Improve your English vocabulary with these great, native English expressions which use the word “mind”. If you learn a couple of these, you’ll sound more fluent and more natural when you speak English.
Be sure to get the pronunciation right. I show you where to stress the words in the video so that you can be confident that you’re saying these expressions correctly!
If you’d like more help understanding the video, you can read the transcript under the video.
Video Transcript
Hi there! I’m Clare from english-at-home.com
In today’s video, I want to show you some great, native speaker expressions that we use with the word “mind”. Now we use “mind” a lot when we speak English, so it’s a good idea to try and remember some of these common expressions.
But before I get started, if you’re new here, please subscribe to my YouTube channel because you get a new English video every week to help you with English speaking, pronunciation and vocabulary.
OK, so here are 5 expressions with the word “mind”.
1. Do you mind..?
“Do you mind…” is a way to make a request. For example:
“Do you mind opening the window?” (This means “Can you open the window?”) Or:
“Do you mind if I open the window?” (That means “Is it OK if I open the window?)
A typical reply to this is “Sure, go ahead” or “No problem”
Be careful. If you say “Yes, I mind” then it means you have a problem with it. So somebody says “Do you mind if I open the window” and you say “Yes I do mind” it means that you’ve got a problem with that. But this sounds a little unfriendly. If you have a problem, you’d probably make an excuse:
“Do you mind if I open the window?”
“Oh, well, actually it’s a little bit cold in here.”
So obviously you’re trying to tell the other person that you don’t want them to open the window.
Sometimes you also hear “Would you mind..?” and “would you mind” is a little bit more polite than “Do you mind”.
“Would you mind opening the window?” Or
“Would you mind if I opened the window?”
1. Do you mind!
“Do you mind!” is something that you say when another person does or says something that you think is inappropriate or rude.
You’ve got to be really careful about the pronunciation, because the first expression “Do you mind…” is a request
but “Do you mind!” with the stress on every word means that you’re upset with someone – or you’re pretending to be upset with someone.
So imagine, you’re in a restaurant and your friend starts eating your food. You say “Do you mind!” and it’s kind of a little bit of a joke.
2. I don’t mind
“I don’t mind” means no problem. So your friend says “Do you want to get the first train or the second train?” You say “I don’t mind. You decide.”
3. Mind you / Mind
“Mind you” or “Mind” is a very British English expression and we use it to add a little more information. Often, this information we add helps to balance out what we’ve just said. So for example:
“He often says things without thinking. Mind you, I do the same.” So i’m saying that I’m criticising him, but in fact, I do the same thing.
“I haven’t been holiday this year. But I did go away a couple of times last year, mind.”
Even though I didn’t go on holiday this year, I went on holiday last year.
4. Mind out!
This means the same as “look out” or “watch out”. Again, it’s a very British English expression and it means “Be careful!”
So I’m giving someone a plate of hot food, and I say “Mind out! It’s hot!”
5. You’re out of your mind!
This means that what you want to do is dangerous or impossible or it’s just a really bad idea.
“He thinks that he can go straight from university to the top job. He’s out of his mind!”
Bonus: Lose your mind
We say this when you’ve done something stupid or you’re a little bit unbalanced.
“Where did I put my car keys? I’m losing my mind!”
“You spent how much on that bag? Have you lost your mind?”
