A big ask

Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, where we explain phrases and expressions used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too. I'm Feifei.

And I'm Phil. Can I ask you something Feifei?

Yes, sure.

OK, you know you were going to take next week off work, and I was going to take the week after that off? It turns out I mixed up the dates – I booked flights for next week. Could I swap weeks with you and take next week off? I know it's a big ask.

Phil, that is a big ask. I don’t think I can do that – I've already got everything planned out.

OK, I get it. It was a big ask. Shall we just explain this expression – 'a big ask'?

Well, that's not such a big ask – let's do that! OK, so a big ask is a request for something that you know will be difficult for the person that you are asking. You asking me to change my holiday was too big an ask – I'm just can't do it.

That was probably an unreasonable thing for me to ask for. We often use ‘a big ask’ at work to say that you know that a task is difficult when you're asking for it to be done. "I know it's a big ask, but can you do it?" And we also use it to say that what someone is asking us for might be too difficult. "That is a big ask, but I'll try and get it done."

Let's hear some other examples of people using 'a big ask'.

Asking me to do anything before I've had my morning coffee is a big ask. I know it's a big ask, but can you pick me up from the airport next weekend. My flight gets in at 3am. To start with, my neighbour asked me to water his plants while he's on holiday, but now he's added mowing the lawn and that's a big ask.

We've been learning the expression 'a big ask' to talk about difficult requests.

Now, 'ask' is usually a verb, but it's actually being used as a noun here. We don't often use 'ask' as a noun outside this expression.

No we don't. That's it for this programme, but join us next time to learn more English phrases and expressions.

Make sure you listen - it's not a big ask.

Bye.