November 13, 2014　=========
☆ big deal　　大事なこと
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In this week’s Useful Phrases, you can find the sentence, “You might not think so, but this is really a big deal!” This is a common way to use today’s word, often something that we think is important, or a “big deal”, other people don’t think so and so we need to let them know that it is actually important by saying something like that.
Interestingly, another common use of this word is, “It’s no big deal.” And when people say that, although they are saying, “It’s not really important” often they mean the opposite! They really want to tell you that it is an important thing and that it *is* a big deal, but they can’t for some reason, maybe they are embarrassed and don’t want to tell the truth.
This is a word where the “extra” information that you can get from body language and intonation is very important. For example, “It’s a big deal!” and “It’s no big deal!” could actually mean the same thing, so if you hear someone say this, think about their body language and intonation, is this additional information helping you to understand that it really is a big deal, or it really isn’t a big deal?
See, like I’ve told you before, body language and intonation are both a big deal to helping you understand English!
Bye,
Chris