Conversation:

Maria:  Did you hear that my brother has decided to drop out of school?

Sam:  You’re pulling my leg.  Has he really?

Maria:   Yes.  I told him he was better off staying, but he doesn’t listen to me.

Sam:  Maybe he’s feeling burned out.  After all, he has a heavy load this term.

Maria:  He told me he was looking into joining the army.

Sam:  That doesn’t make sense.  Doesn’t he realize that once he joins the army, he can’t

back out?  I know he can’t do without his freedom.

Maria:  I agree.  I don’t think much of his idea either.  Maybe we should have a talk with him.

Sam:  That’s a good idea.  I think he just wants to be on his own, but he’s going about it the wrong way.

Maria:  Let’s see if we can talk him into finishing grade 12.

Click on the audio recording  below to hear the lesson.

Vocabulary:

• heavy load:  a large amount of work to do
• realize:  understand, know

Idioms:

• drop out (of)                                           stop attending (classes/meetings)
• pull one’s leg                                          joke with someone
• better off                                                 better than before
• burn out                                                   become completely exhausted
• look into                                                   investigate to find information
• make sense (of)                                    be logical / understand logically
• back out (of)                                          withdraw from, not do
• do without (something)                 be able to live without (something)
• not think much of (something)  think (something) is not very good
• on one’s own                                         by oneself, alone
• go about                                                   plan a way to do (something)
• talk (someone) into                           persuade, convince (someone to do something)

Notes:

Drop out is used with ‘of’ if there is an object after it.  If not, then there is no ‘of.’
Example:  I haven’t seen Bill at the chess club for weeks.  He must have dropped out.

Look into and find out have the same meaning.

Make sense is used 2 ways.  It means to be logical, as used in the dialogue.
It also means to understand logically and must be used with ‘of’.
Example:  I can’t make sense of this recipe.  Could you help?

Talk (someone) into has an opposite:  Talk (someone) out of, which means “convince (someone) not to (do something).
Example:  I wanted to go swimming, but she talked me out of it because she wanted to go shopping