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The English We Speak from BBC Learning English.
Hello, and welcome to the English We Speak.
I'm Fei.
Fei.
And I'm Rob.
And today we're going to use a common word in a slightly different way.
It's a preposition you've no doubt known for a long time.
Yes, our word is across.
Of course, you can say things like, rob is sitting across from me,
or, this food is popular across China, but what about this?
Rob, are you across the plan for tonight's event?
You're not asking me if I'm sitting across or on the other side from a plan, are you?
No.
When we use across in this way, it actually means to be familiar with.
If you across a plan, you're familiar with it, you know what you need to know about it.
We often talk about being across a subject, especially a subject that is complex or changing.
It indicates you know all the important things about the subject.
Let's listen to some examples to help clarify how we use it.