Feifei Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, where we explain expressions used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too. I’m Feifei.
Phil And I’m Phil. What have you been up to, Feifei?
Feifei Well, I just had an old friend visit. I told her, ‘Drop in if you’re ever in my neck of the woods’, and she did!
Phil Wait, Feifei, you live in the woods?
Feifei No no, it’s just an expression – ‘my neck of the woods’ means my area.
Phil Oh, yes. And I think that’s the expression we should learn in this programme – ‘neck of the woods’.
Feifei OK. Yes, so, when someone is talking about ‘their neck of the woods’ or ‘that neck of the woods’, they are talking about an area, or part of an area. It’s quite an informal expression. If someone recommends a great restaurant, for example, you might say ‘I’ll have a look when I’m in that neck of the woods’.
Phil When someone talks about something that’s near where you live, you might say, ‘Oh, that’s in my neck of the woods’.
Feifei Let’s listen to these people using the expression ‘neck of the woods’.
Examples I’m going to be in your neck of the woods next week. Shall we go for a coffee?
I live in the suburbs of the city. Nothing exciting happens in my neck of the woods.
I’m not really familiar with this neck of the woods but I do know a few good shops around here.
Feifei We’ve been learning the expression ’neck of the woods’ to talk about an area of part of an area.
Phil We’ve already said that it’s quite informal, so is most likely to be used in speech, rather than in writing. It’s also really common to use a possessive pronoun to relate it to a person – we often talk about ‘my neck of the woods’ or ‘your neck of the woods’.
Feifei Well, I need to get back to my neck of the woods now – see you next time!
Phil See you then! Bye!
Feifei Bye!