🚨 Espresso English is SHUTTING DOWN 🚨

Hi, students. I'm afraid I have some bad news today. Espresso English is shutting down. There will be no more English lessons, no more courses, because after teaching for 12 years, I want to do something different. Yeah, so this is goodbye. April Fools! Just kidding. Today is April 1st and it's April Fool's Day when people play little tricks or pranks on each other. So, Espresso English is not really shutting down. I still love teaching you and I'm not going anywhere. I said, I'm just kidding. And kidding is another word for joking. It usually means kind of like a small, minor joke. Not like when you tell a joke that has a whole story and a structure. More like when you say something that's not true just to surprise or shock someone. Then you can say, oh, I'm just kidding, to tell them that it was a joke and you weren't speaking seriously. Let me teach you a few more informal English phrases with this word, kidding. We also have the expression, no kidding. This can actually be used in two different ways. So, no kidding, we use this in response oftentimes to say something like, really? Or, I'm a little bit surprised. If, let's say, someone tells you about how they went to another city and they happen to encounter their co-worker there just by chance, by coincidence, you could say, oh, no kidding. Meaning, it's a little bit of a surprise. It's really just something to kind of keep the conversation flowing. You could also say, really? In order to encourage them to keep talking and show them that you're engaged in the conversation. The other way to use no kidding is sarcastically, to say that something is very obvious. Let's say my husband and I are stuck in traffic and we've been sitting in traffic for the past three hours. And I say, wow, this traffic is really bad. He could say, no kidding. Meaning, he's not surprised by it. He's using it sarcastically to say, yeah, that's really obvious. Or, that's definitely true. The difference in how you use these is really in the tone of voice. So, if someone tells you something that's a little bit surprising and you want to use no kidding to say, really? You would say, oh, no kidding. Or, no kidding, in a bit of a higher tone. If you want to use it sarcastically to talk about something obvious, you use a bit of a lower tone of voice. You would say, yeah, no kidding. That just makes it clearer that you're using it sarcastically instead of expressing mild surprise. The next expression is, you're kidding. This is also used for surprise. It's a little stronger than no kidding. In that, maybe you're a little bit more surprised. Let me think of a good example. If, let's say, you recommend to your friend that he or she sign up for an English course at the same school where you're studying. Your friend tries to sign up, but there are no more openings. And he has to go on the wait list. You might say, oh, you're kidding. Because you're surprised. You thought there were open spaces in the English school. But it turns out you're surprised by the fact that there weren't any open spaces. You're kidding is, again, a reaction to what someone else says in conversation. You're indicating surprise, showing that something is hard for you to believe. You're surprised by it. Our final two phrases are, are you kidding me? And, you've got to be kidding. These express extremely strong surprise. When the other person says something, you find it very hard to believe. So we tend to use a very surprised tone of voice when saying them. So let's say you have a friend who's trying to get a job. And you think she's a great candidate for this job. She goes on a few interviews, but then it turns out she doesn't get the job. And they tell her it's because she's a woman and not a man. You would say, are you kidding me? That's not a good reason not to give you a job. In fact, it's probably illegal to discriminate based on you being a woman. Again, it's in strong reaction to something that is extremely surprising, extremely hard to believe. And you're rather shocked by what the other person said. Or when I said at the beginning of this video that Espresso English is shutting down, you might say, you've got to be kidding because you were so shocked. Hope I didn't scare you too much. Alright, so a few different phrases with kidding. Let's review them. I'm just kidding to show that you are only joking about what you just said a moment ago. No kidding, which can be used to express mild surprise. Like, really? Or it can be used sarcastically to say that's obvious or that's definitely true. You're kidding to express slightly stronger surprise. You've got to be kidding me. Or, are you kidding me? To express very strong surprise and shock. I hope you found this lesson useful. Sorry if I scared you with my little April Fool's joke. But if you'd like to learn more conversational English, check out my everyday English speaking courses. If you're not living in an English speaking country, it can be hard to learn these more conversational expressions. And my courses will help you do that. You can click on the link in this video or in the description for more information or come to my website, EspressoEnglish.net