to bump into somebody: meaning and explanation
The meaning of phrasal verb ‘to bump into someone’ is to meet someone by chance, without planning to.
For example, if you’re walking to the shops and you see one of your friends (without arranging to meet them) then you can say that you bumped into them on the way to the shops.
Have a go at this dictation exercise to hear this expression being used in context – how much can you understand?
Dictation #1
Accent: Northern England
…he’s invited us all round…
To invite somebody round is a phrasal verb which means to invite someone to your house, e.g. for a meal..
Discussion questions
Write your answers to these questions in the comments section, and I’ll get back to you with some feedback:
- Tell me a story, starting with: “The other day I bumped into…”.
- What do you think is happening in the photo at the top of this post?
I have had a nice start with the micro listening. I want to continue practicing. Thanks a lot.
That’s great news! Good luck with the rest of the exercises, and let me know if you have any questions.
I really enjoy practicing it’s fun
Hi Marzia,
That’s great! Feel free to ask if you have any questions 🙂
Chris
I love it. You can practise english for real.
Great, thank you!
Wow
I like it!
I do have a question,
what is the difference between bump into and run across, run into?
Hi Luis, good question!
When you are talking about meeting somebody accidentally, bump into somebody and run into somebody have the same meaning.
Personally, I wouldn’t use run across somebody to talk about meeting somebody accidentally, but it can be used in this way.
I would say that To come across something would be a more useful phrasal verb to learn, meaning to find something accidentally or by chance. If you keep doing the exercises on microEnglish, you will come across this phrasal verb soon 🙂
Days ago, I was on my way to the office whenI bumped into my ex. It was an awkward situation since we didn’t break up in good terms.
In the picture, both women might be old school friends who bumped into each other while commuting. Apparently, it’s been quite a long time without talking because they look very emotional in the photo.
hello.Can you help me? . I’m sitting on the fence between using the sentence : ” I’ll come across trouble” or ” I’ll get into trouble”
Good question – I would say that ‘get into trouble’ is much more common and natural. If you get into trouble, it just means that you get into a bad, difficult or dangerous situation. You can use this very generally, for many situations (e.g. a child might get into trouble for not doing their homework, or a person might get into financial trouble after losing their job. If you come across something, it means that you find it or encounter it without looking for it. You can use this with ‘a problem’ as long as it is quite specific (e.g.… Read more »
It is a excellent excercise for practice. Thanks
Great! Thanks Fabiola
Feeling complicated to understand the pronunciation
Yes, understanding the pronunciation of natural, spoken English can be really difficult. Often this is because words are not pronounced in the way you are expecting! Which bits did you have problems with?
I think this is a great way to practise listening skills. Thanks a lot.
Thank you Khrystyna! You’re very welcome
I’m having issues to play the listenings. am I the only one with this problem?
The other day I bumped into a special person I met in my instituto and I miss him a lot
Well done Gabriela, good example 🙂
One comment I’d make is on ‘instituto’ – you need an English word to use instead of this. Do you mean school/workplace/company/institute?
The other day I bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen since I graduated from high school. It was a surprising encounter, as It has been 5 years since then, and It happened in his university library that I usually visit
Almost perfect example Cristian! The only suggestion I would make is to use the past perfect again later in the sentence, like this: “…as it had been 5 years…”. This is because you talking about a period of time before a time in the past. When you are talking about the pst before the past, use the past perfect.