Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 551

In this epsiode, I will teach you 10 natural ways to say hurry up in English. These are common English phrases that native speakers use in daily life at home, at school, and at work. Learning them will help you improve your spoken English, expand your vocabulary, and sound more confident when you speak.

This episode is for English learners who want to improve fluency, practise English speaking, and understand how native speakers really talk. You will learn useful English expressions in context so you can use them in real conversations straight away and make your English sound more natural.

Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, to help you with your conversational skills, your business English skills, interview skills, whatever your goals are, we're here to help. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free try lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. So in today's lesson, an advanced English lesson, we're looking at other ways to say hurry up. We've got 10 in total. So ways to tell somebody to go a little bit faster, a little bit quicker, to hurry up. So I'm going to give you these expressions and then I'll tell you how exactly to use them. Okay, so let's start. Number one, come on. And we use this with a bit of intonation in our voice. Come on, come on, we're in a rush. So you're trying to get the kids ready for school and you want to get on to work. You're taking them to school. The traffic's going to be heavy. Come on, come on, get your bags. Let's go. Come on, come on. Hurry up. So all the time, in the way we're speaking, telling them that we're in a hurry. We're a little bit nervous about the traffic. It's Monday morning. It's Friday morning. Whatever it is. Come on, come on, come on, let's go, let's go. Okay, so come on. Number two, again with the kids, get a move on. Okay, so you're going to be late for your football training. Get a move on. Get your football gear together. You're going to be late for that piano lesson. Get your music sheets. Get a move on. So when we say get a move on, it means, come on, move a little quicker. Stop sitting around playing those computer games. Get off your bottom and let's get going. So get a move on. Number three, chop chop. So this is a very, very informal way to tell somebody to get going quickly. It's like a chef when he's cutting the carrots or the vegetables. Chop, chop. Yeah. So chop chop means really quickly. Come on, chop chop. And usually somebody does it and they clap their hands together. Come on, chop chop. Yeah. Means, come on, hurry up, let's get going. So it's the sort of thing, again, a school teacher might tell the classroom, get from one class to the other, get from the classroom to the gym, get from the classroom to the canteen. Come on, chop, chop. So it's all about somebody in authority giving orders in a friendly way to other people. Chop chop. Number four, there's no time to lose. Now, this is a bit of an expression. It's an old expression, but again, it means that we are in a hurry. Time is of the essence. We've got to get moving. So there's no time to lose. Means we cannot afford to lose any time. We need to get to the airport. They tell us that we have to get to the airport now at least two hours before our flight departs. So if you're in the rush for a holiday, a getaway, you might say to your family, come on, there's no time to lose. We really need to get to the airport. I've got to park the car. Then we've got to check in and then we've got to go through that big queue for the security check and then passport control. So we really have no time to lose. There's no time to lose. Let's get moving and let's get going very, very quickly. If you're like me, when I'm going on a holiday, I really like to get to the airport way in advance. And my wife likes to get there a minute before we have to. So there's always a little bit of a debate, let's call it, about when we leave the home to get to the airport. So my expression would, come on, there's no time to lose. You want to get that cup of coffee, you want to spend that half an hour in the duty-free? Let's go now. Next one, number five. We have to get our skates on or put our skates on. You can use either of the verbs. I usually say to, you know, get your skates on means move a bit quicker. So if you have skates, it could be roller skates or skates for an ice rink, but you will move a little bit quicker. So when somebody tells you to get your skates on, they want you to move pretty quickly. Yeah. Another expression relating to that type of mobility will be on your bike. It means get going, get going quickly. So on your bike or get your skates on, yeah, to go a little bit quicker. Come on, you're going to be late. You're always late. Every morning you're late. Get your skates on. Come on, let's move it. Okay, so, you know, the children who are a little bit lazy in the mornings, drag them out of bed, drag themselves downstairs for breakfast, watching TV, sitting on their mobile phone. So come on, get your skates on, or as I said, put your skates on. Okay, so number six, what are you waiting for? Yeah, now you can use this in a question format, or you can use it as a statement. What are you waiting for? Come on, you're waiting for a bus, you're waiting for a miracle, you're waiting for an invitation. Come on, hurry up. What are you waiting for? Or you can just simply ask the question, what are you waiting for? Why aren't you moving? Oh, I'm waiting for a lift. My friend said she'd call. Her father's going by this way, so she'll pick me up. She's going to send me a text when she's outside. So that's a natural way to say, what are you waiting for? But as I say, you can use it as a statement with a bit of an exclamation in your voice and a bit of exasperation. Oh, what are you waiting for? Come on, I've been ready for the last 10 minutes. Please, please, let's hurry up. I'm going to be late. You're going to be late. We are all going to be late. Okay, so what are you waiting for? Number seven, there's no time to wait. We have to go. There's no time to wait. So, oh, come on, just a few more minutes. This movie is almost over. No, come on, there's no time to wait. We can't be sitting here. We have to go. I hear on the news that the traffic is really bad. There's a problem in the high street. The road has been repaired. Or the weather forecast is bad. There's lots of snow, lots of rain, whatever. There's bad weather. So let's get going. Yeah, there's no time to wait. There's no time to sit around waiting. We have to go now. And when I say now, we have to go now. Number eight, snap to it. Now, snap to it like snapping your fingers. Yeah, snap to it means, come on, let's go. Let's really get going. So it could be a boss giving instructions to the workers. It could be the teacher giving instructions to the classroom. It could be the coach giving instructions to the team. He said, okay, we've had our little pep talk. We're all warmed up. Now we really have to get into the hard training. Snap to it, otherwise we're going to get cold standing around here on a cold winter's evening. Snap to it means let's go. And the last one, similar to snap to it, is jump to it. Yeah. And again, jump to it means, come on, get up. And jump to it means jump up out of that chair, jump up out of that bed, let's get down for breakfast, let's get going, let's get you to school. Okay, so jump to it. And then finally, one other, which is a little bit informal, number 10, get cracking. Okay, now get cracking is usually the statement we make when we've decided to do something. So we've had our discussion, we've thought about it, we've discussed what we want to do, everybody's asked a question. So then finally the boss says, okay, well, let's get cracking. Let's get started. Let's get this job at least begun. If we can't get it finished, we can get it finished tomorrow. So let's get cracking means let's start in a hurry. Let's go. No more time to waste. No more time to lose. Okay, so 10 ways in which you can say hurry up. Advanced English lessons. So let me give them to you one more time. Come on. Okay, so it means the intonation. Come on, let's go. Come on, come on. Get a move on. Just hurry up, get a move on. Chop, chop really quickly, chop, chop. There's no time to lose. Get or put your skates on. So you can get your skates on or put your skates on. Either way, you have to hurry up or get on your bike. What are you waiting for? Yeah, so we can use it in an exasperated statement. What are you waiting for? No. And a question, what are you waiting for? There's no time to wait. We can't sit around waiting. We have to go. Snap to it and jump to it. Good ways for you to practice, as always. Try to use one or two of them. I've given you examples using them with the kids. If you don't have kids, it might be to do with your partner, it might be to do with your colleagues. Whatever it is, there's an opportunity to use them. Just practice, write them down, practice them in your speech. If you have any problems, just drop me a line, www.englishlessonviaskype.com. Very happy to hear from you and very happy to include any suggestions that you might have to improve your English. So this is Sari Sane. Thanks very much for watching and listening. And make sure you join me for the next lesson.