“Interesting.
I've never encountered that phrase before.”
You're talking with an English-speaking
colleague and she uses a phrase that you've never heard before. You ask her to
explain what it means. After she explains it, you say this.
Interesting. I've never encountered that phrase before.
Sometimes in spoken English you can just say an adjective by
itself:
Hmm. Interesting.
You can't do this with all adjectives. For example, it's strange to just
say "Hot." But some more adjectives that you can say
by themselves include:
Nice. Fantastic.
Beautiful! Exciting.
Notice that these words are all positive.
The basic meaning of the word "encounter" is "meet".
But you usually don't use "encounter ___" to talk about meeting
people. Instead, you "encounter" things like problems, words, and
situations:
The study
indicates that foreign students encounter a variety of challenges in their new
environment, including language difficulties, discrimination, and bullying.
If I ever
encountered a situation where I had to choose between my marriage and my
career, I'm not exactly sure what I would do.
In the situation above, the speaker could also say:
I've never come across that phrase before.
"Come across ___" is a
more casual way to express
the idea of "encountering" something like a word or phrase. To
"come across" something means to encounter it or to find it by
accident: