I dropped the ball

Hi. How are you? This is Guilherme back with another episode of the Inglês Diário podcast. Hope you are all having a great week!

Today, we are going to talk about what happens when we try to translate things from Portuguese to English from the top of our heads. Sometimes, it works. But other times... things get completely lost in translation.
Let me give you a classic example. In Brazil, when someone makes a mistake, forgets an important favor, or disappoints a friend, we use a very famous expression. We say that the person "pisou na bola."
Now, if you go to the United States or England and you look at your friend and say, "Hey man, I'm sorry, I stepped on the ball," they are going to look down at your feet! They will look around and say, "What ball? Are we playing soccer?" It makes absolutely no sense to them.
So, how do we express this exact same feeling in English? Well, interestingly enough, the first expression I want to teach you today also uses a ball. But in English, you don't step on it. You drop it. The expression is to drop the ball.
Drop the ball. D-R-O-P, the ball.
Think about American football or baseball. If a player throws the ball to their teammate, and the teammate opens his hands but the ball falls to the ground... he dropped the ball. He made a mistake and lost the play.
In everyday life, to drop the ball means to fail to do your job, to forget a responsibility, or to make a careless mistake. Let’s say I was responsible for bringing the birthday cake to a party. I get to the party, look at my empty hands, and realize I forgot the cake at home. I can say, "Oh my gosh, guys, I am so sorry. I really dropped the ball on this one." I made a mistake. I failed my responsibility.
And when you drop the ball, there is usually a consequence, right? People get sad or disappointed. And that brings us to our second expression: to let someone down.
To let someone down. Let, L-E-T, down, D-O-W-N.
When you let someone down, you disappoint them. They were expecting something good from you, they trusted you, but you didn't deliver. You let their expectations fall down. Going back to our cake example: because I dropped the ball and forgot the birthday cake, I really let the birthday girl down. She was expecting a cake, and I disappointed her.
These two go together perfectly. You drop the ball (you make the mistake), and because of that, you let someone down (you disappoint them). Next time you want to say "pisei na bola", remember: don't step on it! Drop it.
So, my question for you today is: When was the last time you dropped the ball? Did you forget to pay a bill? Did you forget a friend's birthday? And did you let anyone down because of it?
Leave a comment telling me your story. See you next time, bye!