MicroEnglish.

Head start
Idioms | B2

Listening exercises with “Head start”

The meaning of the expression head start is an advantage you have over someone else. This could be in a competition (e.g. a race), or more generally (e.g. in life).

When you decide that someone should be given an advantage (usually to make a situation fairer), we can say that you should give them a head start. If the advantage already exists, you can say that someone has a head start.

We can use the prepositions over/against/on if you want to include the people or things that someone has an advantage over, e.g. My language skills gave me a bit of a head start over my colleagues.

Have a go at these micro-dictation exercises to hear this expression being used in context – how much can you understand?

Accent: Ireland

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up bilingual can a life.
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Accent: England (RP)

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little brother 30 , otherwise won't race.
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Accent: Northern England

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Hopefully I already company will bit of against the job.
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In

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13 responses

  1. Sveta Avatar
    Sveta

    Comment

    Reply
    1. Chris Bargery Avatar
      Chris Bargery

      Hello Svetlana 🙂

      Reply
    2. Svetlana Avatar
      Svetlana

      Hello Svetlana. Nice too meet you

      Reply
  2. Maria Avatar
    Maria

    I give my sons a head start after after finishing secondary school and enrolling at university

    Reply
    1. Chris Bargery Avatar
      Chris Bargery

      Hi Maria, good example 🙂 Usually it’s a good idea to specify the context that we give someone a head start, e.g. a head start in a race, in school etc. In your example, you could say: ‘a head start in life’.

      Also, be careful with ‘sons’ – maybe you are translating ‘hijos’? We would say ‘children’, unless you are specifically talking about your male children.

      Reply
  3. DEYSI MUZO Avatar
    DEYSI MUZO

    I can get a head start after joining early reading lab.

    Reply
  4. Tanya Avatar
    Tanya

    Hi Chris! I am from Ukraine. Answering your question, I think speaking English and having some specific courses instead of just a university degree gives people a real head start to a good job.

    In general, the most powerful head start someone can get is self-education. Also it can be good interpersonal skills, persistence and creativity.

    P.S. In the practice section there was an ex.: Although I hated go to the extra lessons after school, it DID give me a head start…. So my question is why it says ‘it DID give me’ istead of ‘it GAVE me’?

    PPS. It a very helpful site! The best of its kind. And your feedback makes me to come back here again and again 🙂 Thank you so much!

    Reply
    1. Chris Bargery Avatar
      Chris Bargery

      Hi Tanya, very interesting examples, well done.

      One correction I’d make is related to what comes after ‘head start’. You can talk about the area that you have the advantage (e.g. to get a head start in life) or the people/things that you have an advantage over (e.g. I had a head start on the other children in my class). In your example it’s a bit more complicated, because ‘a good job’ is the ultimate goal, rather than the activity (finding a job). I would use the (very, very useful) phrase ‘when it comes to…’, which we can use to specify what we are talking about. So you could say: “Having specific courses gives people a head start when it comes to finding a good job’. Does that make sense?

      Reply
    2. Chris Bargery Avatar
      Chris Bargery

      Good question about the use of ‘did’.

      When you have a sentence in the present simple or past simple (e.g. I have a dog, I cleaned the bathroom) and you need to emphasise the action (e.g. to correct someone), then you can use do (present simple) or did (past simple) before the basic form of the verb.

      So if someone says – “Why didn’t you clean the bathroom?”, you could reply: “I did clean the bathroom” to emphasise verb and correct their mistake.

      With any other tense, we just stress the auxiliary verb (e.g. “No one believes me, but I HAVE run a marathon”, or “I CAN swim, just not very well”).

      You can read more about emphasis here.

      Reply
  5. Tanya Avatar
    Tanya

    Wow.. thank you for your feedback! It’s very useful!

    Reply

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