keep down: meaning and explanation
The phrasal verb keep something down means to control something so that it stays at a reduced level. Most often, this refers to noise and financial cost.
When it comes to controlling noise, you can think of the phrase keep it down as a fixed expression. This is what you say when you want someone to be quiet or to stop making so much noise. e.g. I don’t mind you having your friends over, but please keep it down a bit – we don’t want the baby to wake up.
Usually, it is clear from the context what noise we are talking about, so we just say ‘it’. However, it is also fine to specify if you want to: keep the music down, keep the volume down, keep your voice down etc.
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: North America
About the sentence
…I can barely hear myself think…
Barely has the same meaning and usage as hardly: almost not. For example, if you say “I barely slept last night”, then you slept, but only a tiny bit.
“I can hardly hear myself think” is a fixed expression that we can use when we’re complaining about how noisy something is – usually when we’re trying to focus or work and the noise is distracting us.
Dictation #2
Accent: Wales
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Dictation #3
Accent: Australia
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Extra practice
Here are some questions/links to help you learn the new vocabulary:
- Has anyone every ignored you when you asked them to keep it down? Or have you ever ignored someone who asked you to keep it down?
- Can you remember a situation when you had to keep your voice down?
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Yes, every time my brother would get home being drunk, he played music so loudly that we could hardly hear ourselves think.
Although my parents used to ask him to keep it down, he just ignored them. So we had to put up with him and with his loud music. That noise grated on me a lot and I could barely sleep a tiny bit.
I remember a time when I had a job that I had to get up at 5 am. I always tried to keep everything down so that no one wouldn’t wake up.
Great vocabulary Marisela, ‘to grate on sb’ is a brilliant expression.
‘to keep everything down’ doesn’t sound very natural, so I think you need to be more specific (probably saying “I tried to keep the noise down” would be the best option).
Sometimes when I’m studying at home my mom start to play music cooking or making dinner and she keeps her music too loud, so I always have to remember her that I’m in home and need silence or at least keep the music down for a while.
Yes, all the time in the library when I meet with my classmates and we started to argue about a subject so loud, people start to complain and keep our voice down. Can you keep your voice down? I can´t focus, please and thank you.
Hi Daniela! Great examples 🙂
Careful with ‘remember’ vs ‘remind’ – do you know the difference in meaning?
In your second sentence, I would say: “People start to complain and ask us to keep our voices down”.
Well done!