When you want to talk about how people reacted to something (e.g. some news, a joke, a meal), we can use the phrasal verb to go down well/badly. e.g. I made an inappropriate joke during the speech and it didn’t go down very well.
If we say that some news went down badly, we are saying that people reacted badly to the news. If people reacted positively, then it went down well.
We can also use this phrasal verb to ask about a reaction to something, e.g. I heard you had to give a presentation to the new boss yesterday. How did it go down?
When we want to specify, you can use to go down well/badly with somebody. e.g. His behaviour at his wedding didn’t go down well with his parents-in-law.
Have a go at these micro-dictation exercises to hear this expression being used in context – how much can you understand?
Accent: North America
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I about my university . It went than I .
About the sentence
…I told my parents about my decision to quit university…
When someone quits university, school or a course, we can also use the phrasal verb to drop out of something.
Accent: England (RP)
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I lemon cake reunion, really well.
About the sentence
…for the reunion…
In English, a reunion is an event at which old classmates, friends, colleagues or family get together after not seeing each other for a significant amount of time. e.g. To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to my school reunion next week. None of us have anything in common anymore.
Be careful, as this word can be a false friend for speakers of some languages.
Accent: England (RP)
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ex-boyfriend .
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The best man's bride's ex-boyfriend didn't with .
About the sentence
…the best man’s speech…
The best man at a wedding is usually the groom’s best friend. They are normally expected to give a funny speech which is usually quite embarrassing for the groom.
Extra practice
Can you remember a time when you told someone something, and it went down really badly?
Using this phrasal verb, give me an example of something you cooked for someone which was a great success/a big failure.
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A few years ago I was at the wedding of one of my friends. His best man was doing his speech, and he told an extremely shocking joke (we still can’t believe he said it). It went down very badly – the whole room of 150 people went quiet.
It’s traditional for the best man to tell some risky jokes during his speech, but this one was on another level!
By the way, one little correction: be careful with the word order of your sentence when you are using question words. An indirect question is a more complex/polite way of asking a question. A direct question would be ‘Where is the library?’. An indirect question would be ‘Do you know where the library is?’. Notice the word order of the second part: even though we use a question word, this section of the sentence is not a question, so we use a normal word order. So your sentence should be” ‘Can you tell us what the joke was?’. This is… Read more »
My husband loves wearing beautiful and costly shirts. One of them needed be let down in the cuffs, so I try to do it on my own but unwittingly I messed it up. I was in a real fix. So, I bent over backwards to fix it, but I couldn’t. Then, I let a few days pass by to think of how I could tell him without his becoming angry. Until one day he asked me about that shirt, I told him everything. Fortunately, it didn’t go down as badly as I thought it would. Quite a relief. The other… Read more »
Great examples as always Marisela! A few small corrections:
– careful with the tense of ‘try’ in the first line – I think you mean ‘tried’. – ‘unwittingly’ means ‘without realising’, which sounds like you didn’t know you had messed it up. I think you mean ‘accidentally’ or ‘by accident’?
By the way – you’ve used lots of brilliant vocabulary in these examples. Well done Marisela!
AlineS
6 years ago
Well, I’m not a cooking lover, so I don’t have many experiences at the kitchen, but once I made a salt pie, and instead of sprinkle oregano on it, I put anise. The taste was weird, but it went down better than I thought it would
– When you say ‘salt pie’, it sounds like a pie which has salt as the main ingredient (like apple pie, pork pie etc). I’m guessing you mean ‘a savoury pie’, as opposed to a pie you would have for dessert? – See if you can identify and correct the mistake in this section: “…and instead of sprinkle oregano on it…”
A few years ago I was at the wedding of one of my friends. His best man was doing his speech, and he told an extremely shocking joke (we still can’t believe he said it). It went down very badly – the whole room of 150 people went quiet.
It’s traditional for the best man to tell some risky jokes during his speech, but this one was on another level!
Hehehehe very bad, can you tell us what was the joke chris?
I wish I could Katerina, but I definitely can’t!!
By the way, one little correction: be careful with the word order of your sentence when you are using question words. An indirect question is a more complex/polite way of asking a question. A direct question would be ‘Where is the library?’. An indirect question would be ‘Do you know where the library is?’. Notice the word order of the second part: even though we use a question word, this section of the sentence is not a question, so we use a normal word order. So your sentence should be” ‘Can you tell us what the joke was?’. This is… Read more »
I understand, thank you chris!!
My husband loves wearing beautiful and costly shirts. One of them needed be let down in the cuffs, so I try to do it on my own but unwittingly I messed it up. I was in a real fix. So, I bent over backwards to fix it, but I couldn’t. Then, I let a few days pass by to think of how I could tell him without his becoming angry. Until one day he asked me about that shirt, I told him everything. Fortunately, it didn’t go down as badly as I thought it would. Quite a relief. The other… Read more »
Great examples as always Marisela! A few small corrections:
– careful with the tense of ‘try’ in the first line – I think you mean ‘tried’.
– ‘unwittingly’ means ‘without realising’, which sounds like you didn’t know you had messed it up. I think you mean ‘accidentally’ or ‘by accident’?
By the way – you’ve used lots of brilliant vocabulary in these examples. Well done Marisela!
Well, I’m not a cooking lover, so I don’t have many experiences at the kitchen, but once I made a salt pie, and instead of sprinkle oregano on it, I put anise. The taste was weird, but it went down better than I thought it would
Great example Aline, well done 🙂
– When you say ‘salt pie’, it sounds like a pie which has salt as the main ingredient (like apple pie, pork pie etc). I’m guessing you mean ‘a savoury pie’, as opposed to a pie you would have for dessert?
– See if you can identify and correct the mistake in this section: “…and instead of sprinkle oregano on it…”