Jiaying Welcome to The English We Speak with me, Jiaying…
Rob …and hello, I’m Rob. Now, in English we have a phrasal verb that describes improving something, so it becomes the same level or standard as something else – it’s ’level up’.
Jiaying** ‘Level up’** – so here, the word ’level’ is about being at an equal position as something else and ‘up’ is about increasing it to that level. So, we’re talking about improving or advancing something to make it the same as other things of the same type.
Rob When we ’level up’, it’s often for things that are important and serious. For example, the standard of education at one school may be improved so that students receive the same quality of teaching that they do at another school. They level up. The process is called ’levelling up’.
Jiaying But we can also use it simply to describe improving things in our everyday lives.
Rob That’s true. I want to level up the clothes in my wardrobe, so I look cool and fashionable!
Jiaying Good idea, Rob. You look so last year! Anyway, let’s hear some more uses of ‘level up’…
Examples The company has levelled up wages for its staff to match those of a rival business.
Our team needs to level up if we stand any chance of beating our opponents at the weekend.
We’re levelling up our training scheme so that everyone gets the chance to use it.
Jiaying This is The English We Speak where we’re talking about the phrasal verb ’level up’. It describes improving something so it’s the same level or quality as something else.
Rob And remember, we can talk both about levelling up something important, like the economy, or something more personal such as your foreign language ability. Jiaying, if you level up your Spanish, you could come to the conversation club with me!
Jiaying Not yet. I’ve got some levelling up to do! Time to study first. Hola… me… llamo… Jiaying.
Rob This could take a while… Adios! Bye.
Jiaying Bye.