Learn the hard way

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.

Phil, you are dripping wet. What happened?

The weather seemed fine when I left home, but then I got five minutes down the road, and it started raining really heavily. I guess I learnt the hard way that you need to have an umbrella if you live in London!

Well, I suppose the good thing is that if you learn the hard way, then you probably won't forget. Now, shall we learn this expression – 'learn something the hard way'?

Yes. Learning something the hard way is a bit like learning from your mistakes. It means something difficult or unpleasant happened to you, so you learn to do something differently to make sure it doesn't happen again. Where's the best place to buy an umbrella, Feifei? I'm not going home without one.

I'll tell you after this programme. Yes, you can learn something the hard way when something goes wrong. We often use it to talk about things that you could have prepared for. For example, if you lost all your work because you forgot to save, you'll learn why saving is important the hard way, when your computer crashes.

Yeah, it's often used to suggest that someone has ignored advice. OK, let's hear some other examples of people using 'learn something the hard way'.

I didn't use to look at the cookbooks when I cook, but then I did because I learned the hard way and cooked so many terrible dishes. I was getting the train to Paris from London, and I learned the hard way that you need an hour before the train. I only arrived 15 minutes before the train, so I missed it. People say when you go travelling, you should take half of what you think you should take, and I didn’t take that advice so I learnt the hard way. I carried a really heavy bag around with me all the time for no reason.

We've been talking about the expression 'learn something the hard way' to mean learning from bad experiences.

Yes, there's also a similar expression we can say that sometimes people have to learn hard lessons. If we say someone has to learn hard lessons, we mean that they are doing something wrong and they need to learn from the consequences.

OK. That's it for this programme, but join us next time to learn more English phrases and expressions

Don't worry, you can learn things the easy way when you listen to us!

That's right! See you next time.