“没有夸大，没有隐瞒，和这个没什么区别，就是这个”。

So, in English, it’s quite common to exaggerate. We love to do it in British English.

在英语中，夸张是很常见的。在英式英语中，我们很喜欢夸大其词。

So, you could go outside and you could say, “It’s literally a hundred degrees outside,” or “I’m literally burning. It’s so hot,” but you’re not actually, you’re just using the word literally to exaggerate and that word literally kind of shows the listener that you are exaggerating. So, this is when we use the word “literally” in a non-literal context to exaggerate.

你可以走到外面，你可以说，“外面真的有一百度。”或者“我真的在燃烧。”但是你并不是说真的，你只是在用这个词来夸张，这个词从字面上告诉听众你在夸张。我们在非字面的语境就是这样中使用 literally 这个词来表示夸张的。

And it’s very very common and as I said, technically, it could be accepted now, it could be fine to do this.

But try to avoid doing it too much because it can, to some people, sound bad, particularly people of an older generation who like to stick to older styles of English, but I think you’ll find in 20, 30 years, this will be very very very common, it will be used by everybody as the generations start to change.

这是非常普遍的，就像我说的，技术上来说，现在可以接受了，这样做是可以的。但要尽量避免用得太多，因为对某些人来说，这听起来很糟糕，尤其是老一辈人喜欢坚持老一套的英语风格，但我想你会发现，在二、三十年后，这将是非常非常普遍的，随着时代的变迁，每个人都会使用它。

So, just remember, to take something literally means to take it seriously as though it’s real, not more, not less, not exaggerated. But we often use it in a non-literal sense to kind of make it sound like it is but it’s not.

记住，to take something literally 的意思是认真地对待它，就好像它是真实的一样，不夸张，不掩饰，也不是夸大其词。但我们经常在非字面意义上使用它，让它听起来像，但它不是。

Use the word “literally” at your own risk. Be careful. Remember what I’ve told you.

谨慎使用 literally 一词。小心使用。记住我教你的。

Anyway, guys, that’s the lesson for today. I hope you found it useful.

不管怎样，今天的课就到这里了。希望你觉得有用。

I’m going to go now. I’m

literally starving or am? Am I literally starving? Or am I just hungry?

我要离开了。我真的要饿死了吗？我真的要饿死了吗？还是说我只是饿了？

I’ll let you work that one out. Remember, you can join my British pronunciation course.

我让你去判断。记住，你可以参加我的英式发音课程。

Learn British pronunciation directly with me when you go to etjenglish. com. Thank you very much for watching today, and don’t forget to LIKE, subscribe, all of that goodness.

上 etjenglish.com 直接和我一起学英式发音。非常感谢大家的收看，不要忘记点赞，订阅我们的频道。

See you next week. Cheers, guys. Bye!

下周再见。加油，拜！