{"id":23109,"date":"2024-02-23T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/?p=23109"},"modified":"2024-07-16T14:19:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T19:19:28","slug":"wishful-thinking-meaning-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wishful-thinking-meaning-examples\/","title":{"rendered":"Wishful thinking: Meaning &#038; Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dV70VM7JTdk?si=3uy1uGzemjFclXRa?rel=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a class=\"elementor-button large green rounded\" href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/free-pdf-ask-the-teacher\/\"><strong>Download 30+ ask the teacher lessons<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a class=\"elementor-button rounded large blue\" href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/everyday-english-speaking-course\/\"><strong>Everyday English Speaking Course<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Wishful thinking: Meaning<\/h4>\n<p>Our question of the day is from a student who asked what the expression <strong>\u201cwishful thinking\u201d<\/strong> means.<\/p>\n<p>Wishful thinking is when there\u2019s something you hope or want to happen\u2026 but the reality is that it probably won\u2019t; it\u2019s actually very unlikely.<\/p>\n<p>Wishful thinking is TOO optimistic and not realistic. You\u2019re thinking about something that\u2019s very nice to imagine, but it\u2019s not actually practical in real life.<\/p>\n<h4>Wishful thinking: Examples<\/h4>\n<p>Let me give you a couple examples of wishful thinking:<\/p>\n<p>Someone who doesn\u2019t have kids saying \u201cwhen I have children, I\u2019ll teach and train them so well that they\u2019ll never misbehave in public\u201d &#8211; wishful thinking, because in reality pretty much all kids will cry or disobey in public sometimes.<\/p>\n<p>Someone who\u2019s just starting to exercise setting a goal of losing 20 pounds (that\u2019s about 10 kg) in their first month at the gym &#8211; wishful thinking, because in reality it doesn\u2019t happen that fast.<\/p>\n<p>Someone who has bought lottery tickets every week for the past 10 years thinking \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this so long, I\u2019m sure to win the lottery soon!\u201d &#8211; sorry, wishful thinking, winning the lottery is very unlikely even if you\u2019ve tried for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for the question! <a href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/free-pdf-ask-the-teacher\/\">Click here to download lots more \u201cask the teacher\u201d lessons.<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"alert\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/free-pdf-ask-the-teacher\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23071\" src=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/30-LESSONS-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/30-LESSONS-1.png 1000w, https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/30-LESSONS-1-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/30-LESSONS-1-768x513.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a class=\"elementor-button large green rounded\" href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/free-pdf-ask-the-teacher\/\"><strong>Download 30+ ask the teacher lessons<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"alert\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Learn to speak English confidently in daily life:<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/everyday-english-speaking-course\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20069 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/eesc12-1024x787.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/eesc12-1024x787.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/eesc12-300x230.png 300w, https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/eesc12-768x590.png 768w, https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/eesc12.png 1268w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><center><a class=\"elementor-button rounded large blue\" href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/everyday-english-speaking-course\/\"><strong>Learn more about the Speaking Course<\/strong><\/a><\/center><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download 30+ ask the teacher lessons Everyday English Speaking Course Wishful thinking: Meaning Our question of the day is from a student who asked what the expression \u201cwishful thinking\u201d means. Wishful thinking is when there\u2019s something you hope or want to happen\u2026 but the reality is that it probably won\u2019t; it\u2019s actually very unlikely. Wishful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wishful thinking: Meaning &amp; Examples - Espresso English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Download 30+ ask the teacher lessons Everyday English Speaking Course Wishful thinking: Meaning Our question of the day is from a student who asked what\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wishful-thinking-meaning-examples\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wishful thinking: Meaning &amp; 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