go off: meaning and explanation
The phrasal verb ‘to go off’ is used to talk about alarms – alarm clocks, car alarms, fire alarms, and so on.
If an alarm ‘goes off’ then it starts, makes a sound or rings.
For example, I used to work with someone who slept so deeply that when his alarm went off in the mornings he would turn it off without actually waking up. This meant that he would oversleep and would often turn up late for work. Now he hides his alarm so that when it goes off he has to look for it and find it before he can turn it off. This gives him a chance to wake up properly.
Have a go at these micro-dictation exercises to hear this expression being used in context – how much can you understand?
Listening exercises
Dictation #1
Accent: Ireland
About the sentence
…a car alarm was going off…
The continuous is used here to communicate the fact that the action happened over a period of time, instead of happening once or suddenly, e.g. a car alarm went off).
Dictation #2
Accent: North America
About the sentence
…I was late for work...
Notice the weak/unstressed pronunciation of ‘was’ and ‘for’ in this sentence as /wÉ™z/ and /fÉ™/.
Dictation #3
Accent: England, RP
About the sentence
…generally…
Listen to the word ‘generally’ in this sentence. How many syllables can you hear? Although you might expect to hear 4 syllables, it is pronounced here with just 3: /’ʤenrÉ™li:/.
Other examples of words which often lose a syllable are:
chocolate (2 syllables instead of 3): /’ʧɒklÉ™t/
comfortable (3 syllables instead of 4): /’kÊŒmftÉ™bÉ™l/
vegetable (3 syllables instead of 4): /’veʤtÉ™bÉ™l/
Extra practice
Here are some questions/links to help you learn the new vocabulary:
- How do you usually feel when your alarm goes off in the morning? Do you have any strategies for making it easier to get up when the alarm goes off?
- Have you ever been in a public place when an alarm went off, like a fire alarm or a security alarm? How did the people around you react, and what did you do?
- Have you ever caused a fire alarm or security alarm to go off accidentally? What happened?
Hello.
My alarm goes off at 6 am in the morning.
When my alarm goes off I press the snooze button.
I have never heard the fire or smoke alarm.
Good examples Seva 🙂
What’s the longest you’ve ever snoozed for?
* My alarm goes off at 6.45 a.m in the morning.
* When my alarm goes off, I press the snooze button, and only after 2nd alarm I wake up.
* I have never been in a building that the fire alarm went off. I have never heard the fire alarm.
Good examples Gulnar!
I would say that your second example would sound more natural like this: “I only wake up after the second alarm”. You could also say: “Only after the second alarm do I wake up”, but this is quite advanced grammar 🙂
My alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. from Monday to Friday only.
When my alarm goes off, I usually press the snooze button for half an hour:) and only at 7:00 I leave my bed.
I’ve never been in a building when the fire alarm or smoke alarm went off. Fortunately:))
Perfect examples Mariwa, well done!
Half an hour is quite a long time to snooze, I’m impressed 🙂
Hi!! My almar goes off at 5 a.m. when my alaem goes off I press the snooze button. Once in my job the smoke alarm went off it was so noisy and everybody there were so nervous.
Hi Jackie, thanks for your examples 🙂
5am is extremely early!
One small correction – at the end you should say: “everybody there was so nervous”.
My alarm usually goes off at 7 am.
I almost always press the snooze button.
Yes. It happened once in a supermarket.