Welcome to the English we speak with me Beth and me Jaying.

We're going to look at an expression that is all about doing hard work with your brain.

Mental gymnastics. Mental gymnastics. with your

flexibility and flexibility and strength doing different exercises with bars and ropes and other equipment.

But what are mental gymnastics?

Well, it can be the effort we spend trying to work out something difficult. This weekend I need to go to three different places

at more or less the same time and I'm doing mental gymnastics to try to find a way I can do it.

So you're thinking about the different possibilities and coming up with a plan.

That's mental gymnastics.

Yes, because my brain has got to do a lot of hard work.

So when I try to speak a new language, one that has lots of complicated rules,

that would involve a lot of mental gymnastics?

Yes, exactly.

Let's hear some more examples.

To get a good score in a math exam, you need to be good at mental gymnastics.

This plan is too complicated, and I'm too tired for the kind of mental gymnastics I'd need to work it out.

An orchestra conductor needs to be good at mental gymnastics

to work out what each musician should be doing.

You're listening to the English we speak from BBC Learning English

and we're learning the expression mental gymnastics, which is a way to talk

about your brain doing hard work.

There's actually another more negative way that we use it. When people try to justify saying something

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