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Frenemies
简体
Frenemies
友敌

Learn English with this friendship English lesson

Date: Jan 18 2013

Themes: Friend

Grammar: Imperative Form

Intro

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There’s a saying in English, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” You say it when your friends do something that isn’t very friendly.

We like to think of friends as people who support us and want us to do well. But not all friends are like that. Some friends are actually frenemies.

A frenemy is a slang term for someone who is supposed to be your friend, but always tries to cut you down. Why do we keep these people in our lives? Listen to Vanessa tell Jason about a frenemy of hers in this English lesson about friendship.

英语中有句谚语:“With friends like these, who needs enemies?”(有了这样的朋友,谁还需要敌人呢?)当朋友做出不太友善的事情时,你常常这样说。

我们常常把朋友看作是在背后支持我们并希望我们表现出色的人。但并非所有朋友都是如此。一些朋友就是名副其实的友敌。

友敌是一个俚语,代表本应是你的朋友,但总是试图从你身上得到好处的人。为什么要让这些人出现在我们的生活中呢?在这节谈论友谊的英语课上,听瓦内萨向詹森倾诉她的一位友敌。

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Vanessa

Vanessa

Jason

Jason

Vanessa:  A girl I knew in high school recently got in touch with me on Facebook and I’m trying to figure out whether to accept her friend request. We always knew the same people in high school and we did a lot of the same activities, so I guess you could say we were friends. But sometimes I felt like she wasn’t very nice to me.

Jason:  Really? What kind of things would she do?

Vanessa:  When I ran for senior class president, she ran for senior class president against me. And I know that she didn’t even want to be class president! She was just doing it to run against me.

Jason:  Oh, that’s weird. She just did it to spite you.

Vanessa:  Yeah!

Jason:  That’s not very friendly!

Vanessa:  No!

Jason:  Was it healthy competition though? Like, you just wanted to push each other?

Vanessa:  No, we never joked about it or anything.

Jason:  You guys don’t really sound much like friends to me. You sound more like frenemies.

Vanessa:  That is the perfect way to describe it! We were always nice to each other on the surface, but underneath it all there was a lot of competitiveness. And it wasn’t always very pleasant. For example, I put my name in to be prom queen, even though I knew it meant a lot to her, and I ended up winning.

Jason:  Oh. Well, maybe you should accept her friend request then, and be sure you post lots of pictures of yourself as prom queen.

 

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Discussion

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An old friend from high school wants to be friends with Vanessa on Facebook. Vanessa isn’t sure if she should accept because the friend was mean to her sometimes.

Vanessa says she and her friend weren’t trying to push each other to be better. This wasn’t healthy competition. It was just plain not nice.

Jason says it sounds more like they were frenemies than friends. Vanessa thinks this term, which combines the words “friend” and “enemy,” perfectly describes the relationship.

Do you have any frenemies? Why do we keep these people in our lives? Do you think Vanessa should reconnect with her frenemy?

 

Comments

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jeongyaong

jeongyaong

South Korea

I am really not sure if I have had even one single frenemy(There might be some friends who would consider me as their frinemies though). However, when thinking about healthy competition, there is one friend that came to my mind.


She is actually a cousin of mine. Since she is the same age as me, we both feel like, we are more like friends than cousins.


Since we were elementary school students, we have pushed each other in competitions, such as who would get better grades, enter better schools and others.


I remember we used to misunderstand each other during all the competitions, but now we are best friends.   


 

02:22 AM Jan 30 2013 |

roe_tronxoay

Viet Nam

frenemies are fun. they sure are

06:11 AM Jan 23 2013 |

raisacorrea

Brazil

Very Goood this lesson!!!


yes, everyone in life has at least one frenemy!!


And it always happens in high school!! kkkk

06:20 PM Jan 22 2013 |

Taiyoo

Taiyoo

Czech Republic

Frenemies are everywhere, sometime is hard to find out who´s real friend and who´s frenemy.. well, I hope all my frenemies are gone :)

11:33 AM Jan 22 2013 |

dayu1

dayu1

Mexico

mmm well its hard when you have frenemies around you, but i think that all people here have or had some frenemie near :D i have one, she always want to be with me in the same classes but she’s not nice with me and she always make Jealousy comments about what i have :S so i prefer to be far from her maybe that’s the solution 

03:52 AM Jan 21 2013 |

1 person likes this

Orchestra

Orchestra

Russian Federation

I guess this kind of story much more speaks to girls’ friendship cases. However, I claim I’m affected one by this stuff too)) One of my best friends, who had always been really close to me, once just decided to ignore me and avoid any contacts with me in case I could come with my GF explaining all the stuff that he doesn’t want to deal with her somehow? even though they were just few days acquainted for each other. It weirded me completely out seeming like a true betrayal. True friend, all the more so close, shouldn’t have ever acted like that.

02:20 AM Jan 21 2013 |

1 person likes this

Anniecampbell

Viet Nam

Make friends make better life.

01:54 AM Jan 21 2013 |

mikeleison

mikeleison

China

Jealousy creats frenemy,We all can’t get rid of it。Because we are human not god.

12:47 AM Jan 21 2013 |

 julito

julito

Argentina

I has occurred to me that we might have frenemies  cohibiting in our mind  , friends are those that make us  kind ,generous ,decent people and our enemies are jeleousy, envy, ,greediness and the likes 

12:08 AM Jan 21 2013 |

i love life

Palestinian Territory, Occupied

Everyone has frenemies How we can live without them , we have a good people , as the same time we have some bad people , the main thing we should protect our friendship with who deserve it , For me sometime my friends see me I do some misbehave , often I don’t see myself perfectly , we did many mistakes , each of us has an idea about what we can do , what we should have , We aren’t angle In order to say we are becoming an innocent people , God created us for everything good . the most way is perfect when you keep in touch with God this is the most thing is useful .


our lives has contains many enemies , on the other hand contains many good people , we should select only the good people .


06:02 PM Jan 20 2013 |

diva87

diva87

Morocco

ofcourse i have frenemies, for me to get know between good friend and bad i think she must accept her request just to get explain from her why she do that with her?

04:09 PM Jan 20 2013 |

evalu

evalu

China

as far as i’‘m concerned, i don’t think Vanessa should reconnect with her, cause she isn’t a friend, and i hate to be nice to frenemies. It’s just so tough for me to pretend we are close

03:27 PM Jan 20 2013 |

whipiry

whipiry

South Korea

some kind of friends could be healthy competition , but i guess it could be possible to push each other and then end up to be succesful to each other . that can be remembered in their momories as healthy competition. if not, they could be seen as frenemies . they are not gonna get in touch with each other.


02:29 PM Jan 20 2013 |

Morninggirl

China

Friends should be sincere to each other. Be nice on the surface but try to cut you down. That’s too bad. Just keep away from these people. If you stay close to frenemies, you may get hurt and you’re not happy.


So in my opinion, Vanessa should not reconnect her frenemy.


 


 

03:31 AM Jan 20 2013 |

I M P E R I V M

United States

Keep your friends near, your enemies closer, and your frenemies even closer!!!

02:12 AM Jan 20 2013 |

Richards

Richards

Brazil

It’s funny to think about it because it’s actually something that happens a lot! I think that it comes from some insecurity we have within, or from a competitive urge to prove to ourselves that we are capable of doing things (better than others, in this case). Everything that is too much tends to be harmful… In my opinion I think that a second chance is valid, maybe Vanesa should accept the friend request just to see if the other girl has changed, if she has: great! if she hasn’t, it’s easy: just unfriend her. =)

01:29 AM Jan 20 2013 |

Kellybr

Kellybr

Brazil

Unfortunatelly I think I have some frenemies in my life,  and isn’t just one! this is so sad, I can’t understand why the people treats you this way, seems to be a good person with you, and then show how they are, like when you win something… or are going well, seems like it was bad to they, and cuts you down..Why we keep this persons in our life? Cause its necessary from work, for college…


I know I should get me away! but I cant invite this people.

10:38 PM Jan 19 2013 |

ola33

ola33

Japan

So guys, I’m totally confused now. I’m terrified and afraid to be a frenemy.  I hope I’m not. I’m hope not ;) :))


09:26 PM Jan 19 2013 |

winter_sonata_nw

Egypt

 I wanna say that the funniest thing about this is Jason’s last suggetion; FEED HER ENVINESS SHOW HER YOUR PICS AS PROM QUEEN!lol! I like it 

08:42 PM Jan 19 2013 |

JimBardakas

Greece

 Ridiculously easy…  What about some free proficiency courses? If you guys had more free stuff, I’d probably subscribe, but I can’t decide whether it’s useful… It sure is cheap, but I really think you get what you pay for.. Besides, isn’t there an option of  euro payment?

08:25 PM Jan 19 2013 |

1 person likes this

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